Do you do product analytics? If so, what do you track?
I've used Amplitude, Heap, and Fullstory with some of my products, but I haven't been able to get much value.
Amplitude and Heap seemed like the best bet but I felt I had to take a course on product analytics when I would rather focus on building and learning. I had no clue where to start.
FullStory was pretty nice but the daily/weekly/monthly actives graphs were pretty weird, there was no trend, and the free plan doesn't keep Datta over a month. Paid plan is "contact us" 🙀.
Do you guys have any recommendations? What kind of data do you track for your early stage side-projects? Thanks!
Hi @tabansi ,
I joined this platform a little late. I am a founder of fibotalk ( https://fibotalk.com )
We are a product analytics and user engagement platform focusing on SaaS solutions. You don't have to take an analytics course to use our platform.
You can easily build multiple dashboards and charts (funnel, trend, and journey charts) for different parameters and events to track product usage. We readily provide login and signup trends, top power users, page engagement, and much more.
Our big advantage is that you can build user lists based on feature utilization, API response errors, trial plans, and a multitude of user parameters.
We just don't provide insights but close the loop as well. There is an engagement module to send in-app announcements, collect product feedback (NPS) regularly, and chat with users.
We are open to co-innovate with indiehackers tribe. Please connect with me if it interests you.
Heap is the only analytics tool I check often. I've successfully used it to improve my product.
Here's my advice: first figure out questions you need to know the answer to. THEN try to get your answer via your analytics tools. If you're improving your onboarding experience, for example, then figure out a way to track improvements or regressions using your tools.
Heap is great because once you've installed it, you are automatically tracking everything you might need to answer a question you haven't thought of yet.
A quick list of things I check in heap:
Thanks for the tips, I have Heap installed. I'd be trying to emulate some of what you highlighted. Did you read any guides for analytics on Heap? Been looking for one.
No, no guide. I don't remember exactly but I think I just started creating events corresponding to major actions in my app, and then using the reports to analyze conversion rates between those events.
If you have any kind of funnels or wizards in your website, then it's very helpful to track their conversion rates.
This is great. Thanks for the help! 😄
Hey Tabansi, I use tagai.io for customer feedback analytics. It sits on top of customer support apps like Intercom and Zendesk.
Tagai is pretty cool. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Joshua, I do analytics in my day job. And I'm writing a book on exactly your question since I see it often here (like, nearly daily!).
To give quick answers to your specific questions here: you should watch a small number of metrics that answer what is top of mind for your business. With an early stage project you are probably most interested in traffic, conversions and usage. (If that isn't premature - you may still need to be spending more time on qualitative feedback from customers.)
Looking for more? The book is designed to take you from "not sure what to do" to "done" in a half-day, with future-friendly analytics data capture all set up. Oh, and as a bonus, every tool in the stack has a very generous free tier.
The book tells you:
Why me? I've spent the last 8 years in the analytics industry, building scalable, billion-dollar analytics for PlayStation, Rakuten, and a chunk of the Fortune 500.
Sign up here to be notified, and to receive four quick wins and a quick start cheat sheet as freebies: https://signup.analyticsforindies.com
And/or, follow the product here on IH (but the freebies come with your email signup):
https://www.indiehackers.com/product/analytics-for-indies
Sounds like everything I need. I've signed up 👍🏾, when would your book be out? Would you mind showing me an early version?
Thanks for the interest, @tabansi!
The pre-order page is here: https://gumroad.com/l/VgTWn
If you pre-order, I'll send you the current draft right now.
Also, you'll join the beta readers, whose feedback will shape the final release and the post-release add-ons. Also also, you'll get the updates and add-ons for free.
Sound like fun?