Estonian Splitmetrics A/B tests apps in real life, not in your head

    How do you decide on your app icon? Probably, just meet your team and have a heated discussion. Splitmetrics claims it can bring your customers’ voice to that meeting.

    The Estonian startup founded by 2 Belarussians Eugene Nevgen and Max Kamenkov is a self-service A/B testing platform for mobile publishers. It helps mobile app developers and game publishers to find the most converting combinations for their App Store and Google Play pages.

    Launched in January 2015 it already serves over 750 registered B2B clients, including Rovio, Wargaming, and Game Insight. Here are some more of their customers:

    Splitmetrics was started after the two founders got their first app featured in App Store. Anyone making apps for a living knows how important it is and how it is expected to generate hockey stick install stats.

    But on that life-changing day:

    “We were devastated,” remembers Splitmetrics CTO Max Kamenkov . “Everyone expected dollar rain, but the reality was painful. We got incomparably less installs than expected. Trying to fix it, we figured out that the problem were poor description and screenshots, but it was too late.”

    Learning the value of A/B testing the hard way, the founders built a tool to prevent this pain for others.

    Splitmetrics now has tested their clients’ products with over 2.5 million users, trying out over 10 various app and game features in 4 languages. It can provide 13 different kinds of reports, based on client’s needs.

    “Every app is different, and you cannot just do it right by reading some articles. You must test it,” explains Splitmetrics co-founder Eugene Nevgen.When we came to one of our clients they were spending 40 hours per game on writing the description. We tested their products, and it turned out that less than 1% of viewers actually read the description. Our client looked at us like we had just given them a bucket of cash.”

    Splitmetrics really dives deep into app testing. They let you test anything – from video previews to the color of the download button. The latter, by the way, seems to matter more than you may think, at least for some clients:

    The team behind the project has experience in tech, design and app management.Most importantly, their passion for A/B testing is embedded in everything they do – including their business cards:

    With all the great progress, Splitmetrics has also landed their first serious competition – Google rolled out a similar product for Play store a few weeks ago. When asked about it, Splitmetrics did not hesitate to provide a clear comparison and outline their advantages:

    Now among investors there will be two types of readers – those who will run away from anything going up against Google and those who will be intrigued to find out more. The team revealed that they are funded for now but may be looking for investment soon.

    Oh and, by the way – if you just clicked because you were curious about the question in cover image, here is the answer: