It has been only 6 months since the App Store was opened, but there are at least eight ‘analytics’ and monetization solution providers iPhone developers can choose from.

What can analytics/metrics software do for you? They track how your application is being used, and log things such as the number of unique users, how much time was spent on certain parts of the user interface, what features are they using the most, how many times the app crashed, etc. All these stats tell you which areas of your application you should improve.

Interestingly, most of the metrics tracking solutions out there do also offer ad placement services. This is an alternative business model to paid apps, although you will probably need tens of thousands of downloads to make some money out of it.

After a little research on each solution provider, I have put together the following matrix:

 
Unfortunately, I have not been able to test all solutions in depth. Therefore, I am not aware of which providers offers the best analytics module, or which SDK is more solid. Also lacking from the matrix are the minimum or average PPC or CPM revenue ratios.

If you find innaccurate or missing information, please leave a comment below and I will gladly update the matrix.

[Update 01/01/09] : Thanks to the commenters for pointing out Greystripe and Videoegg. I will update the matrix as soon as I can look into their iPhone services. Also according to people in the known, AppLoop has gone out of business, and their website is no longer accessible.

[Update 17/01/09] : Added Greystrip, Videoegg and Flurry to the matrix. Removed AppLoop (went out of business).

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Game development, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “iPhone analytics and monetization solutions roundup [updated x2]”

1. Raj Says:
   December 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm

   awesome work man cheers

2. Kevin Ryan Says:
   January 1st, 2009 at 2:48 am

   Just printed it out. Thanks for sharing!

3. Adam Schmelzle Says:
   January 1st, 2009 at 7:30 pm

   Might as well remove AppLoop, since they are now out of business.

   AdMob is paying out about $1 CPM, but only 75% fill rate. Effectively making it around $0.80 per 1000 ad requests.

   You can add Greystripe to the matrix, but their reporting system is not working at the moment, so I can’t offer any revenue insights there.

   Later,
   Adam.

4. Julio Gorgé Says:
   January 1st, 2009 at 7:36 pm

   Thanks a bunch, Adam! I will look into Greystripe and update the matrix accordingly. The AppLoop thing caught me by surprise, as everything looked OK when I visited their site last week.

5. mcr Says:
   January 10th, 2009 at 12:52 am

   also take a look at this : http://flurry.com/

6. Julio Gorgé Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 5:17 pm

   Thanks mcr, Flurry added to the matrix :)

7. vishal gurbuxani Says:
   January 21st, 2009 at 8:22 pm

   Hi-

   I am one of the co-founders of mobclix and we have some great features available on our platform that isn’t showcased on your matrix.

   Please shoot me an email, I would love to walk you through our offering.

   vishal@mobclix.com

   cheers

   vishal

8. Julio Gorgé Says:
   January 26th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   Thanks Vishal, you’ve got an e-mail :)

9. Chris Degiere Says:
   February 13th, 2009 at 2:15 am

   Great post! I’m pretty happy with AdMob for non iPhone specific mobile web apps. Mobclix looks promising for in app iPhone tracking.

10. Advertising & Analytics at Under The Bridge Says:
    April 11th, 2009 at 8:50 am

    [...] And here’s another roundup and a followup with a few other [...]

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