EBOOK

Complete
SDK Guide
2021
For mobile apps
 Index

I. INTRODUCTION 3

II. SDK GUIDE 4

Quantitative Analytics 4
Qualitative Analytics 6
A/B Testing 8
Push Notifications 10
Crash Analytics 12
Advertising 14
Payment 16
User Testing 18
Attribution 20
Surveys 22
App Store Optimization 24
Location Data 26
SDK Buying Checklist 28
SDK Purchasing Criteria Worksheet 29
Key Questions to Consider (When you shop for SDKs) 30
 Introduction | Page 03

Introduction

Here’s the truth about mobile products: It’s incredibly hard to build a mobile
SDK stack.

And yet, it is an important choice to make. The right or wrong SDK stack
can decide if your app succeeds or fails.

That’s why we created the following guide. We pre-selected the best SDKs
among 11 important categories.

We limited our list to the top 2-3 SDKs for each category to give you a clear
direction. Each of the companies selected are excellent choices that are
worth a consideration.

This is proven by the apps that are using the SDKs listed in this guide. The
customers of our top picks are among the most successful apps.

We hope that this guide will lead you to choose the perfect SDKs for your
needs and bring your app one step closer to a viral success.
 Quantitative Analytics | Page 04

1. Quantitative Analytics

About
Quantitative Analytics describes data that can be expressed in numbers, for
example graphs and charts. Quantitative data will give you an objective
base to work on.

You should care about quantitative analytics if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer
- a CEO

Firebase (Top pick)

Backed by Google itself, Firebase doesn’t just focus on analyzing

your app, it also provides the infrastructure to build it. A strong
advantage of this solution is that multiple features like analytics,
crash reporting, hosting and A/B tests all come in one product.
This makes Firebase a stable in the SDK stack of most apps.

Benefits

- All—in-one tool for quantitative analytics, A/B testing and hosting

- Advanced Crash Reporting
- Mobile app version of Google Analytics
 Quantitative Analytics | Page 05

Mixpanel

Mixpanel tracks user interactions and allows you to build custom

reports. Evaluate user actions by segmenting them and by creating
funnels. Additionally, Mixpanel is able to show you information about
data points such as location, device, channels and more. Mixpanel
can also be used for targeted communication via push notifications.

Benefits

- Enables complex analysis

- Great cohort analysis
- Customizable dashboards

Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics is an elite enterprise tool. It’s a product that gives you
the tools you need to understand your users’ actions. Priced for
enterprise clients only, Adobe Analytics provides you with real-time
analytics and detailed segmentation, but also requires a complex
implementation process.
Benefits

- Easy-to-use interface
- Real-time data tracking
- Complex user segments

Additional Vendors
 Qualitative Analytics | Page 06

2. Qualitative Analytics
About
Qualitative analytics focuses on understanding users behavior.

Tracking numbers is important, but you won’t innovate or come up with new
ideas by looking at graphs all day. If you understand users and act
accordingly, the traffic and revenue will come from it’s own.

You should care about qualitative analytics if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer
- a CEO

UXCam (Top pick)

UXCam enables app professionals like Vodafone, Nissan or NBC to

improve their app’s KPIs through a deep understanding of user
behavior.

UXCam offers benefits that other app analytics tools do not:

1.) Uncover the true causes for friction and frustration with
Heatmaps and Session Video Replays
2.) See where users drop out with Funnel Analytics
3.) Replicate and reduce crashes with Crash Analytics

Benefits
- Session Replay & Heatmaps
- Funnel and Screen Flow Analytics
- Event and Crash Analytics
- Lightweight SDK
 Quantitative Analytics | Page 07

UserX

UserX is an analytics SDK that focuses on Session Replay and

Heatmaps for mobile apps. It also provides you with a timeline of user
actions.

Benefits

- Video recordings
- UI Heatmaps
- User profile analytics
 A/B testing | Page 08

3. A/B testing

About
A/B testing allows you to conduct experiments with two variants. A/B tests
give you the ability to choose a clear winner between two or more
hypothesis. Regular testing ensures that your app stays on the optimal path
of improvement.

You should care about A/B testing if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer
- a Marketer

Optimizely (Top pick)

Optimizely provides reliable A/B testing with a good reporting

structure and event tracking. It’s easy to use and you will be able to
create tests in a few minutes. It’s possible to adjust the traffic
allocation according to your needs. Important site note: It’s not
required to update the app in the App Store or Google Play Store
when doing A/B tests.
Benefits

- Easy to setup tests

- Insightful reports
- No code required
 A/B testing | Page 09

Apptimize

Apptimize lets you build and compare two or more variants. The tool
has a relatively high price, since only the enterprise plan unlocks the
full potential of the software.

Benefits

- Ability to create a custom UX for different user segments

- Supports A/B testing beyond mobile apps, e.g. web or OTT
- Feature flags

VWO

VWO gives you the ability to run A/B tests at a reasonable cost. You
can add conversion goals to measure the test variables against the
status quo. It’s easy to measure the success of tests. In addition to
the common A/B test features, VWO lets you schedule A/B tests for
specific times as well.

Benefits

- Custom segments
- Goal reporting
- Detailed configuration

Additional Vendors
 Push Notifications | Page 10

4. Push Notifications

About
Push Notifications can be a big driver for user engagement. You want to
find the balance between making your users aware of your app without
annoying them.

You should care about push notifications if you are…

- a Product Manager
- an UX Designer
- a Marketer

CleverTap (Top pick)

CleverTap has an advanced feature set for sending push

notifications. The ability to customize and personalize notifications
makes it a powerful tool. One feature that stands out is the ability to
set triggers. Once a user performs a specific action, he will receive an
automated message.

Benefits

- Send drop-off Notifications

- Personalized Messaging
- Rich Media Support
- Capability to A/B-test notifications
 Push Notifications | Page 11

Leanplum

Leanplum allows you to build, test and send targeted notifications

based on user behavior. The tool not only allows you to send push
notifications, it also sends e-mail and in-app notifications. It’s easy to
customize the platform according to your needs.

Benefits

- Amazing usability
- Test and improve Opt-In rates
- Personalized notifications based on behavior, demographic or
location

MoEngage

MoEngage offers a complete push notification service for mobile

apps. An unique feature that makes MoEngage stand out is their AI-
powered engine which sends notifications at the best moment.

Benefits

- Event triggered notifications

- Notifications based on purchase history and behavior
- Locations based notifications

Additional Vendors
 Crash Analytics | Page 12

5. Crash Analytics

About
Few things can have a more devastating effect on the user experience as a
high number of crashes and bugs. A good crash analytics tool gives you the
ability to monitor bugs, be notified when they occur and offers assistance to
fix them.

You should care about quantitative analytics if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a Developer

Firebase Crashlytics (Top pick)

Crashlytics is now a part of the Firebase platform. You can use

Crashlytics for crash reporting, logging and analysis. The tools
displays crashes in real-time. Crash reports are easy to group and
read.

Benefits

- Light weight SDK

- Easy integration
- Notifications if bugs occur
- Sends a stack trace
 Crash Analytics | Page 13

Visual Studio App Center

Visual Studio App Centre is an SDK by Microsoft that allows you to to

test and monitor you mobile apps. It helps you to automate your
release pipeline by creating workflows for testing and App Store
submission. With this tool, you can test your app on 1000s of hosted
app devices.

Benefits

- Test your app on a big variety of devices

- Distribute your app to testers
- Track crashes and bugs across releases

Raygun

Raygun’s service is divided into three parts: Crash Reporting lets you
analyze crashes and errors, User Monitoring enables you to improve
frontend metrics like speed, and APM uncovers problems on the
server side.

Benefits

- Understand how network calls affect performance

- Custom monitoring dashboards
- Optimize server-side performance

Additional Vendors
 Advertising | Page 14

6. Advertising

About
Advertising SDKs allow you to monetize your app. Ads influence the user
experience. Make sure that you can determine the ad appearance and
placement with the SDK of your choice.

You should care about advertising SDKs if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer
- a Marketer

AdMob (Top pick)

AdMob is the advertising platform by Google. Revenue is earned on a

CPC basis, but there are options for CPM as well. As you would
expect from Google, AdMobs’ ad network is big, which results in a
high ad fill rate. The AdMob dashboard gives you insights into in-app

Benefits

- Smart and automatic ad placement

- Ability to customize ad type and placement
- Revenue analytics
 Advertising | Page 15

InMobi

InMobi is an independent ad network that lets you monetize your app

through different ad variants. It covers all popular ad variations such
as video, native, playable, rich media, carousel and interstitials ads.

Benefits

- Transparent bidding auction

- Control over the ad experience
- Premium brands advertise through InMobi

Chartboost

Chartboost connects advertisers with app developers. It enables

developers to gain control over the ads that are running, which is
helpful to ensure the quality of UX. Chartboost provides interactive ad
experiences as well. One of the most important features of the tool:
Transparent reporting.

Benefits

- Transparent reporting
- Interactive Ads
- Big pool of demand partners

Additional Vendors
 Payments | Page 16

7. Payments

About
Finding the right SDK to process in-app payments is an important task. You
want to use a service that provides a fast, simple and seamless experience.

You should care about payment SDKs if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer
- a Business Development Representative

Braintree (Top pick)

Powered by PayPal, Braintree offers a convenient Drop-in UI to start

accepting payments.
It’s easy to integrate and provides a seamless experience. Braintree
supports all major payment methods. The flow of Braintree consists
of a view of the payment methods, a payment picker and a card entry
form.
 Payments | Page 17

Stripe

Stripe lets you accept payments in a secure way with a few lines of
Code. The platform is secure, operates worldwide and supports
recurring payments.

Benefits

- Out-of-the-box UI and APIs for custom forms

- No sensitive data is transferred through your server

AliPay

If you are looking to implement a payment system that will be used

in Mainland China, AliPay is your best bet. AliPay is almost exclusively
used by customers from mainland China, where it holds a market
leading position.

Benefits

- Wide Adoption in Mainland China

- Simple user experience

Additional Vendors
 User Testing | Page 18

8. User Testing

About
User testing is essential to ensure product-market fit before launching an
app. You want to understand how users navigate through your app and how
new features are being used.

You should care about user testing if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer

Applause (Top pick)

Applause crowd-sources digital quality testers. The platform focuses

on enterprise customers and has a hands-on approach to conducting
the user test. That means that your test will get a dedicated project
team from Applause. Applause’s network includes 400,000 testers
worldwide.

Benefits

- High quality testers

- Responsive and fast support
- Testers in multiple markets
 User Testing | Page 19

UserTesting

UserTesting is a leading platform for remote user testing. Testers

usually record themselves while using the product and speak about
their thoughts. However, there is also the option to conduct live
interviews. The User Testing dashboard lets you read through
transcripts, tag recordings and review key metrics.

Benefits

- Same day results

- Transcription
- Spreadsheet export

LookBack

LookBack is a solution for live and remote usability testing. It gives

you the ability to interact with testers. Alternatively, it has the option to
create a tasklist for testers. LookBack has more affordable pricing
than most of its competitors.

Benefits

- Bookmark timestamps and add notes

- Direct communication with the tester
- Export videos

Additional Vendors
 Attribution | Page 20

9. Attribution

About
Attribution SDKs let you measure the effectiveness of your app’s marketing
campaigns.

A recent development in the attribution industry you should be aware of is

the death of IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) caused by Apple. This will make
attribution harder for Apple devices.

You should care about attribution if you are…

- a Marketer
- a CEO

AppsFlyer (Top pick)

AppsFlyer offers mobile ad attribution and analytics for app

Marketers. The reporting dashboard can be customized to make sure
that internal reports are aligned. The data is displayed in near real-
time.

Benefits

- Campaign effectiveness comparison

- Track origin of installs
- Dashboard has great UX
 Attribution | Page 21

Adjust

Adjust integrates with over 2,000 ad networks to give you insights

about your campaigns. Adjust lets you attribute users based on set
channels or goals. The company offers fraud prevention to ensure
genuine engagement. This is an important offer since mobile ad
fraud is common in the industry.

Benefits

- Easy to understand installs and actions from different acquisition

channels
- Tracks events and retention
- Fraud protection algorithm

Branch

Branch measures users across multiple devices, platforms and

Channels. A unique aspect of Branch is their deep linking solution.
Links that you open on a mobile device usually open inside the mobile
browser and not in the mobile app. Branch creates deep links that
redirects users to the app store or the app itself.

Benefits

- Credible looking URLs for app invites

- Cross-platform attribution

Additional Vendors
 Surveys | Page 22

10. Surveys

About
Gathering in-app user feedback gives your frustrated users an outlet to
express themselves without leaving a bad review, while giving you the ability
to learn from feedback.

You should care about surveys if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer

Pollfish (Top pick)

Pollfish is an easy, selve-serve survey tool allowing you to connect to

and get answers from your target audience. A common use case for
Pollfish is the feature to measure the Net Promoter Score (NPS). The
NPS is a system that was invented by Fred Reichheld to measure the
number of brand promoters in a user base.

Benefits

- Flexible survey customization

- Polls and surveys are easy to build
- Export results and analytics
 Surveys | Page 23

Surveymonkey
Surveymonkey
SurveyMonkey give millions of people around the world a way to turn
SurveyMonkey give millions
feedback into action of people
that drives growtharound the world a way to turn
and innovation.
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deploy surveys quickly.
Surveymonkey is easy
You can set intervals to triggers
and set up andfor let’s youpop
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offers basedforonsurvey pop ups.
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Benefits
offer rewards or special offers based on the survey responses.
Benefits
- Pre-built templates
-- Attach items
Pre-built templates
-- Benchmarks
Attach items from other surveys
- Benchmarks from other surveys

Survicate

Survicate offers a solid mobile app offering for survey conduction. It

has all the features you could ask for in a survey tool. You can
customize your surveys and send them out based on user behavior
inside your app.

Benefits

- Create and edit surveys without an app update

- Trigger surveys based on events or user actions
- Customizable survey branding

Additional Vendors
 App Store Optimization | Page 24

11. App Store Optimization

About
The App Store is the first impression that users get when they stumble upon
your app.

A good App Store page can decide if people can’t wait to download your app
- or if they decide to go with your competitor instead.

You should care about App Store Optimization (ASO) if you are…

- a Marketer
- a Product Manager

App Annie (Top pick)

App Annie collects and gives access to app market data. It allows you
to keep track of your own and your competitors’ movement on the
market. It also gives you access to various estimates of metrics such
as revenue or download statistics.

Benefits

- Understand how you compare to competitors

- Keyword analytics
- Revenue statistics
 App Store Optimization | Page 25

Apptopia
Surveymonkey
Apptopia offers download, revenue, usage and SDK data in their web
SurveyMonkey give you
tool. With Apptopia, millions of people
can also around
track your the world
ranking. a way
It allows to to
you turn
feedback
do research into
onaction that that
keywords drives growth and
competitors innovation.
may use. Apptopia gives
Surveymonkey
you estimates on is easy to set
the SDK up and
usage andlet’s you deploy
average revenuesurveys
of apps.quickly.
You can set intervals and triggers for survey pop ups. You can also
Benefits
offer rewards or special offers based on the survey responses.
Benefits
- Pre-built templates
-- Attach items
Market benchmarks
-- Transaction
Benchmarksvolumes
from other surveys
- Review text analysis

App Radar

App Radar is the most affordable ASO tool on this list and offers the
basic functionality you need to get started with ASO. The company
has its own app marketing consulting if you need help with it.

Benefits

- Find new keywords

- Edit your App Store listing
- Track reviews and reply to them

Additional Vendors
 Location Data | Page 26

11. Location Data

About
App users today expect personalized communication. Using location data is
an easy way to understand where people are using your app and how you
can adjust your messaging.

You should care about location data if you are…

- a Product Manager
- a UX Designer
- a Developer

Mapbox (Top pick)

Mapbox is an open source SDK for vector maps. Maps render fast
and smooth. With Mapbox, you can embed custom maps and enable
location searches. The SDK is used for navigation, augmented reality
and data visualization purposes.

Benefits

- Configure from a variation of map styles

- Light weight SDK
- Verified data
 Location Data | Page 27

Radar

Radar enables teams to build location-based app experiences. Radar

uses geofencing to determine if a user is in a certain location, for
example a specific store. It can predict when a user is at home,
traveling or at the office.

Benefits

- Simple to monitor data and set up geofences

- Accurate Data
- Responsive support

Carto

Carto provides developers a framework with visualization libraries,

data APIs, geocoding, routing and isolines. Carto’s solution provides
data enrichment & ingestion, location analysis & visualization and 3rd
party integrations like Slack or Gmail.

Benefits

- Geo Heatmaps
- User friendly back-end development features
- Edit in HTML and CSS to customize the output

Additional Vendors
 SDK Buying Checklist | Page 28

12. SDK Buying Checklist

1. Know what problems you need to 4. Define attributes that you need to
solve track
Do you have gaps in the user journey? Which events do you need to track?

Are insights for key decisions missing? Do you have a spreadsheet with
definitions of what needs to be tracked?
Do your employees understand the user?

Do you need to engage users better? Does your tracking comply with legal?

Do you need to improve the UX of your

app?
Do you need to save on costs?
(e.g. user testing)
2. Gather requirements and use
cases to compare vendors
5. Create an integration manual for
your developers
Educate the development team on the
features you want to use and explain the
reasoning behind it
Set expectations on how the service
should work

Do you understand the difference

between vendors? 6. Integration and QA to ensure that
Do you understand all use cases of the SDK is working as intended
each vendor? Integrate the SDK
Do you understand the integration
QA for performance issues or bugs
requirements?
QA should verify that events are being
tracked as expected
3. Get the buy-in from relevant teams,
e.g. marketing, legal or management
7. Make your final decision
Which teams need to be involved in
the purchase decision?

Are insights for key decisions missing?

Which use cases will be relevant for

which team?

Which stakeholders need education?

Did you need to schedule a demo for

all relevant team members?
 SDK Purchasing Criteria Worksheet | Page 29

13. SDK Purchasing Criteria Worksheet

Criteria Weighting Vendor 1 Vendor 2 Vendor 3

Quality of Insights

Impact on organization

Time to integrate

Performance Impact

Legal and security

compliance

3rd party integrations

Team Training and

Direct Success Support

# of use cases for

your app

Clear Reports

About this worksheet

When you make purchase decisions, we at UXCam think that a

purchasing criteria worksheet will help you in two ways:

1.) It forces you to reflect on the benefits and shortcomings of

vendors objectively.

2.) You can show it to stakeholders to justify your purchase

decision and avoid internal politics conflicts.
 Key Questions to Consider | Page 30

13. Key Questions to Consider

Is it easy to implement?
This depends on the amount of customization you have to do to get the SDK up and running.
The time of your developers is valuable and an implementation process that takes weeks adds
opportunity cost.

Is it user-friendly?
A user-friendly dashboard ensures that new colleagues can use the service without much
training or onboarding. This increases the effectiveness of the SDK.

Does it offer hands-on support?

If you deal with complex software, e.g. analytics, hands-on, and fast support is crucial to
maximizing the potential of your chosen solution.

Does it have an onboarding process?

Vendors that provide success planning and training help to ensure that you won’t end up
buying a service that’s not being adopted by your organization.

Is it within your budget?

This depends on the needs and size of your company. Involve your finance team into the
buying discussion to get a faster confirmation about the size of your budget.

Does it integrate with other platforms?

Cross-platform integrations are crucial to ensure that your tech stack is connected. If your 3rd
party services communicate with each other, you’ll receive deeper insights.

Does it fit your long-term product strategy?

Ideally, a new SDK should be a long-term investment for your app and help to achieve your
product goals.

Which stakeholders need to be involved?

Identify relevant stakeholders, e.g. legal, finance, developers, or end-users. Take steps to
ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Does it do multiple jobs?

If you find an SDK that does multiple jobs well, it reduces the overall amount of services that
you have to use and this might justify a higher price.
 What Matters
UXCam is convinced that delivering a product alone is not enough.

Every successful organization is in the business of delivering User

Experience.

Most companies track vanity metrics such as page visits and do not
capture micro-interaction data sets. In doing so, they completely miss what
matters: the user.

On the foundation of these beliefs, we at UXCam developed a solution that

helps product managers to deliver the perfect app - by understanding user
behavior.

Our GDPR complaint architecture is accompanied with ironclad security

that keeps your data safe. UXCam works in the background to increase the
performance of your app.

GET STARTED
https://uxcam.com/?utm_source=Ebook&utm_medium=SDK

www.uxcam.com | team@uxcam.cam

814 Mission Street Fl#6, San Francisco, CA 94103

 Replay your user’s journey

UXCam recreates videos of what

users do on your app, allowing you
to replay their journey and deeply
understand the User Experience of
your product.

Easily find sessions that matter

UXCam automatically indexes every

micro-interaction and provides an
advanced filtering mechanism for
this data. This enables you to easily
search and find specific sessions.

Advanced Playback

Advanced Playback in UXCam

allows you to watch sessions
quickly by skipping inactive periods,
watch at a faster speed or watch
certain screens only. Understand
users together with your team by
watching replays on full-Screen
mode.

GET STARTED
https://uxcam.com/?utm_source=Ebook&utm_medium=SDK