Apple announced Wednesday that developers would have access to App Store Sources and Referral Data. In more direct terms, Apple is making it easier to find out where their customers are coming from. This will help them market their apps and acquire new users.
App Store Sources and Referral Data
App Analytics in iTunes Connect now provides insight on where customers discover your app, including App Store browsing and search, within other apps, or on the web. With key metrics based on source types, you can see your top referring apps and websites, making it easier to optimize your marketing campaigns.
On Apple’s App Analytics page, the company added the following descriptions:
App Referrers
App Analytics counts users who visit your app’s product page from a link within another app. Optimize your marketing campaigns by focusing on the apps that drive the most App Store impressions, downloads, and billings.
App Store Sources
With App Analytics, you can see how many users discover your app while searching or browsing the App Store — including tapping on Search Ads for your app — to gain insight into how your marketing and metadata impact downloads.
What it Means
In keeping with Apple’s stance on tracking users, this information appears to be divorced from identifying information. The company is letting users know where their customers are coming from without iOS turning we, the customer, into we, the product.
This kind of data can be huge for developers with operations sophisticated enough to use it to better target their advertising, social media outreach, and media coverage.
This is not only good for developers, it’s good for Apple. The company is set to double services revenue, and that includes revenue from the App Store.
Giving developers better tools for selling their apps means more services revenue for Apple, too.
In short, this is an excellent example of the iOS ecosystem maturing.