There are times when an app developer would love to know what is going on in the user’s mind. Whether it be regarding the in-app purchase or simply app engagement, having information about how the user will behave can come really handy. Predicting the unpredictable human behavior when it comes to app usage can help the developer to retain uninterested or disgruntled users or even boost up the purchases. Firebase Predictions is the solution to this unsaid need of any developer.
Google’s Machine Learning for Firebase Predictions
Firebase uses Google’s machine learning to predict user behavior. Machine learning is applied to the app’s analytics data and users are grouped according to their previous behavior. This helps you to make product and app related decisions based on the predictions about user behavior. For example, showing a new in-app purchase offer to users who tend to buy through apps while adjusting ad frequency and manner for a user who rarely spends on apps.
Why need firebase predictions?
There are certain scenarios where Firebase Predictions can improve your app’s user experience and even retain the users who would have otherwise uninstalled your app. You can use Predictions in your app in the following ways.
Customised user experience
Predictions is integrated with Remote Config. Hence, you can use the user’s previous data and behavior and correspondingly customize the user experience. Based on user’s behavior, you can show offers and ads in the app. Also, the prediction changes as the user behavior change. As a result, you always have fresh data and hence are all set to provide customised experience as the user behavior changes.
Smart notifications
Notifications are a great way to remind users of your app. And if the notification contains appropriate content, it can retain your users and even arouse their interest in the app. For example, you may want to send notifications regarding rewards to users who are not that active on your app and hence force them to want to use your app.
Create custom predictions based on your needs
There are default predictions of will churn, will not churn, will spend, and will not spend. Apart from these, you can also define a prediction for any event in the analytics data. Predictions will then create user group who complete that event in your app. This is the highest level of customisation and will help a great deal to maintain happy users.
How Firebase Predictions works
Predictions contains SDKs for Analytics and Remote Config/ Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android and iOS. Based on previous user behavior from analytics data, Predictions creates dynamic user groups. These groups include users who are likely to complete an event in the period of next seven days. The event can be anything, as simple as opening the app or as complex as making an in-app purchase. Default predictions are churn and spend.
Churn: predicts the users that will disengage from the app in next seven days.
Spend: predicts the users that will spend money in the app in next seven days.
These predictions can be created for any analytics events.
The user groups created by Predictions are called predicted user groups. Now, you can just send specific notifications (FCM) to the predicted user groups. Or through Remote Config, you can even change the behavior or appearance of app instances for the predicted user groups.
Risk Tolerance
Predictions also allows you to set risk tolerance of a prediction. The options are low, medium and high. High risk tolerance means that the user group will be larger; however, the chance of false users in the group will also be more. So, you get to choose between fewer users with high accuracy or more users with low accuracy.
With time and the amount of data, the accuracy of the predictions increases. For a specific user, the accuracy increases with his usage of the app.
Firebase Predictions is a smart step towards improving user experience and even increasing the user base of an app. This will help developers to attend to the needs of a specific user base and hence win their satisfaction. How the developers use Predictions to make the most out of it is indeed going to be interesting.
