Open Radar

 
Summary:

The App Store needs to provide tracking statistics on how the product page was discovered and used. This is so the developer can better optimize the product page to match what customers are looking for, and to determine which ad and other marketing campaigns are successful.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create Surf Writer 1.0. It is awesome.
2. Sell Surf Writer in the Mac and iOS App Stores for $10.
3. Notice that no one is even downloading it. Why?

OR

3. Run an ad campaign. Was it effective?

Expected Results:

A way to determine how potential customers found the page, how effective the product copy and screenshots were, track marketing campaigns, and determine conversion rate.

Specifically I want:

1. Traffic Sources: Search (what keywords were used), Browse (what page was it found on), External referrer (the URL for the ad campaign link, website review, etc).

2. How long in seconds the customer spent on the site. I want to determine if the tag line, icon, and screenshots are effective in keeping them around.

3. If they clicked on the "More" button to read the rest of the copy, and if they looked at all of the screenshots (or which ones). Again, trying to determine if my copy and screenshots are effective.

4. Conversion rate: of those who visited the product page, what percentage actually bought? Need to also slice it up based on referrer. Of those who came from this referrer (i.e. ad link) what percentage actually bought?

5. How many hits per day? i.e. are people even finding the page or do I need to update my copy?

Actual Results:

There's no way to do this. You can kind of track the conversion rate for an ad campaign using LinkShare, but its a hack and difficult to do. 

Regression:

Only in the App Stores. In 3rd party stores the developer owns the page and can do his/her own tracking.

Notes:

It's incredibly frustrating to not get any downloads, even on a free app, and have no clue why nor any tools for discovering why. Are they just not finding the page at all? Is the copy or screenshots bad? What?