App Store Connect API Analytics Reports Data

Hi,

I am trying to get the data in App Store Installation and Deletion Standard report but the counts does not equal what I see on the App Analytics dashboard.

There are 8 ongoing reports with "APP_USAGE" parameter, and the one I am downloading consists of 1 page only. The page count is 1, so there is no pages I am missing. I am using "DAILY" as granularity.

What am I missing here?

Thanks a lot.

Answered by romulogomes in 796492022

It can be multiple things.

  • Make sure you're comparing apples to apples: there are multiple metrics for "installs" and you also have multiple dimensions (country, apps, device, product page, source, etc). More often than not, that's the actual problem. I'd review my data closely and look at their docs to make sure you're looking at the same thing.

  • Privacy thresholds: this could be it indeed. What you can do here is to avoid the "Detailed" report if your app is too small.

I hope this is helpful.

Could this issue be related to privacy protection?

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/analytics-reports/privacy

Accepted Answer

It can be multiple things.

  • Make sure you're comparing apples to apples: there are multiple metrics for "installs" and you also have multiple dimensions (country, apps, device, product page, source, etc). More often than not, that's the actual problem. I'd review my data closely and look at their docs to make sure you're looking at the same thing.

  • Privacy thresholds: this could be it indeed. What you can do here is to avoid the "Detailed" report if your app is too small.

I hope this is helpful.

Hi Romulo,

1-) I am comparing apples to apples. For instance, first-time downloads via app referrer for US is significantly lower than what I see from the web dashboard.

2-) Is this privacy threshold row-based? Because if so, the report has a lot of dimensions which causes the data to be brought down to 1-2 counts for each row. What size should be considered enough to escape privacy thresholds? Is 5k downloads a day enough?

Thanks again.

Romulo was right. I was not comparing apples to apples. :( Solved, thanks a lot!

Got it.

So first thing I'd do is to check if the data matches if I don't have those filters (US and App Referrer). If it does, then it's probably the privacy thresholds.

This is what the docs say: "Data in the framework’s reports is aggregated, and similar users are in groups, which means individual user data is not easily identifiable. To balance data privacy with usability, the framework applies two approaches as needed to specific reports:

Thresholding Omits values with data from fewer than 5 users or 5 unique devices.

Noise Adds a small random number to metrics.

These privacy measures maximize utility as the volume of data increases, while also helping protect users identities. The framework applies the same privacy measures across daily, weekly, and monthly reports for the same type of content, ensuring that utility increases as more data is collected over longer periods of time."

Full wiki here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/analytics-reports/privacy

Apparently "5 unique devices" is the bare minimum. But the noise part is more unclear, on that link you'll find the calculations on how they apply the thresholds, but I also don't fully understand it tbh.

App Store Connect API Analytics Reports Data
 
 
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