• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 27, 2015

What drives consumers to download and use a certain app? Some marketers believe they can improve app conversions through data, focusing on post-install events, which are pretty good signals for profitable users.

YouAppi built a Post-Install Event Analytics dashboard as part of the update for its OneRun platform. The most impressive one of its new features collects data on about 25 points like location, gender, and age, as well as interests, allowing marketers to identify trends from the results by grouping together similar user actions. Did the user show more interest in music, shopping, or activity applications? It offers similar data to Yahoo Flurry at a much lower scale.

Based on a brand's specific key performance indicators, the platform tells marketers the most successful apps run on a specific device, said Moshe Vaknin, YouAppi CEO and founder. "We don't target the users; rather the device," he said, pointing to an upward trend toward financial, security, and banking apps. He sees a shift from gaming applications toward apps that help people accomplish tasks.

In fact banking apps have become the most prevalent, with mobile check deposits the most popular feature among users, according to a study from SNL Kegan. Some 12% of the Bank of America Corp's deposit transactions occurred via a mobile device during the fourth quarter of 2014, according to numbers from Bruce Thompson, CFO of BoA.

SNL Kegan's analysis notes the features that set the high-ranking bank apps apart are those that focus on personal finance. The most-used apps focus on six prominent features including viewing account balances, viewing recent activity, transferring money between accounts, paying bills, and locating a bank branch or ATM.

Some 92% of bank apps also provide mortgage account information; 92%, allow mobile check deposits; and 73% provide mobile alerts, personalized notifications users set up to inform them of account activity such as a low balances, direct deposits or bill payments that are due, according to SNL.