What is benchmarking in mobile marketing?

Benchmarking is the process of using data to compare a mobile app's marketing strategies and performance metrics with those of its competitors. This involves assessing various factors, such as user acquisition, engagement, retention rates, revenue generation, and overall app performance. The KPIs you benchmark will vary depending on your app’s vertical, user base, and stage in the lifecycle.

Although benchmarking and analytics both rely on performance data, they serve distinct purposes in mobile app marketing.

Analytics looks inward. It tracks how users behave, how campaigns perform, and where improvements are needed. It answers questions like “Where are users dropping off?”, “Which channel drives the most conversions?”, or “Is retention improving after onboarding updates?” This internal view supports continuous optimization by helping marketers monitor trends and refine app performance over time.

Benchmarking, by contrast, looks outward. It provides external context by showing how your app’s performance compares to peers or industry standards. For instance, if your day 1 retention is 25%, benchmarking helps determine whether that’s below, on par with, or outperforming similar apps in your vertical.

In short, analytics helps you understand what’s happening within your app, while benchmarking shows how that performance stacks up in the market. Used together, they offer a complete picture.

While competitive benchmarking is the most widely used approach, mobile app marketers can benefit from several other types of benchmarking—each offering a unique lens for evaluating app performance and strategy.

Here are the main types of benchmarking in mobile marketing, with mobile-specific examples:

Performance benchmarking

Performance benchmarking focuses on comparing specific KPIs, such as CTIT, churn rate, or ARPU, against vertical or industry-wide benchmarks. The goal is to evaluate how your app is performing relative to external standards.

Example: A mobile gaming app benchmarks its in-app purchase (IAP) volume, CTIT, and day 7 retention against global averages for its subgenre. The analysis reveals that its CTIT is notably higher than the benchmark, which may indicate friction in the acquisition funnel. Retention also lags behind competitors, prompting an overhaul of the onboarding flow.

Process benchmarking

Also known as practice benchmarking, this type analyzes how certain results are achieved. It examines the strategies, workflows, and operational tactics that drive performance, such as onboarding flows, CRM messaging, or customer support processes, to uncover and adopt best practices.

Example: An e-commerce app studies how a top retail app manages customer queries, return policies, and in-app feedback to improve its own customer support workflow.

Here’s why benchmarking plays a key role in mobile app growth:

• Improve operational efficiency: Benchmarking uncovers friction points across acquisition, onboarding, engagement, and retention. When your performance lags behind industry norms, it’s a signal to refine workflows and streamline the user journey.
• Get deep, actionable insights: Framing your KPIs against broader market trends helps you make informed decisions across product, marketing, and monetization strategies.
• Gain a competitive edge with best practices: Benchmarking highlights what leading apps are doing well—like faster click-to-install time (CTIT), stronger retention, or higher average revenue per user (ARPU). These insights highlight strategies worth testing and adapting based on proven market performance.
• Reduce costs and improve ROI: Identifying areas of overspend, like above-average cost per install (CPI) or low conversion rates, lets you reallocate resources more efficiently. Benchmarking helps identify inefficiencies and improve the return on your acquisition and product investments.
• Boost user satisfaction and loyalty: User-focused benchmarks such as day 7 retention or churn rate help you assess how well your app meets expectations. Outperforming industry averages can validate your user experience (UX) choices, while gaps highlight opportunities to improve satisfaction and long-term value.

Recent privacy regulations and attribution changes have reshaped how mobile app performance is measured, and this impacts benchmarking. Laws like GDPR and CCPA, as well as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, implement restrictions to user information and access to device-level data, with consent requirements meaning that many benchmarks are now based (and only available as) on aggregated or smaller, opted-in-only datasets. This makes it essential to consider how benchmarks were sourced, which users they represent, and how predictive analytics or modeling can fill the gaps.

Despite growing ATT opt-in rates,  in most markets, the majority of iOS users are opted-out of tracking, meaning the IDFA is not available, and benchmarks based on granular attribution data are less common. SKAdNetwork (SKAN) data is aggregated and delayed meaning marketers should only compare SKAN-based performance to benchmarks built under similar conditions.

Android is also moving toward privacy-first attribution with the rollout of the Privacy Sandbox on Android anticipated soon. As device ID-based tracking declines across both platforms, benchmarks are increasingly based on modeled outcomes,broader cohort-level trends, and with predictive, next-generation solutions.

Read more about future-proofing your marketing strategy with next-gen campaign optimization, or download our guide to the future of mobile measurement. 

In this evolving landscape, benchmarking remains valuable, but interpreting results requires context around data sources, attribution models, and privacy constraints. To benchmark accurately, marketers must understand how key KPIs like installs or conversions are tracked and ensure comparisons are made on equal terms.

Benchmarking is most effective when approached with precision and clear intent. Following these best practices helps ensure your comparisons lead to meaningful, data-driven decisions.

Comparing the wrong benchmarks

One of the most common mistakes is benchmarking across unrelated app types, verticals, or lifecycle stages. A high retention rate in a finance app may not mean the same thing in a casual game. Similarly, comparing performance in a growth market like Southeast Asia to benchmarks from North America can skew your interpretation. To ensure useful insights, always benchmark within the same app category, user region, and maturity level.

Ignoring attribution and privacy differences

Benchmarks are increasingly shaped by how data is tracked and attributed. Metrics derived from SKAN, probabilistic models, or multi-touch attribution are generally not comparable. For example, install-to-purchase conversion rates tracked under ATT will differ from those tracked using device IDs. To benchmark accurately, marketers need to understand the underlying attribution models and privacy constraints behind the data.

Using outdated or unreliable data

Mobile app trends shift quickly. Relying on old benchmarks or data from a small, non-representative sample can lead to false conclusions. It’s important to use up-to-date benchmarks from trusted sources and to check how those figures were collected and calculated. If the methodology is unclear or lacks transparency, it’s safer to cross-reference with multiple data points.

Focusing only on averages

Averages can oversimplify performance data. Two apps with the same average session length might show drastically different patterns when you look at user segments or regions. Without a clear view of distribution or context, averages may hide outliers or understate key issues. Whenever possible, benchmark against relevant percentiles or cohort-level data instead of relying solely on topline numbers.

Benchmarking without clear objectives

Benchmarking without a clear purpose often leads to noise rather than insight. Before diving into comparisons, it’s important to define your objective. Clear goals, like improving onboarding, optimizing campaigns, or tracking monetization, help ensure you’re measuring the right KPIs and using the most meaningful benchmarks.

A mobile measurement partner (MMP) like Adjust supports the benchmarking process by providing the  data needed to evaluate app performance. A benchmark report summarizes insights from internal and external data to guide strategic decision-making.

Adjust delivers this internal perspective through detailed analytics across key mobile KPIs such as app installs, user retention, average session length, CTIT, ARPU, average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU), and many more. These insights help app marketers assess performance trends, identify areas for improvement, and make informed, data-driven decisions.

To learn how to build an effective benchmark report with Adjust, request a demo today.