My wife is a personal trainer who accepts only female clients. She’ll either train them here or go to their houses. Either way, her clients do not have to concern themselves with going to a gym and exercising for all to see. That’s a big part of what makes my wife’s business unique and appealing.

Most of her customers come as a result of word of mouth, but she recently became a mobile marketer. That’s because she started advertising on Facebook. It took her 30 minutes to select a target audience (basically mothers in southwestern Westchester County) and design a couple of banner ads that pointed users to her blog, fitandhappier.wordpress.com.

Developers and mobile marketers: How do customers find you and your app?

How your customers go from first becoming aware of your app to using it regularly goes by many names: path to purchase, customer journey, and funnel are just a few. This blog will detail the funnel model, which starts at the top with awareness, then progresses to consideration, preference, and purchase. The key is to make sure that you understand what tactics have the most impact on your customers at various stages of the funnel.

Start by understanding your addressable audience. How many customers have the handsets for which you’ve built your apps? What version of software do they run? Here’s a dashboard that shows the popularity of the various versions of Android.

Next, what tactics can you use to drive awareness of your app? Typically, this is where advertising tactics are the most useful, even if it involves free activities such as posting social media updates and online product pages optimized for mobile sites with deep links to the Store. That way, they can tap or click a link on your web page and initiate a download.

Generating positive reviews from customers, media, and bloggers can help drive consideration and preference. Try using social media channels or business development colleagues to recruit customers willing to share their positive feedback. Celebrating their successes with your app through videos, testimonials at events, or via a guest blog can tip a potential new user in your favor.

Now, think about the ways you drive downloads. App store and search engine optimization, search engine marketing, pay-per-install programs, direct email, and video all can do the trick.

When you put it all together, you can create a simple dashboard. Here’s an example:

You can visualize the data, too. Here’s an example:

With a dashboard, you can begin tinkering with your marketing to improve performance. That could mean experimenting with new ads, revising your website, or shifting investment between tactics.

For more on how to build and optimize your marketing funnel, check out this useful blog.

The numbers are a means to an end and not the end itself. That’s because what you do with them is more important than the numbers themselves. Being a smart marketer requires that you master not only what the numbers are, but what they tell you about your business.