How Smartphone Analytics is Gathered & Used by Marketers for Demographic Targeting

Neil Mawston, an Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, said that half of humanity owns a smartphone, describing it as the most successful computer of all time. This statistic makes smartphone analytics an essential element that marketers can adopt for demographic targeting. Hence, understanding user behavior is critical to expanding your demographic reach, forming a deeper engagement, and boosting conversions.

How Do Smartphones Collect Data?

Smartphones typically gather data by looking at the app-use logs, call logs, SMS interactions, and engagements on online websites. Marketers can feed this information to built-in tools to analyze and tailor their content for successful demographic targeting campaigns. Smartphone analytics is a method of getting high-level performance metrics via your phone. It allows you to measure and evaluate the generated data to learn how users interact with your mobile sites or apps. This quality makes it an excellent technique for marketers to collect information, analyze data, and use the result to improve demographic targeting.

The Link Between Smartphone Analytics and Demographic Targeting

Smartphone analytics can aid you in measuring and understanding how smartphone users engage with your mobile apps and sites. It helps you comprehend whom you are targeting, allowing you to form a user persona that accurately guides your marketing strategy. Smartphone analytics can offer demographic attributes to help you find your ideal audience. Some attributes you can find via the analytics include language preferences, education, age, household income, and gender.

Additionally, you can combine these elements to form a detailed profile most suitable for your targeted demographic. For example, your target audience can include an employed married man with three kids, holds a college degree, utilizes a credit card, and lives in New York. You can customize your campaigns accordingly to ensure maximum reach to your potential clients.

Demographics also incorporate other factors you can rely on for quality analysis to help boost your demographic targeting campaigns. These include:

1. Behavior

Behavior patterns are vital to track since they offer valuable insight into how clients interact with your website or app. Measurable behaviors can include purchase intent, visited pages, and actions such as clicks and registrations. Smartphone analytics let you have a more granular view of your target demographic.

For instance, you can identify if a customer triggered an action a specific number of times during a particular period between two dates or in total. You can also see what your visitors are utilizing your app for or when they are most responsive to your marketing efforts on your site.

2. Location

Marketers can achieve more precise demographic targeting by using location data. Location is a component of smartphone users' demographic, offering the country, state, city, and zip code information. The analytics can help get even closer to your potential audience by narrowing it down to the specific location, such as determining whether your user is at the mall, airport, or vacation spots. This information is vital because most users want advertisements personalized to their specific location.

For instance, marketers can group clients within a set radius of a particular location and conduct live promotional events. You can also tailor your website to present different items depending on your potential customer base. In this case, you can show and advertise strappy sandals to resort visitors and users in vacation spots, pavement-friendly sneakers for an urban dweller, or wellington boots for a client in the countryside.

3. Device Type

The mobile device used by your target audience is another key factor connected to demographics. You can utilize useful information by evaluating the operating system in your clients' smartphone, manufacturer, and model. The results ensure you can customize your content and campaign to suit your target audience's needs, preferences, and budget requirements.

For example, if your business involves selling luxury items, you target affluent users possessing the latest high-end smartphone models. Hence, you can avoid wasting resources and advertising efforts promoting expensive products to people who likely cannot afford them. You can also take advantage of an operating system’s new features upon learning that your potential customers upgraded their iOS.

Monitor Your Most Profitable Users

You can identify and keep an eye on the most profitable and active users among your targeted demographics. For instance, you can evaluate key performance indicators (KPIs) if you have an app that you want to establish and grow in the market. The KPIs integrated into your app analytics enable you to monitor the most relevant elements to know your most profitable users. Some include:

1. User Acquisition

User Acquisition refers to the methods your potential customers use to find your app. It can include paid search, organic search, or in-app referrals.

2. Average Revenue Per User

The Average Revenue Per User, also called ARPU, is the sum of revenue of your app divided by your total client base. You can calculate your app's revenue by adding its price and in-app purchases. The ARPU reflects the value of every individual user.

3. Retention Rate

It refers to the amount of time a customer engages with your app, starting from the first download and installation. Retention is particularly difficult to maintain on an app business, with most uninstalling an application within a day. Therefore, you can find a worthwhile audience to target by determining uses that actively interact with your app for more than a month.

4. Session Length

This aspect points to the length of time a client interacts with your application during a single session. It considers the time taken from launching the app to closing it. The different app types in the market deliver various session lengths. For example, an entertainment app session can take around 5.59 minutes, whereas an e-commerce app may last approximately 2.85 minutes. You can apply this information to tailor your content to suit your primary target audience and establish longer session lengths.

Once you gather your smartphone analytics and define your target audience, you can apply this information to identify and form lookalike audiences. This group refers to prospects sharing similar characteristics with your current customers. Therefore, you can use the process to expand demographic targeting, helping you maintain your existing clients while increasing your conversion rates with potential customers.