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Blockchain Financial Services

Top 10 crypto exchanges for trading cryptocurrencies

Buying digital currencies begins with finding the right exchange that meets your needs. There are more than 2,500 exchanges to choose from, with varying charges, identity verification requirements, and user experience. In this guide, we will review the top ten crypto exchanges for buying and trading cryptocurrencies.

Before that, let us define what a crypto exchange is and what features you should consider when choosing a crypto exchange. For seasoned traders looking for an all-in-one dashboard to track their crypto earnings, CoinTracking is an excellent choice.
 

Top 10 crypto exchanges for trading cryptocurrencies

Table of contents:

 

What is a crypto exchange?

Crypto exchanges are platforms where you can buy, sell, or exchange cryptocurrencies for other digital assets or fiat currency, like the U.S. dollars. If you want to venture into professional crypto trading and have access to advanced trading tools, you will likely require a verified crypto exchange account.
If you simply want to make the occasional, straightforward trade, there are also websites you can use, which do not need an account.

Aspects to consider when choosing a cryptocurrency exchange

It is essential to carry out due diligence before you start trading. Here are some of the primary aspects you should consider when choosing a crypto exchange.

Reputation

The best way to learn about an exchange is to read reviews from individual users and well-known blockchain blogs. You can also inquire more about a particular exchange on forums such as BitcoinTalk, or Reddit.

Trading fees

Most crypto exchanges openly display their fees on their websites. Ensure you check on deposit, transaction, and withdrawal fees. Fees can differ substantially depending on the exchange you choose.

Payment methods

Does your preferred exchange accept credit card, debit card, wire transfer, or PayPal as a payment method? Does it allow trading with U.S. dollars or euros? It is advisable to choose an exchange with a wide variety of payment methods.

Verification requirements

Most crypto exchanges, especially in the U.S. and Europe, require users to verify their identities to make deposits and withdrawals, while others will let you remain anonymous. While verification, which can take up to a few days, might seem hectic, it protects the exchange against all sorts of scams and money laundering activities.

Geographical Restrictions

Some user functions provided by exchanges are only accessible from particular geographic locations. Ensure that your preferred exchange allows full access to all platform features and services in your country.

Track your success

If you’re trading on several different platforms or in many different cryptocurrencies, this can get complex very fast. Keeping track of all the profits and losses whether it’s for personal reasons, or tax reasons is easy with CoinTracking.

The top 10 crypto exchanges to trade cryptocurrencies

Coinbase

Coinbase was designed to be the most trusted name in the crypto market, and in this regard, it is more or less unrivaled in the marketplace. It is an American company and is FDIC insured for U.S. deposits up to $250,000. It’s also compliant with EU financial regulations.
Besides, Coinbase is backed by significant mainstream investors, like banks and investment funds.
This level of trust ensures that Coinbase is the exchange of choice for most cryptocurrency traders and investors. It has a simple user interface to accommodate both crypto professionals and newbies.
However, this emphasis on trust means that Coinbase has a limited number of listed coins, although it has listed all the major cryptocurrencies. Access is restricted to a relatively small number of countries.
Regarding security, Coinbase boasts of an excellent track record, with less than 5% of its customer’s funds stored in hot wallets. Coupled with its insure-policy, Coinbase is one of the safest exchanges for crypto investors.

Binance

Binance was founded by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), a professional Chinese software developer who previously designed systems for the Tokyo Stock Exchange and developed futures trading software for Bloomberg’s Tradebook.
It is the preferred exchange for coin-to-coin crypto trading with some of the biggest numbers of available coin pairs and trading volumes in the cryptocurrency market.
Nevertheless, the exchange is known for its low trading and withdrawal charges. Trading fees are discounted if the user is holding the Binance Coin (BNB).
In 2017, Binance emerged as the exchange with the largest trading volume, mainly due to its wide variety of digital assets. Early this year, to sustain its impressive growth, Binance started margin trading, which is now available for BTC, ETH, XRP, BNB, and TRX.

Kraken

Established nine years ago, Kraken is the biggest exchange in euro volume and liquidity and has partnered with the first crypto bank. The exchange allows users to buy and sell bitcoins and trade between bitcoins and euros, U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, and Japanese Yen.
Kraken also allows users to trade altcoins, like ether, Monero, Augur REP tokens, Zcash, Litecoin, Stellar lumens, and many more. For experienced traders, Kraken provides margin trading and a variety of other trading tools. Generally, it is the right choice for experienced traders.
Kraken can be accessed by users from the U.S., Canada, Japan, other EU nations, and the rest of the world.

CEX.io

CEX.io is a fiat-to-crypto platform that provides some advanced trading tools while still being very friendly for newbies to use. Again, experienced traders who are new to digital currencies often use CEX.io for the kind of trading they are used to with traditional securities and platforms.
CEX.io permits free bank transfers for verified users and charges a small fee for unverified users using a credit card. The exchange is also known for low trading fees. Most CEX.io customers are drawn to the advanced trading tools that traditional crypto exchanges lack.
CEX.io has a limited offering of listed cryptocurrencies, although it has listed all the major coins. It offers a wide range of coin-to-fiat pairs, including euro, pounds and rubles, which most crypto exchanges do not provide.

LocalBitcoin

LocalBitcoin is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) crypto exchange with buyers and sellers from different parts of the world. With LocalBitcoin, you can connect with people from your locality and buy or sell bitcoins for fiat, pay via PayPal, Skrill, or mobile money, or even arrange to deposit cash at a bank branch.
LocalBitcoin only charges a trading fee of 1% from sellers who set their exchange rates. To ensure safe trading, LocalBitcoin has put up multiple measures. First, the platform rates each trader with a reputation rank and publicly displays past trades. Secondly, once a deal is requested, the funds are held on LocalBitcoin’s escrow system. They are only released after the seller marks the trade as complete.
Further, if anything goes wrong, LocalBitcoin has a support and conflict resolution team that resolves conflicts between buyers and sellers. It is advisable to check the LocalBitcoin terms and conditions before making any trade.

Coinmama

Coinmama is a reputable exchange with a simple user interface. It offers a quick way to purchase digital assets using fiat money without storing them on a third-party exchange. The platform is suitable for users who just want to buy crypto using fiat quickly and safely.
Often, people make an initial crypto acquisition using Coinmama, and then deposit the acquired coins from their wallets into a crypto-to-crypto platform. The exchange charges relatives high fees for its services; hence, it is ideal for those willing to pay premium charges for speed, discretion, and simplicity.

Changelly

Changelly provides a rare service in the crypto industry: fast and anonymous crypto-to-crypto transfers with no third party holding. The exchange is not meant for investing or trading, but instead as a quick, discrete, and efficient means for exchanging coins in your private wallets.
It works by providing competitive exchange rates for a wide selection of coins and then transfers them directly to your private wallet. For such services, Changelly imposes a higher fee compared to other exchanges, but not so high. The premium charges are for anonymity and simplicity compared to traditional crypto-to-crypto exchanges.

Phemex

Phemex is a newly launched crypto trading exchange that has generated a lot of interest among the crypto community. The exchange posts an average daily trading volume of over $350 million in less than eight months of operation, which is a great achievement for a startup.
Phemex differs much from other exchanges, and it strives to bring professionalism, trust, and efficiency to the crypto market. Currently, Phemex supports trades in perpetual swaps of major coins and plans to list traditional financial products, like S&P 500 stocks, indices, commodities, energy, and many others.
Since it is a new exchange, Phemex supports trading in six crypto pairs, including BTC/USD, ETH/USD, XRP/USD, LINK/USD, XTZ/USD, and LTC/USD, all quoted in BTC and settled in U.S. dollars. It has a simple and intuitive trading platform and is available in both web-based and mobile trading platforms.

Bitfinex

Bitfinex is one of the most advanced fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto trading platforms, boasting some of the highest liquidity and trading volumes among exchanges. It has fewer competitors regarding crypto traders who aim to embrace advanced trading techniques and trade volumes.
The exchange offers a full range of tools that traders expect from a platform, like advanced order types, margin trading, and a wide range of coins and fiat currency pairs. Bitfinex has experienced two major hacks in the past, but they have paid back all losses to customers and greatly enhanced their security set-up.

Bittrex

Bittrex is a crypto-to-crypto exchange that was built with one priority in mind above all else: security. It holds most of its client funds in cold wallets and has a stable verification system. Apart from safety, it focuses on supporting a wide range of crypto-to-crypto trading pairs, with some of the best trading volumes in the crypto market.
Though Bittrex may not be the number one choice for experienced crypto traders looking to trade major cryptocurrencies, it is undeniably one of the best exchanges for trading less popular tokens.

Conclusion

Leveraging the above crypto exchanges will enable you to invest and trade in almost all cryptocurrencies. However, there are still several other exchanges for trading digital currencies. Therefore, do not limit yourself to the list provided in this article.
In terms of reputation, security, trading fees, payment methods, geographical restrictions, and verification requirements, it is advisable to consider the above crypto exchanges as your trading partners. Remember not to use crypto exchanges as a wallet to HODL your digital assets.
 
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Blockchain Supply Chain

Fighting food fraud: Blockchain in logistics and supply chain management

Packages are transported in high-tech Settings,online shopping,Concept of automatic logistics management.

As I browse through the supermarket, I often notice how much more retailers charge for sustainable products. But after spending time in the blockchain space, I have to question everything. How can I know that that wild salmon came from pristine waters? Is the ground beef as fresh as the label says? Is it beef at all?

Trust issues aside, logistics and supply chain management is notoriously complex — some argue opaque. Retailers are starting to test blockchain to track products and quickly react to outbreaks of food-borne illness. Consumers, as well as retailers, will benefit from greater transparency and trust blockchain logistics brings to the industry.

Fighting food fraud: Blockchain in logistics and supply chain management

Table of contents:

Blockchain logistics

Food fraud is a persistent problem in our globalized food supply. Unscrupulous suppliers sometimes pass off cheaper fish for more expensive varieties. Occasionally it’s a different species altogether. Meat adulteration can offend religious sensibilities, or worse, threaten public health. Despite heavy-handed labeling laws in places such as the European Union, food scandals, recalls, waste and fraudulent labeling still plague the food supply.

All this compliance and waste only drives up the cost for producers and consumers. Just as blockchain technology can establish a trail of transactions in real estate or in art provenance, it can also aid logistics and supply chain management companies in tracking items on their journies to the shelves.

Fishy business

Nowhere in the food supply is fraud more prevalent than in the fishing industry. A 2016 report from the Oceana Foundation claims that one in five of over 25,000 samples of fish tested were mislabeled. Passing cheaper fish off for more expensive ones is a particularly common practice. “Laundering” protected species from restricted waters is another prevalent industry abuse cited in the report.

These abuses hurt consumers and the industry as a whole. “It harms everyone in the supply chain who is playing by the rules,” wrote Kimberly Warner, author of the study and senior scientist with Oceana. “The person going through the effort to catch fish legally and label correctly is undercut by the fraudulent practices.” Distributed ledger technology could make it more difficult to cheat on labeling, adding more trust into the supply chain.

Cost of misbehavior

Blockchain logistics, of course, is unlikely to stop the illegal activity altogether. However, it might put pressure on companies involved to play by the rules. Marcin Rzetecki head of blockchain at Espeo admits that blockchain technology is not a magic bullet, but that it would be a better tool to keep all the actors honest. “When you have many companies in a supply chain,” he said, “and one of them tries to cheat, other members can check on their competitors.” Consequences for misbehaving could be a loss of access to lucrative markets. 

Retailers targeting a tech-savvy niche could charge premiums for blockchain-verified fish, for example. Rzetecki imagines QR codes on packaging that allow shoppers to see every step of the way. “Digital signatures of each company in the supply chain can provide a tamper-proof history. It’s much clearer from an end-user perspective. They have all the information in one place.”

Verifiably sustainable products could command a higher price just as wild-caught, free-range, fair trade, and similar premium products do today. In fact, an application with a blockchain back end may do more to infuse trust in these labels than murky industry groups and government bodies do already. Economic pressure from an informed public may force companies to clean up their acts.

Horsemeat Scandal

Switching out species on the label is not limited to fish, though. The 2013 horsemeat scandal in the European Union is one high-profile example. Despite strict labeling requirements in the bloc, dishonest producers snuck horsemeat and pork into products labeled as beef. Unsurprisingly, this sent shockwaves through the logistics and supply chain management industry as government regulators cracked down driving costs up for the entire industry.

Adulteration poses several risks to consumers, and retailers alike. In the horsemeat scandal, large retailers bore the brunt of the outrage that unfolded as the first point of consumer contact. Alienating consumers is just one of the many risks the adulteration scandal poses. Those with dietary restrictions, especially religious ones, may move to competitors who can verify the source of meat to trusted suppliers.

As with the fish example, blockchain technology may not end industry abuse, but it would provide a competitive advantage to attract conscious consumers.  It would also make the stakes much worse for actors who break the rules.

Blockchain could aid stakeholders in tracking the origin of products to find culprits much more quickly than they do currently. Part of what made the horsemeat scandal so scandalous was the time it took for regulators to track down the source. A blockchain logistics platform could have allowed health officials, retailers, and suppliers to find adulterated sources quickly, reducing costs and preventing massive waste.

Innovation in logistics and supply chain management

While blockchain logistics apps have yet to emerge for consumers, logistics and supply chain management tools for enterprises have. In mid-2018, American retail giant Walmart unveiled a blockchain-based platform designed to track the source of their fresh produce from farm to shelves. Food Trust, the company’s private blockchain logistics system aims to help the company and health officials pinpoint farms during an outbreak of food-borne illness. Instead of tracking individual databases of all the stakeholders involved, stakeholders already have all the distributed tracking data. This greatly reduces the turn around time for containing a crisis.

Food Trust cuts the time to trace the source of food from a week down to a little over two seconds. Food recalls, they hope, will be much smoother and targeted. This will save time and resources, reduce food waste, and drive competitive advantage. Walmart’s sheer size enables it to compel suppliers to join the program, or else. The company’s suppliers have until September 2019 to implement the Food Trust platform in its logistics and supply chain management. Other influential market players could also develop blockchain logistics systems to help them maintain market share.

Conclusion

Logistics and supply chain management is due for an overhaul. As globalization increases the complexity of the food supply chain, innovative technologies can help retailers keep track of suppliers, minimize crises, and remain competitive. Consumers also stand to benefit from a safer, more transparent food supply.
Gaining more accurate source information could attract conscious consumers, and keep the industry honest. Retail giants are already implementing blockchain technology in their logistics and supply chain management strategies. Market trends will only continue to drive innovation in blockchain logistics.
For more on designing and developing a blockchain application for supply chain tracking, call us for a free 15-minute consultation.

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Blockchain Finance Financial Services

Grow your cashflow with blockchain micropayments

Woman using mobile payments online shopping and icon customer network connection on screen, m-banking and omni channel

Blockchain micropayments are opening up new revenue streams for industries you wouldn’t normally expect. Advertisers, web browsers, and automotive companies are finding new ways to motivate, reward, and ultimately empower consumers. Blockchain technology reviving small payments. 

 

Grow your cashflow with blockchain micropayments

Table of contents:

  1. Early Micropayments
  2. Blockchain micropayments rise
  3. How will it work?
  4. Blockchain micropayments optimism
  5. User path
  6. Conclusion
 

Early Micropayments

Micropayment as a term is maddeningly hard to pin down. How small a payment has to be to qualify depends on who you ask. For some payments providers it’s under $1 for others it’s under $10. This threshold hinges on the fees the provider charges which make these small sums less worth it.

Interestingly, micropayments are nothing new. The idea emerged in the 1960s and offered an alternative to advertising-based revenue. By the 1990s, this idea extended to the early internet as a way to fund pages. In theory, people could pay fractions of cents for individual content rather than buy a subscription or look at ads. However, none of the proposals really took off. It was too expensive to use traditional payment processors.

Some existing micropayments providers such as Swedish firm Swish don’t charge fees for individuals, but still charge stiff fees for organizations. Others have been absorbed into larger payments giants. EBay acquired Zong in 2011, for example, which was later merged with PayPal.  

Most of the services we use today on the internet rely on advertising and the user data they collect to operate. Blockchain technology has brought the idea of micropayments back from the dead and offers a new way to make these tiny payments work.

Centralized payment processors such as Visa charge 0.05% plus $0.21 per transaction. PayPal charges 2.9% plus $0.30. These are too high for a micropayment revenue model. Blockchain tech, though, drives the price of transactions down. Some, such as IOTA Foundation charge nothing. 

 

Blockchain micropayments rise

Part of what might make blockchain micropayments work is that it’s much cheaper to send funds — especially across borders. Fewer middlemen involved in settlement means lower transaction costs across the board. Pair that with smart contracts, and you could have a fully automated and much cheaper payment system. Or so the theory goes.

Such low-fee or no-fee transactions enable users to send and receive tiny fractions of cents. This has revived micropayments as a revenue model and could change the way we consume and interact with one another. Blockchain micropayments are the missing link.    

 

 

How will it work? 

Many people wonder where micropayments will appear and for what, exactly. Currently, there are a few proof-of-concept projects in the world exploring blockchain micropayments. 

German carmaker Volkswagen, for example, has partnered with IOTA and has launched a pilot where their vehicles act as IoT devices. Where micropayments come in is that drivers could automatically pay for parking after crossing a barrier, or pay more accurate tolls.

Extend this a bit further and you could have a system that rewards drivers with IOTA tokens for good behavior and even shares this data with insurance companies.  

Privacy-minded web browser Brave aims to let users choose to view advertisements, or not, and pays them their fair share of the revenue. These tokens act as a rewards program and such low blockchain micropayments make this model possible.

 

Blockchain micropayments optimism

We’re optimistic about the micropayments and the opportunities in a new monetary system. As a blockchain development company, we are involved in many blockchain projects using token transfer or swap the funds.  

Recently we explored a very similar solution based on the Stellar blockchain. Our solution brings the most benefits to unbanked users. It’s helpful, especially in the regions where there is a lack of banks or some other remote locations. Low fees can enable blockchain micropayments in places without sufficient banking.

Let’s imagine a mobile app where we can pay everywhere each amount fast, safety and cheap than others.

From a technical standpoint, this is how the application will work.

  • Central Bank — this is a virtual place to communicate with others. It’s also the entity that controls the supply of coins in the ecosystem
  • Issuer — this is a point of sale where users can swap cash to coin
  • User — this is the end-user, which uses the mobile app, central bank technology, and Stellar blockchain to manage his wallet and execute payments

User path

In the first step, a user can request an issuer to swap fiat currency to coins. Each transaction accepted by the issuer sends the request to the Central Bank.

Next, the issuer and user receive a response with a status of the transaction from the Central Bank. Each transaction on the blockchain will start when the Central Bank verifies the request

The Central Bank can transfer coins from the wallet to other wallets in the ecosystem at any time. The same process is available for users and issuers. 

Our solution is based on traditional IT architecture using blockchain technology that enables us to achieve high scalability, data dispersion and customer ownership to the accumulated good on your own portfolio.

The Stellar protocol in combination with blockchain micropayments eliminates third parties from transactions making them faster, cheaper, and safer. This solution is suitable for everyone in the ecosystem who has active wallets (has coins). We can transfer coins or payments to others fast and easily. 

All information about transactions is saved on Stellar blockchain and visible for Central Bank. Each user can view the status of his transaction in our Payments Explorer’s user interface. This solution gives each user the possibility of low-value transactions and with the lack of access to banks or some other remote locations.

Conclusion

Distributed ledger technology is driving down the cost to send a receive money. As a result, this is opening up new revenue models for enterprises. As more and more people seek better payment methods than traditional, expensive card payments, the growth of this industry will continue to adapt.

For sure new technologies are particularly valuable for new payments method nowadays so that we should ensure the conditions for development.

Contact us for a free 15-minute consultation on blockchain micropayments and find out how put blockchain to work for you. 

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Software Technology

Mobile app success and how to measure it

Mobile app success and how to measure it

After creating an awesome mobile app, the next thing is to measure its performance. This comes after it’s available out in the world and you have a healthy base you can measure. Even if the target audience responds well, you still need to assess your application’s success. It’s important as it helps you track the performance as well as continuously improve user experience to build a useful tool and ultimately rake in more revenue.

This process starts by determining your app’s KPIs. Defining KPIs involves stating what good performance means to you as well as find out how to measure the indicators along the way. The next step is to simply track that data.
 
There are six categories of tracking mobile app success:

  • General mobile app KPIs
  • User engagement KPIs
  • Revenue KPIs
  • UX KPIs
  • Marketing KPIs
  • App store category ranking

While all six categories are important, you first need to establish the most relevant KPIs and then focus on tracking them. Below are the top three indicators to look for in each category.

With 14 years on the market, we have gained valuable expertise in various areas. Read more about what we excel at.

General mobile app KPIs

Most people working on the app development team can track these general mobile KPIs. However, how much emphasis to put on each KPI depends on the product so it may vary from one mobile app to another. These indicators are:

Mobile downloads

The most obvious measurement of success for an app entrepreneur is the number of downloads over a given period. An example of this would be a million users over a two-year span after launch. This KPI measures the app’s popularity.
 
The interpretation of the figures might vary from one product to another. For example, one person may consider attracting a million app users over the course of a year to be a success while others may think that’s too slow. Whatever the case, the number of mobile downloads will point you to the areas for improvements, such as UX, or bigger marketing budgets.

Subscriptions

If one of the features you offer is content or upgrades subscription, then you should track the number of subscription signups. Unsubscribing helps you monitor the features to be updated or find out about errors that you may not have noticed before. It tells how people find the price/value ratio of the subscription. You can also monitor how long it takes for a person to subscribe after installing your app.

Upgrades

If you offer basic and premium versions of your mobile app, then this KPI comes in handy. You need to track the number of people who use the premium version, what percentage of the total they constitute, how long it takes for users to upgrade as well as whether the paid versions get higher ratings than the basic ones. This will help you evaluate whether you have a successful app or not.

Growth rate

You need to know how your base is growing, and whether it is a steady or a spiky growth. For example, does it spike during certain events such as following updates or advertisements, or is the growth slow but steady?

Mobile app success: User Engagement KPIs

Mobile app success and how to measure it

Another KPI involves measuring engagement. This requires answering questions such as when, how, and where they engage with your product and collect details about it.

Retention rate

Your retention rate is the number those who return to your app after a specified period. How long does it take for a person to come back? The concept behind this is that if you create a valuable product, people tend to come back to it.
 
The monitoring process might help create ideas on how to grow the product. As a general formula, you can calculate the retention rate with the formula below:
 
Retention Rate = ((CE — CN) / CS)) X 100
Where:
CE = number of customers at the end of a period
CN = number of new customers acquired during a given period
CS = number of customers at the beginning of a period

Sessions (App Open Rate)

Sessions measures how many times someone opened the app and indicates its popularity. Keep in mind that in digital analytics, a session is when a person or device-specific group of interactions that occur within a given period. Of course, it’s important to define what a session means for your app before you start counting.

Daily active users

One of the ways to predict a successful app’s future growth is to calculate the number of daily active users. A DAU is a person who created an account and logged in for any interaction. Web and mobile app businesses typically consider DAU as their primary measure of growth and engagement in successful apps.

Churn rate

Despite its negative effect, measuring the rate at which people unsubscribe from or uninstall your product will help you improve it. The most common reasons might be the lack of updates or of new content, crash issues as well as general functionality problems. Finding out at what point a person has unsubscribed or uninstalled your app might give you an idea of how to make it better.

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Revenue KPIs

An app is not only built with end-users in mind, but it is also built with money in mind. Therefore, you can measure how your application generates money in the following ways:

Average revenue per user (ARPU)

There are very many forms of monetization such as paid downloads, ad impressions or clicks, in-app purchases as well as subscriptions. The average amount of money or value generated per person multiplied by the size of the total base, could give you a rough idea of your product’s monetary value.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Customers come at a cost. This might be the cost of advertising, labor as well as other resources. The costs can be determined by dividing the gross revenue by the cost of advertisement and other related costs.

Customer lifetime value (CLC)

This measures the net profit customers generate, which includes customers in and on the platform in ratio to the cost of acquiring them. The most successful apps tend to have a higher CLC to CAC ratio.
 
A general formula for calculating CLC is as follows:
Avg value of a conversion x avg # of conversions in a time frame x avg customer lifetime.

Return on investment (ROI)

When you spend money and other resources on the app, such as paid ads you expect to make profits out of it. Therefore, return on investment is measured by dividing the number of gains in customers or revenue that you have generated by how much you have spent on marketing, including the time spent or any other expenses incurred.
 
In simple terms:
(Gain from Investment — Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

Mobile app success: UX KPIs

No matter how good you think your app is, the UX wraps it all up. It’s good to remember that you do not create the app for yourself but for other people. Therefore, you should track and measure user experience in order to know the areas that require improvement.

This can be done by measuring the following elements:

Load time

Isn’t it annoying when you wait for an app to load? Fast loading speed is key to keeping people’s attention. Some people uninstall an app not because it lacks the features they need, but because they consider it unusable. This is often a symptom of slow loading speeds.
 
This includes the transition times from one activity to another within your mobile app. Build the fastest app possible if you want to see mobile app success.

Devices

How do people access your app? Which devices do they use: phones, tablets, or laptops? Knowing which devices your customers use to access the app will help you target and improve on the app’s performance.

Operating system

Your app should be able to work both on Android and iOS. However, if either of them has a high crash rate or high uninstall rate, then you should look into the reasons behind the situation as well as work on a remedy for it.
 
Mobile app success depends on a balance between Android and iOS users. If it tends to attract one type over others, you should look into why this is so. This could signal that the experience on one operating system is not performing correctly and you’ll have to fix it.

Mobile app success: Marketing KPIs

Mobile app success and how to measure it

There are many effective ways to market your app. Measuring how effective a chosen method is, will help you establish the driving force for the downloads and in result focus on it and maybe get rid of the ones that do not bring in more users.
 
You can, therefore, monitor your app store analytics. Some of the best KPIs in this area include:
 
Install source
Where did your customers find your app in order to install it? This knowledge is essential and can become a driving force for your campaign. Which sources attract more people to download your app?
 
Which sources have better performance and which poor? Are they paid or organic? Such information will allow you to focus on the right marketing strategies.

Channel breakdown

Channel breakdown involves details concerning the type of channels your customers use to arrive at your mobile app. It involves analyzing their behavior once they start using your app. How do people from a certain channel behave once they land? How does it differ from users who came through other channels? Good mobile apps take this vital data and fold it into the business culture as a whole.

Geometrics

Although geometrics is most often ignored, it is important to know your user’s location. It affects the revenues collected from different locations. Analyzing behavior patterns from the different locations will help you understand and specifically focus your sales efforts. You will also know which areas are saturated and are in need of fresh demand-generation ideas.

Demographics

Do you know the gender of your target audience? What is their ethnicity and age? By comparing such information to the actual demographics of your customer base will help you analyze the success of your app. If your app was initially targeted for men and you find that a higher percentage of users are female, then it shows that you should re-evaluate your app.
 

App store category ranking

Generally, the higher your rankings in the app store, the better your performance. You should make an effort to monitor and analyze your rankings there. Bear in mind that the category ranking is directly affected by the following elements:

Keywords

Tracing how people found your app from the keywords they have typed while searching your app before arriving and downloading your app will shed light on which phrases generate revenue and which don’t.
 
The process might even give an idea on which features to update. For example, if someone searched for ‘voice book reader’ then you might provide an update to include voice recognition in your app.

Reviews

A customer who takes time to write a review about your app, no matter how long or short it may be, is a sign of being engaged with your app. Note the number of reviews your app has received and what users are saying. Compliments make you feel good about your app also listen to the complaints as they may be more informative.
 
Both complaints and positive criticism are key to knowing what to improve or what to include in your app. It will help you get to know the users’ needs. What’s more, it is important not to get discouraged by the extremely negative reviews. For example ‘very useless app.’ with no further comment.

Ratings

Just like reviews, the more the ratings you have, the better. However, ratings take less time and effort to fill in, so it does not necessarily show people’s engagement as far as your app goes.

Sometimes people who rate also write a review. Therefore, it is advisable to check the reviews after the ratings. You might find reasons to introduce premium versions of the app if the ratings are positive, or find a way to bridge the gap if the ratings are poor.

Conclusion

Measuring mobile app success is vital to any mobile app development project. Setting up KPIs and sticking to them will give you a trustworthy base for your app optimization and growth plans. Getting an accurate picture of exactly how your customers use your mobile app will be an invaluable step to continuously delivering valuable, usable tools to your users. If you’d like for one of our experts to take a look at your app, drop us a line and chat with us for a free 15-minute consultation. It can set you on a path toward getting an accurate picture of how successful your app is — and where to improve it to make it even better.
 

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