This is a pretty cool update by google allowing you to integrate your mobile iOS and Android apps with one SDK / container tag each and then remote control the things you would like to track and analyse later once the native code is build. We will surely be using this one: http://analytics.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/introducing-google-tag-manager-for.html

Trademob in Europe just released very interesting numbers in an infographic about what it costs to reach a top position in an app store and how many organic downloads app marketing gets plus what the paid download costs are for different European countries and the US. 

Here are the most important findings and our own estimates for Australian app costs and downloads based on the Trademob data plus various multiples we applied:

• (1) The number of downloads in the first 72 hours are crucial, while the downloads of the last 24 hours count even more.
  
• (2) App marketing is therefore essential as it not only increases the paid downloads, but also the organic downloads.
  a) For one paid download gaming advertisers receive one additional free organic download in the first three days
  b) Non-gaming app advertisers receive 0.65 organic downloads for free per paid download

Graph via emarketer and MobiThinking

• (3) Costs for gaming apps per paid download per country (effective cost incl. organic):
  a) Germany: 0.45 EUR (0.2)
  b) USA: 1.1 EUR (0.55)
  c) France: 0.8 EUR (0.4)
  d) Italy: 0.55 EUR (0.3)
  e) Spain: 0.85 EUR (0.4)
  f) UK: 0.90 EUR (0.45)
  g) Australia: 0.81 AUD (0.45 AUD), estimate based on Insidemobileapps, plus multiple method using advertising spend and app rating data per country
• (4) Costs for non-gaming apps per paid download per country (effective cost incl. organic):
  a) Germany: 0.8 EUR (0.45)
  b) USA: 1.55 EUR (0.90)
  c) France: 1 EUR (0.6)
  d) Italy: 0.85 EUR (0.55)
  e) Spain: 1.1 EUR (0.6)
  f) UK: 1.1 EUR (0.65)
  g) Australia: 1.1 AUD (0.65 AUD), estimate based on Insidemobileapps, plus multiple method using advertising spend and app rating data per country
• (5) How many downloads did an app need for the Top10 app store charts in 2012 (increase from 2011)?
  a) USA: 80,000 (0%)
  b) UK: 26,000 (44%)
  c) Germany: 15,000 (25%)
  d) France: 13,000 (30%)
  e) Italy: 11,000 (38%)
  f) Spain: 7,000 (na)
  g) Australia: 4,000 - 8,000 (na) estimate based on Insidemobileapps, plus multiple method using advertising spend and app rating data per country

1. What are the elements of the mobile strategy of brandsExclusive?
The first stage is to provide the best mobile interface to our service on the devices they use today. The focus has been on iOS apps first as our audience is heavily skewed to iOS devices over other. We have also provided a html5 mobile website for other devices. This includes providing feature parity on our apps with our website so that customers need to never visit our website if they desire.  

The second stage of our strategy is to go above and beyond to provide interfaces and features that are not possible in a desktop browser environment, taking advantage of the unique benefits mobile devices provide.

It's our belief that mobile devices are the future for e-commerce, we estimated last year that by the end of 2013 most of our visits would be on mobile devices. 

2. Please share a few metrics about your mobile offerings with us e.g. how many mobile users do you have? How many app downloads?
In the last 30 days, 47% of visits have been using mobile devices, approximately 30% being on our dedicated iOS apps for iPhone and iPad. In terms of downloads we are in the top 10 in the lifestyle category on the app store, over 1200 app reviews with average score of 4.5/5.

One interesting aspect is that sales conversions are the highest on our apps, with far and away the most time spent. Customers are highly engaged and also making purchases. The notion that customers still prefer to checkout on desktop browsers and only browse on mobile is not true with us.

3. What is your advice for other online retailers that are considering to build an app or a mobile site?
The answer to app first or mobile website first is not the same for everyone. We have found that building native iOS apps are in fact easier than mobile websites where cross-browser issues are a burden. Not only are they easier if you have iOS resources available but provide a far better user experience.
For us going app first was an easier choice as our audience was heavily skewed to iOS 2 years ago and even now.

So from our point of view, should definitely do both if you are in the eCommerce space. Perhaps mobile website first if starting today, but a dedicated iPhone/iPad app following closely.


4. What are the mobile trends you see in the next few years?
Quite simply, majority audience being on smartphones, feature phones to quickly disappear for most, and using those devices to connect with more people and services than ever before.

Devices to provide more contextual experiences fuelled by being an extension of our senses, those senses to continue to expand, the experiences to get better. Wearable computing to become more mainstream.

5. What are some of the coolest apps you have on your iPhone?

• Letterpress gets plenty of my attention at the moment. Very engaging, but also an intuitive user interface
  
• Triage, makes cleaning your inbox so fast and easy.
  
• Circa News, clean and simple interface for reading news.
  
• Foxtel Go, for live sport.
  
• RunKeeper

If you have been familiar with the Google Analytics Profile concept e.g. you may have created a profile filter to exclude your internal company traffic from your GA reports... there is great news for you: Google Analytics now allows you to filter your profile view by some new exciting mobile and social filters. Here is a quick guide, how you can create a new profile with these filters (please note that it only collect data after the day you created it!!!

1. Go to your the "Account Administration section" of your admin account in Google Analytics
2. Click on an account to see the properties.
3. Click on a property.
4. Now you can create a "New Profile"
5. Give the profile a name and select whether it is for a Web Site or App
6. Once set up click on Filters, then "+ New Filter"
7. Now select the radio button for "Custom Filter"
8. Select "Include" and in the "Filter Field" e.g. "Wifi Support" with the "Filter Pattern" YES to only show data in this profile from mobile devices that support Wifi...

Here are all the new profile filters that you can use to reduce the amount of data in specific profiles down to very specific data for certain criteria of your visitors devices:

Mobile

• Is a mobile device
  
• Is a tablet
  
• Mobile brand name
  
• Mobile model name
  
• Mobile marketing name
  
• Mobile pointing method
  
• Mobile has QWERTY keyboard?
  
• Mobile is NFC supported?
  
• Mobile has cellular radio?
  
• Mobile has wifi?
  

Social 

• Social network
  
• Social action
  
• Social action target
  

Content & Traffic

• Hit type: (page, social, transaction, etc.)
  
• Internal search term
  
• Internal search type
  

Audience / Users

• Browser size
  
• IP version
  

E-commerce

• Local currency code