Exclusive: interview with Yandex about the analytical service

At the end of October, Yandex introduced its own free analytical service created for mobile application developers. In connection with its launch, we talked with Alexander Kochubey, manager of Yandex.Metrica. 

Alexander KochubeyThe mobile metrics market is saturated today.

There are such popular solutions as, for example, flurry and localytcis. And, of course, it’s cool that a domestic company is also working in this direction.  But what exactly will Yandex be able to offer developers of mobile applications that Western solutions cannot?Our service is completely free, without restrictions.

 It is also faster than analogues: statistics on all parameters are updated almost instantly. We made the service so that it suits us – and Yandex has very high requirements for analytics. Therefore, we tried to make a powerful analytics tool with which you can quickly and easily build any reports. We hope the developers will like it too.

The metrica website says that the service will show “up-to-date statistics on application usage.” Could you tell us exactly what parameters “Metric for Applications” will monitor and output? Firstly, it is the geographical location of the user with details to the city.

At the same time, we take data not only from the GPS receiver in the device, but also find out with the help of our “Locator” technology. This way we can get location information even if the user did not give the app permission to access GPS. Secondly, Yandex.Metrica for applications collects data about the device: operating system version, device type – smartphone or tablet, manufacturer and model data, screen resolution, interface language, mobile operator and connection type (edge, 3G, wi-fi) . Third, data on the use of the application: its version, crash analytics, data on sessions and user actions important to developers.

Will there be advertising tracking (idfa, refferer)?Not in the current version.

But we are thinking about developing marketing tools.

Will it be possible to use the service to place “beacons” in the application to track at what stages the user starts paying / exits the program?Yes, of course.

In Yandex.Metrica for applications, this functionality is called “Events”: the developer can designate any user action in the application, for example, clicking on a button or going to a specific application screen.  It is possible not only to count the number of events, but also to build a variety of reports taking into account audience segmentation.

Recently, the Russian startup devtodev offered its analytical solution. Have you highlighted this solution? Do you consider it your potential competitor in the mobile analytics market?There are not so many analytical solutions for mobile developers on the market – there is enough space for everyone.

We are glad to see new names on the market and sincerely wish them good luck.

Thanks for the interview!