Introducing Mobile Screen Engagement Tracking Feature in Snowplow Trackers Version 6

We're excited to announce a new screen tracking feature in Snowplow's latest iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter trackers that allows you to monitor the duration users spend on app screens and determine the amount of content viewed. In addition, the updated Snowplow Unified dbt package (version 0.2) can model the new data to determine user engagement metrics.

Screen Engagement Tracking

The screen engagement tracking feature is our response to the growing need for more exhaustive data on how users interact with mobile app content. With the ability to track time spent on each screen in both foreground and background mode, it provides invaluable real-time data on user engagement.

Our screen activity tracking for web sends regular page ping events every few seconds the page is open. In contrast, the mobile trackers perform client-side calculations to capture the full screen engagement information in a screen summary entity that is sent before the user navigates to another screen or when the app goes to background or foreground, resulting in less overall data transmission and processing in the warehouse.

Scroll Depth Measurement

Our new feature also measures the depth of content displayed on the screen by quantifying this depth based on the number of list items viewed or pixels scrolled on the screen. It helps to determine which content areas are engaging users the most, thereby aiding in the optimization of content placement and design.

The following information can be tracked (as part of the screen summary entity):

Tracked information Description foreground_secTime in seconds spent on the current screen while the app was in foregroundbackground_secTime in seconds spent on the current screen while the app was in backgroundlast_item_indexIndex of the last viewed item in the list on the screenitems_countTotal number of items in the list on the screenmin_x_offsetMinimum horizontal scroll offset on the scroll view in pixelsmax_x_offsetMaximum horizontal scroll offset on the scroll view in pixelsmin_y_offsetMinimum vertical scroll offset on the scroll view in pixelsmax_y_offsetMaximum vertical scroll offset on the scroll view in pixelscontent_widthWidth of the scroll view in pixelscontent_heightHeight of the scroll view in pixels

Updated Snowplow Unified dbt Package

To complement the new tracking feature, we have also revamped the Snowplow Unified dbt package. This updated package now fully supports the mobile screen engagement tracking feature and is able to calculate metrics for the engaged time and scroll depth, effectively replicating its capabilities for web and unifying engagement metrics for both platforms.

In particular, the package now updates the following derived table columns:

TableColumnsDescriptionsnowplow_unified_viewsengaged_time_in_sScreen foreground timeabsolute_time_in_sScreen foreground + background timelast_list_item_index, list_items_count, list_items_percentage_scrolledInformation about the number of viewed items in a listhorizontal_pixels_scrolled, vertical_pixels_scrolled, horizontal_percentage_scrolled, horizontal_percentage_scrolledInformation about the scroll depth in pixelssnowplow_unified_sessionsengaged_time_in_sScreen foreground timeabsolute_time_in_sScreen foreground + background timesnowplow_unified_usersengaged_time_in_sScreen foreground timeabsolute_time_in_sScreen foreground + background time

See the New Screen Engagement Feature in Action

We've made a demo app to show you our new screen tracking feature. You can use the demo to see how screen engagement tracking and modeling works in real-time. Please follow this link to visit the demo. To learn more about how it works on the background, take a look at our documentation.

Conclusion

With the introduction of screen and content engagement tracking across 4 mobile trackers and the updated dbt package, we are providing more powerful and comprehensive tracking tools for mobile apps, empowering businesses to gain a deeper understanding of user behavior and engagement.

In addition, our new User & Marketing Analytics data app provides a visual way to explore user engagement information with a comprehensive analysis of your web and mobile data. Request a full demo of our data applications here.