Key takeaways
- App engagement metrics are essential for understanding user behavior and driving sustainable growth.
- Key metrics to monitor in 2025 include DAU, MAU, session length, frequency, churn rate, retention rate, conversion rate, and user lifetime value (LTV).
- High DAU/MAU ratios and retention rates indicate strong user loyalty, while churn rate reveals where users might drop off.
- Metrics like conversion rate and LTV provide insights into monetization and app profitability.
- Satisfaction scores (CSAT, NPS) and in-app feedback offer direct insights into user satisfaction and areas for improvement.
- By tracking these mobile app user engagement metrics, app publishers can make data-driven decisions that enhance user experience, reduce churn, and support long-term app success.
With increasing competitiveness in the app market, the race to 2025 demands the optimization of app engagement metrics.
These metrics reveal not numbers but facts about how a user interacts with an app and how much value is derived from it.
The better app publishers understand how to measure and analyze such metrics to create enhancements, the better the app’s retention, revenue, and overall success.
In this guide, as MobileAction, we’ll examine the best app engagement metrics to help your app reach new heights in 2025!
Wondering how to improve your ASO performance? Use MobileAction’s powerful ASO tools to drive app engagement in 2025 and beyond.
Top 13 app engagement metrics
The right metrics go beyond superficial insights into actionable data to drive side-by-side product strategies, improve user experiences, and increase app revenue.
This section explores 13 key mobile app engagement metrics that can help you increase user loyalty, identify growth opportunities, and maximize app performance.
Monitoring and optimizing these metrics will provide a competitive advantage and lay the foundation for success in 2025 and beyond.
1. Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU)
Why It Matters:
DAU and MAU are probably among the most basic mobile app engagement metrics, showing the number of unique users interacting with your device daily or monthly.
However, that is where the magic happens: the DAU/MAU ratio allows an understanding of how many users tend to return.
How to Measure:
Calculate the DAU/MAU ratio as a percentage. A higher percentage indicates a stronger, more loyal user base.
Aim for a DAU/MAU ratio of at least 20% to show good retention.
2. Session Length and Frequency
Why It Matters:
While session length tells you how long users spend in your app on a visit, session frequency tells you how often they return.
Together, these two metrics indicate how deeply your users engage with the app: longer sessions coupled with higher frequency are a surefire sign that your app provides ongoing value.
How to Improve:
To enhance these engagement metrics for mobile apps, focus on personalizing user experiences.
Try implementing tailored content, notifications, or gamification elements that entice users to spend more time and return frequently.
3. Churn Rate
Why It Matters:
The churn rate is determined by the number of users that have stopped using your app within a defined period.
It’s one of those metrics that matters to an app, as high churn means you’re losing valued users, which raises acquisition costs without growing your long-term users.
How to Improve:
Identify points of common exits and resolve any friction in your app’s flow.
To bring inactive users back to the app, you can create re-engagement campaigns, send notifications, and make targeted offers.
4. Retention Rate
Why It Matters:
When talking about churn, the retention rate is simply the other side of the coin.
It is one of the most telling metrics upon which your mobile app’s engagement is usually based.
The metric essentially gauges the percentage of users who return for subsequent sessions after their first use, giving a clear picture of user loyalty or the attractiveness of your app.
How to Improve:
Techniques to improve retention include a smooth onboarding process, regular feature updates, and reward systems.
Provide users with a clear trajectory from registration to valuable in-app contact.
5. Conversion Rate
Why It Matters:
The conversion rate shows the number of users undertaking desired actions, such as purchasing or signing up for a newsletter.
For most apps, it directly leads to money coming through your door, so recording and trying to lift this number is vital for any app developer.
How to Improve:
Improving Conversion Rate involves A/B testing, smoothing users’ journeys, and giving incentives to act.
Conversion rate is one of those app metrics indispensable for understanding motivation and how profitable each user can be.
Pro tip: You can discover how MobileAction’s analytics tools can help you track and optimize conversion rates to boost your app’s revenue potential by scheduling a demo!
6. Lifetime Value (LTV)
Why It Matters:
LTV is the total revenue a user is expected to generate throughout their relationship with the app.
This advanced metric combines engagement and in-app revenue, making it key to informed decisions about user acquisition costs.
How to Calculate:
Now, consider what ARPU and retention rate might be for LTV.
The LTV metric allows app publishers to determine the right budget-effectiveness in user acquisition and retain those users to ensure the sustainability of their app growth.
7. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Why It Matters:
CSAT and NPS are indicative scores about user satisfaction and loyalty.
A high score in CSAT and NPS means users like your application and will recommend it to others.
These are the most valued user engagement metrics for apps when trying to understand their users’ overall sentiment.
How to Improve:
Collect feedback regularly, identify commons, and respond to users’ complaints quickly.
This will help increase satisfaction and enhance good word of mouth for organic app growth.
8. In-App Feedback Metrics
Why It Matters:
In-app feedback metrics give uncommon insights into user behavior inside the app that cannot be obtained through standard analytics.
These metrics will help identify exact areas of pain and improvement, giving a real-time measure of satisfaction.
How to Collect:
Ask from within the app using polls or quick review requests.
Make giving feedback seamless and effortless so users will do it.
9. Average Revenue Per User – ARPU
Why It Matters:
ARPU defines the revenue generated on average per active user.
For apps that offer in-app purchases or ad revenue, it helps measure the financial value of each user and is vital for understanding the app’s monetization potential.
How to Use:
It estimates the profitability of various segments by comparing ARPU with acquisition costs, which helps formulate marketing strategies.
10. Time to First Key Action
Why It Matters:
This metric also measures how long it takes a new user to perform an essential action in the app, such as signing up, making a purchase, or submitting content.
Generally, the shorter the time to perform the first action, the easier the onboarding process is and the more motivated the user.
How to Improve:
To encourage early engagement, make key actions accessible through intuitive navigation, guidance prompts, or incentives for initial actions.
11. Feature Adoption Rate
Why It Matters:
This metric defines the percentage of users using new or particular features effectively.
Feature adoption tracking allows for the determination and identification of updates and tools that best resonate with users, informing future development and prioritization on the product roadmap.
How to Use:
Review features in an app, such as accessibility, or encourage using certain features if they have not been widely adopted.
12. Push Notification Opt-In and Engagement Rate
Why It Matters:
While push notifications serve as re-engagement factors, the real drivers of effectiveness and efficiency are those who opt-in and use them.
Engagement rates indicate users’ willingness to receive them, and engagement rates reflect the quality and relevance of your notifications.
How to Optimize:
Opt-in rates will rise with the highlighted benefits of notification enablement. Develop timely, personalized messages that are valuable and do not disrupt the user experience.
13. UAC – User Acquisition Cost
Why It Matters:
While not strictly a measure of engagement, User Acquisition Cost is important to understand how cost-effective the user base is.
Together with LTV and ARPU, it provides insight into the ROI of various marketing channels.
How to Use:
By setting UAC in parallel with engagement metrics, you can identify which acquisition channels add the most value and double down on the users who will create the most long-term value.
Why app engagement metrics are crucial to success in 2025
Deep insight into user behavior would drive success for the app publisher in 2025.
By monitoring and optimizing all these application engagement metrics, you can understand how users use your application, what keeps them wanting more, and where certain areas need particular improvements.
Each metric in your app engagement analytics toolkit, from session length to retention, affects user engagement and probable growth.
By tracking these mobile app engagement metrics, you can guarantee that your app stands out in the market and continues to retain and grow its user base.
In other words
As we enter 2025, the art of engagement through app metrics will become even more of a must.
The future’s successful applications will be those that can measure such metrics and work with them to create a rich and immersive experience that keeps users asking for more.
It’s not just about gathering data; it’s about using that data to create better user experiences, which will help your success in the long run.
Are you ready to take your app’s engagement to the next level?
MobileAction’s comprehensive analytics suite extends well beyond providing in-depth insight into all these metrics to drive data-driven decisions that will deliver real results.
Book your demo today to see how we can optimize your app’s key engagement metrics for sustainable growth!
