BARCELONA – If brands can harness the available data about mobile users, their habits and their interaction with apps, they can evolve their apps to drive more business and success, says Peggy Anne Salz, mobile industry analyst at MobileGroove and author of Apponomics, a book on the business of apps. “If you understand their behavior within the app, you can then adapt to the user. It’s almost like one-on-one marketing. If you treat people like individuals they will feel like you’re listening to them,” she says in this interview with Beet.TV at the Mobile World Congress. The mobile app market was $25 billion strong last year, according to Gartner.
Many apps have a short life cycle of a few months, if that. Salz’ goal in her book is to equip marketers with the insight to turn their apps into sustainable businesses, by implementing certain best practices at each stage of an app’s life cycle. “It’s about showing certain ads to a different user at the right time as well,” she says, and marketers can do that if they can tap into some of the mobile data available.
This type of insight can be useful for app developers especially given the failure rates. Gartner has said that less than .01% of apps will be considered a financial success. Many apps are free though, so their value is found in other ways, such as driving awareness and interaction with a brand. About 91% of apps are free downloads.
