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The Key Concepts of App Tracking for Developers...

Sergii Zhuk
December 08, 2016

The Key Concepts of App Tracking for Developers 2016

Slides from my talk at Droidcon Krakow 2016.
See also:
- My blog post about app tracking: https://medium.com/@sergii/the-key-concepts-of-app-tracking-for-developers-a11bebf1e65e#
- Github repo with tracking examples:
https://github.com/sergiiz/GroceryStore

More Android stuff:
https://medium.com/@sergii
https://twitter.com/sergiizhuk

Sergii Zhuk

December 08, 2016
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Transcript

  1. T HE KE Y CO NCE P T S O

    F AP P T R AC KI NG F O R DE V E L O P E RS S E R G I I Z H U K @ D R O I D C O N K R A K Ó W 0 8 - 1 2 - 2 0 1 6
  2. 2 HELLO! My name is Sergii Zhuk • Android Engineer

    @ Zalando SE • Author of Android Digest for Ukrainian Developers Community • In Berlin since August 2015 • twitter.com/sergiizhuk • medium.com/@sergii
  3. 3 ZALANDO SE • Europe’s leading online fashion platform •

    11,000+ employees in Europe • ~ EUR 3bn revenue in 2015 • ~ 65% of shop traffic came from mobile • 10M+ downloads Android app
  4. 4 AGENDA • What is the app tracking and why

    do you need it • When to track the data • Which tools you can use • Dev challenges and patterns
  5. 9 WHEN TO TRACK: INTERACTION • Open the app, different

    entry points • Screen View • Click/swipe etc.
  6. 11 WHEN TO TRACK: APPLICATION • User sessions • Application

    performance • Exceptions, crashes and bread crumbs
  7. 14 TRACKING TOOLS Rank Company Market share 1 Google Analytics

    91.58% 2 Flurry 4.81% 3 Umeng 1.11% 4 Crashlytics 0.61% 5 Localytics 0.34% 6 Mixpanel 0.30% 7 HockeyApp 0.23% Source: “Mobile App Analytics: What Winning Mobile Developers Use” by John Koetsier. December 2015. Firebase Analytics wasn’t released yet.
  8. 15 TRACKING TOOLS Flurry • One of the oldest tracking

    tools • The market leader for iOS • Mobile-only • Acquired by Yahoo in 2014 • Free
  9. 16 TRACKING TOOLS Google Analytics • Mobile & Web •

    Free for not high load projects • Google BigQuery available for enterprise projects • No significant mobile SDK updates since the end of 2015
  10. 17 TRACKING TOOLS Firebase Analytics • Mobile only • Active

    development, new features are coming • Free, but limited amount of custom types can be tracked • Google BigQuery available • Does not officially support devices without Play Services
  11. 18 TRACKING TOOLS Self-made solutions • Custom data formats •

    Integration with other systems for input & output • Realtime data (complex!)
  12. 20 SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TOOLS • Most of

    tools don’t send the data immediately, but collect it in batches • Usually you won’t be able to see the data at the dashboard immediately even if it was sent • Usually documentation is poor and doesn’t suggest any design patterns.
  13. 21 EXPECT TRACKING REQUIREMENTS TO COME • Expect tracking requirements

    to come from the beginning • Estimate initial release to include tracking implementation
  14. 22 BE READY TO SCALE • Design architecture to expect

    2nd, 3rd and N+1 tracking tool to be integrated • Isolate the tracking logic from the UI
  15. 24 CHECK TRACKING PERFORMANCE • Check batching configuration • Minimize

    the amount of data being sent • Make sure you have a separate token/configuration for debug
  16. 25 DEFINE TRACKING STANDARDS • Dev and Marketing teams should

    never be “blind” • Define minimum amount of tracking events every feature should have (screen view, click etc.) • Define proper constants to indicate empty value
  17. 26 CUSTOMER PRIVACY • Make sure you don’t send data

    that allows to identify the user • Make sure you mask the IP of user • Make sure that user has an option to switch off tracking
  18. 27 CUSTOMER PRIVACY • Make sure you don’t send data

    that allows to identify the user • Make sure you mask the IP of user • Make sure that user has an option to switch off tracking • Why the most of tracking tools are free?
  19. 29

  20. 30 TRACKING OUTPUT: PRINT LOGS • Slows down the app

    • Hard to read • Not always consistent with data being sent to the server (data enriching) • Not available for the release app build
  21. 34 TRACKING DEMO • Demo app with three tracking tools

    configured • Google Analytics, Firebase, Flurry • Details on how to setup proper accounts • And proxy to debug the output https://github.com/sergiiz/GroceryStore
  22. 35 CONCLUSION • Collect meaningful data to take decisions •

    Check cross-platform availability for your tracking tools • Be ready to scale • Respect customer privacy