An App Developer’s Vision for iTunes Connect 2.0 – Part 1: Let’s Start with Data

Posted: February 10th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Analytics | 1 Comment »

Over the past few years, the iTunes Store has grown into the Swiss Army knife of online entertainment. With the addition of the App Store, Apple has brought the ability to create, share, and sell software like never before. The iTunes store is obviously functional for it’s current purposes, but the supporting framework for app developers, iTunes Connect, has been under pressure to keep pace.

For those that don’t know, iTunes Connect allows developers to submit and manage their apps, as well as serving as the sole source of reporting for daily/weekly/monthly sales, financial reports, and more. The earliest target for criticism was approval timelines from the tool (which have seen obvious improvements), but that spoke more to the processes of the store vs. the tool itself. Any developer can tell you that the next stage of evolution for the iTunes Connect service is well overdue.

We’ve found with the current iTunes Connect system does an adequate job of suppling some of the information that we need, but in a less than elegant manner. Sales data is supplied in daily text files, no graphs, trending, or tracking over time. Reviews, ratings, and other touchpoints are only accessible through the store interface itself. Promo codes are created through a four step process ending in a text file and aren’t trackable.

So now that the iTunes App Store is obviously a hit, it’s time for Apple to get serious and create iTunes Connect 2.0. Every developer has their own wish list, but we’ll be tackling a few topics in the next few blog posts, starting with data in this post.

Developers have the opportunity to become more sophisticated in how they design, build, and market their apps. For Apple, the benefit lies in keeping developers happy, and increasing the size of the moat that they’ve created to keep the Android, Blackberry, and Windows app stores far behind them.

THE DATA ASK

Apple should create a system that can report in-store behavioral and attitudinal information to app developers, much like traditional web analytics reporting. Creating a system won’t be cheap, so let’s start with the short putt where the data is already being collected: ratings and sentiment. Tell us how our apps are doing with iTunes Store ratings and review reporting across all geographies. Let us know how our apps are reviewed vs. other apps in our category, and how the people giving us a good/bad review typically review other apps. Speaking of reviews, the biggest missing piece here isn’t just the data and reporting, it’s letting us contact unsatisfied customers for support or assistance. These our are customers – make it easy for us to digest and respond to feedback.

Now on to the fun asks: let’s get some behavioral data from the store. We’re talking visits, visitors, app page views, and time spent on our app pages for starters. More importantly, let’s get into the actionable data like traffic sources. When someone views our FunkBox Drum Machine app page, where did they come from? Was it an external link, a New Release list, a Top 100 list, a Genius recommendation, Tell-A-Friend functionality, or a new review site? What’s the purchase conversion once they land on the page (and how does it differ by referral source?) Give developers tools to slice the data by geography, demographic, and segment by types of apps they buy. Give us iTunes Store search data. How often are we appearing in results, and how often are people finding us through those searches? Are customers more likely to purchase that way? Are there valuable keywords that apply to our apps that we’re not listed under?

Now that the covers have been taken off the iPad, it’s also time for sales data based on device type. Give us all the above information, and the ability to see who is buying/installing on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad (and overlap.)

Each of these data asks are trivial on their own, but combining the pieces of data together can help give us a better picture of our customers, and build better apps by using data. Instead of simply throwing an app into the iTunes ether and crossing their fingers, developers would have the tools to begin actively managing their apps as products. It’s silly that today we can tell more about our customers from high-level analytics on our Youtube videos vs the iTunes store.

In future posts, we’ll tackle the remaining asks we have of iTunes Connect, including social opportunities and tackling improvements to the store itself. There’s so much that can added to make the guts of the store a truly remarkable opportunity for developers. In the meantime, let us know what you’re looking for from iTunes Connect, and what we’re missing.

---