You're checking campaign performance, but the dashboard shows yesterday's data. By the time you spot the problem—a creative that stopped converting, a CPI spike on Meta, a broken deep link—you've already burned through budget you can't get back.

The difference between profitable growth and wasted spend often comes down to tracking the right metrics at the right frequency. This guide breaks down which KPIs to monitor daily for immediate action, weekly for tactical optimization, and monthly for strategic decisions—so you can catch problems early and scale what's working.

What Mobile Marketers Should Track Daily vs Weekly vs Monthly

The right tracking frequency depends on how fast you can act on the data. Daily KPIs catch fires before they spread—a campaign burning through budget with zero conversions, or a sudden drop in install volume that signals broken attribution. Weekly KPIs guide tactical shifts like which creatives to refresh, which audiences to scale, and where to move budget between channels. Monthly KPIs inform the big calls—annual budget allocation, channel mix strategy, whether your unit economics actually support scaling.

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows whether you're hitting your growth goals. For mobile marketers juggling attribution data from Meta, Google, TikTok, OEMs, and influencer campaigns, the challenge isn't picking the right KPIs—it's getting them unified in one place so you can make decisions instead of reconciling spreadsheets.

Here's the framework:

• Daily KPIs: Real-time signals that require immediate action—install drops, CPI spikes, budget pacing issues

• Weekly KPIs: Tactical performance trends for campaign optimization—ROAS by channel, retention cohorts, creative testing results

• Monthly KPIs: Strategic health metrics for budget planning—LTV:CAC ratio, MRR growth, blended versus attributed revenue

Daily KPIs That Need Your Immediate Attention

Daily KPIs are your early warning system. They change fast and require quick decisions like pausing underperforming ad sets, scaling winners before auction costs rise, or fixing broken attribution before you waste another day of budget.

Install Volume and Velocity

Track total installs and install rate throughout the day, not just at end-of-day rollup. Sudden drops signal attribution issues (your SDK stopped firing events), ad network outages, or app store problems that kill organic visibility. Install velocity—installs per hour—helps you spot when campaigns hit creative fatigue or when competitors outbid you in the same auctions.

Cost Per Install by Channel

Monitor CPI across Meta, Google, TikTok, and other channels in real time. CPI spikes mean auction competition increased, your creative performance dropped, or you're bidding into the wrong audience segments.

Comparing CPI daily across channels shows you where to shift budget immediately. If Meta CPI jumps 40% while Google stays flat, you know where the problem lives.

Campaign Budget Pacing

Check if campaigns are spending too fast or too slow against daily targets. Overspending early in the day wastes budget on low-intent users during off-peak hours, while underspending means you missed opportunities during high-conversion windows. Pacing issues often indicate bid problems, targeting that's too narrow, or creative that's not clearing the auction.

App Store Ranking Movements

Track category and keyword rankings in App Store and Google Play daily. Ranking drops hurt organic install volume, which directly affects your blended CAC—the true cost per user when you account for both paid and organic installs. Daily monitoring helps you correlate paid campaigns with organic lift, so you can see if your paid push is driving compounding returns or just paid installs.

Critical Performance Alerts

Set up automated alerts for anomalies like attribution drops above 20%, conversion rate crashes, or revenue dips that exceed normal variance. Waiting until weekly reviews means you've already lost budget on broken campaigns—maybe your deep link stopped working, your onboarding flow broke in the last app update, or an ad network changed their tracking parameters. Alerts trigger when metrics deviate from expected ranges, so you can investigate and fix issues within hours.

Weekly KPIs for Campaign Optimization

Weekly KPIs reveal patterns that daily noise obscures. You get enough data to compare cohort performance and test results with statistical confidence, which helps you decide which creatives to refresh, which audiences to scale, and which channels deserve more budget.

Channel ROAS Performance

ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue generated divided by ad spend. It's the clearest signal of campaign profitability. Track ROAS by channel—Meta, Google, TikTok—and by campaign to identify winners and losers.

Weekly ROAS shows whether campaigns are profitable after users complete key actions like purchases, subscriptions, or loan applications. Blended ROAS across all channels matters for overall profitability, but channel-level ROAS tells you where to double down and where to cut.

D1, D3, D7 Retention Cohorts

Retention is the percentage of users who return after install. D1 (day 1), D3 (day 3), and D7 (day 7) retention are standard mobile app benchmarks that separate quality users from vanity installs.

Retention cohorts show whether you're acquiring engaged users or just driving installs that churn immediately. If your D1 retention is below 25%, you're likely targeting the wrong audience or your onboarding experience is broken. Comparing retention by channel reveals which sources bring engaged users versus churners, so you can shift budget toward quality over volume.

Creative and Audience Testing Results

Review A/B test performance for ad creatives, landing pages, and audience segments weekly. Weekly analysis gives you enough data to declare winners without waiting so long that you've wasted budget on losing variants.

Testing velocity matters—stale creatives drive up CPI and tank conversion rates as users see the same ad repeatedly. Track click-through rate, install rate, and post-install conversion by creative variant to understand what messaging and visuals actually drive action.

Conversion Funnel Analysis

Track the full journey from ad click to install to in-app events like registration, purchase, or subscription. Funnel drop-offs reveal friction points—maybe your onboarding asks for too much information upfront, your payment flow is confusing, or your app crashes on certain devices.

Weekly funnel analysis by channel shows which sources drive users who actually convert versus those who install and bounce. You'll find the difference between cheap installs and profitable users here.

Attribution Window Performance

An attribution window is the time between ad click and install or conversion that you count as "attributed" to that campaign. Comparing 1-day, 7-day, and 28-day attribution windows shows how long users take to convert.

Fintech apps often see longer windows because users research before applying for loans, while gaming apps convert faster. Longer windows capture more conversions but make optimization slower since you're waiting weeks to see full results. SKAN (SKAdNetwork) uses shorter windows due to iOS privacy rules, so understanding attribution timing helps you interpret iOS campaign performance without assuming it's underperforming when it's just slower to report.

Monthly KPIs for Strategic Growth Decisions

Monthly KPIs inform the big decisions—annual budget allocation, channel mix strategy, whether your unit economics support scaling. Monthly metrics smooth out weekly volatility and show true business health. Monthly reviews align marketing performance with finance and executive reporting, so everyone's working from the same numbers.

Lifetime Value to CAC Ratio

LTV (lifetime value) is total revenue a user generates over their lifetime with your app. CAC (customer acquisition cost) is total marketing spend divided by new users acquired. The LTV:CAC ratio shows whether you can profitably scale—healthy ratios mean each user generates more revenue than they cost to acquire.

Here's what the numbers mean:

• LTV:CAC above 3:1: Strong unit economics with room to scale aggressively—you're making $3+ for every $1 spent on acquisition

• LTV:CAC between 1:1 and 3:1: Breakeven to moderate profitability—optimize retention and reduce CAC before scaling hard

• LTV:CAC below 1:1: Losing money on each user—fix retention or reduce CAC immediately

Monthly tracking accounts for longer conversion cycles in fintech, subscription apps, and e-commerce where users don't generate full value in the first week.

Blended vs Attributed Revenue

Blended revenue is total revenue divided by total marketing spend across all channels—it's what finance sees. Attributed revenue is revenue tied to specific campaigns via attribution tracking—it's what your MMP reports.

Comparing blended and attributed revenue reveals attribution gaps. If blended ROAS is much higher than attributed, you're undercounting conversions, missing organic lift from paid campaigns, or losing signal due to iOS privacy changes. SKAN limitations make this comparison critical for understanding true campaign performance, especially on iOS where attribution is probabilistic rather than deterministic.

Monthly Recurring Revenue Growth

MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is predictable revenue from subscriptions or repeat purchases. Track MRR growth rate and breakdown by new users, expansion (upgrades to higher tiers), and churn.

MRR growth shows whether your app is building sustainable revenue or just churning through users with one-time transactions. Cohort-based MRR analysis reveals which acquisition channels drive long-term subscribers versus trial-and-cancel users—the difference between a $5 CPI that delivers $50 LTV and a $3 CPI that delivers $8 LTV.

Churn and Reactivation Rates

Churn is the percentage of users who stop using your app or cancel subscriptions. Track monthly churn rate and compare across cohorts and channels.

High churn means acquisition is pouring water into a leaky bucket—you'll want to fix retention before scaling spend, or you'll just accelerate the churn cycle. Reactivation rate (percentage of churned users who return) is a key lever for improving LTV without increasing CAC. A 10% improvement in reactivation can have the same impact as a 20% reduction in CPI.

Competitive Market Analysis

Monitor competitor app rankings, ad creative trends, and estimated install volumes monthly. Monthly competitive analysis shows whether you're gaining or losing market share.

Tracking competitor campaigns on Meta and Google reveals their messaging, offers, and targeting strategies. You'll see when they launch new creatives, test different value propositions, or shift budget between channels. Market share shifts affect auction costs and organic visibility, so competitive intelligence helps you anticipate CPI increases and adjust strategy before you're priced out.

Leading Indicators vs Lagging Indicators for Mobile Apps

Leading indicators predict future performance—metrics like install volume, engagement rate, trial starts, and activation events. Lagging indicators measure past results—metrics like revenue, LTV, churn rate, and ROAS.

Leading indicators help you course-correct before problems hit revenue, while lagging indicators confirm whether your strategy actually worked. Mobile marketers benefit from tracking leading indicators daily or weekly to catch issues early, then validating decisions with lagging indicators monthly.

If your leading indicators (installs, engagement) look strong but lagging indicators (revenue, LTV) stay flat, you're acquiring the wrong users or your monetization is broken.

Building Your Daily, Weekly, Monthly KPI Dashboard

Tracking KPIs across multiple ad networks, analytics tools, and spreadsheets creates blind spots and delays decisions. You're exporting data from Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, your MMP, and internal analytics, then manually reconciling discrepancies and building reports in Google Sheets. By the time you finish, the data is stale and you've missed the window to act.

Unified dashboards consolidate attribution data from Meta, Google, TikTok, and other sources into one view. Automated dashboards surface anomalies and trends without manual reporting work, so you spend time optimizing instead of building pivot tables.

Structure dashboards by frequency:

• Daily dashboard: Real-time metrics visible on mobile, with alerts for critical thresholds—CPI spikes, install drops, budget pacing issues

• Weekly dashboard: Campaign-level performance with cohort breakdowns and test results—ROAS by channel, retention curves, creative performance

• Monthly dashboard: Executive summary with LTV, CAC, ROAS, and strategic health metrics—formatted for finance and board meetings

Modern MMPs like Linkrunner unify attribution, deep linking, and SKAN data so you see the full journey from click to install to revenue in one place. AI auto-surfaces underperforming campaigns and scaling opportunities, making it obvious which channels to cut or double down on—no more guessing which campaign is bleeding budget or which creative is driving profitable users.

Five KPI Tracking Mistakes That Kill Mobile Growth

Even experienced marketers fall into traps that waste budget and hide problems:

• Tracking vanity metrics instead of revenue: Installs and impressions don't pay the bills—focus on ROAS, LTV, and payback period to understand true profitability

• Ignoring cohort analysis: Blended metrics hide the fact that some channels drive profitable users while others bring churners—always break down performance by cohort and channel

• Waiting too long to act: Weekly reviews of daily metrics mean you've already wasted budget on broken campaigns—set up alerts and check critical metrics daily

• Trusting attribution without validation: Compare attributed revenue to blended revenue and finance data to catch undercounting—attribution is never 100% accurate, especially on iOS

• Optimizing for the wrong window: Short attribution windows miss conversions, long windows slow down optimization—match your window to your actual conversion cycle based on historical data

Stop Juggling Spreadsheets and Start Growing With Unified Attribution

Knowing which KPIs matter is only half the battle—you need reliable, unified data to actually track them. If you're stitching together data from Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, AppsFlyer exports, and internal analytics tools, you're spending hours on reporting instead of optimization.

Linkrunner is an AI-driven MMP built for mobile-first apps that need clean attribution without the complexity and cost of legacy platforms. We unify attribution, deep linking, SKAN decoding, and marketing analytics so you see daily, weekly, and monthly KPIs in one dashboard—no more reconciling screenshots and spreadsheets. AI makes it obvious which campaigns to scale or pause, and setup takes minutes instead of weeks.

Request a demo to see how Linkrunner helps growth teams track the KPIs that actually matter—from click to install to revenue—in one unified platform.

Frequently Asked Questions About KPI Tracking Frequency

How do I adjust KPI tracking frequency as my app scales?

Start with weekly reviews when spend is low and you're still figuring out product-market fit. Move to daily monitoring as budget increases and team size grows—once you're spending $10K+ per month, daily tracking pays for itself by catching issues before they waste significant budget. Monthly strategic reviews stay consistent regardless of scale since they inform long-term planning and executive reporting.

Should KPI tracking frequency differ for paid versus organic channels?

Track paid channels daily because you control spend and can optimize immediately—pause underperforming campaigns, shift budget to winners, and test new creatives. Organic channels move slower and benefit from weekly or monthly trend analysis since you can't directly control organic install volume—you're tracking the compounding effects of ASO, paid-driven organic lift, and word-of-mouth growth.

What is the minimum viable KPI set for early-stage apps?

Focus on CPI, D1 retention, and cost per key event (registration or purchase) until you have enough data to calculate reliable LTV and payback period. Early-stage apps often don't have enough users to measure 30-day or 90-day LTV with confidence, so proxy metrics like D7 retention and early monetization events give you directional signals while you build cohort history.

How do I align KPI tracking with sprint cycles?

Use weekly KPI reviews to inform sprint planning—if retention is dropping, prioritize onboarding improvements in the next sprint. Set monthly OKRs based on strategic KPIs like LTV:CAC ratio and MRR growth, then break them down into weekly tactical goals. This creates a feedback loop where product, marketing, and growth teams work from the same data.

When should I escalate from weekly to daily KPI tracking?

Switch to daily tracking when you're spending enough that a broken campaign costs more than the time investment to monitor daily—usually around $5K–$10K per month. Also escalate to daily tracking when you're scaling aggressively and need to catch issues immediately, or when you're running high-velocity testing where winners and losers emerge within days.