Good point Corinna. That's a hard topic actually because tagging the right analytics can take as much time than building some part of it... Also since you mentioned the North star it's good to see what is happening for real. I work in a startup that I think is blinded by it's north star, and some said this as well --> https://brianbalfour.com/essays/north-star-metric-growth
Anyway, curious to read your progress on building a comprehensive topic. This is needed beyond product, but also UX peeps
Great post, completely agree with the lack of content out there on product analytics - majority of it is "How to break into Product Management" then it seems like once you've made that leap, that's where the content ends.
Curious to hear your thoughts or tips on how you would go about selling Product Analytics into a business that doesn't yet have these systems set up, or better still, doesn't understand the benefits?
Hey Jamie, I have recently launched my first ebook on the topic of product analytics to fill the content gap that is still there today (!) - you can download it here if you're still looking to upskill your fellow PMs 😃 https://www.insightsdrivenpm.com
I so agree Jamie! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Historically (and I also think because of that lack of knowledge in PMs), data analytics ownership and knowledge often sits mainly with an insights and analytics team within the org, very far away from the product team..
That is a very good question. From my experience, it's best to start with a metric the business (hopefully) understands well - the business goal which is typically a financial goal. But rather than having to wait for the yearly financial reports to find out whether we did well (or not), we need to be able to find some earlier indicators that will hopefully lead to the financial goal. This is where the product metrics come in, e.g. our goal could be to have our customers use this key feature at least once a week, as we know from our data that they are more likely to stay a long term paying customer.
So one way to explain the value of product analytics to a business that worked from my experience is to show how it ties in with the financial / business goal, and that it will allow the organisation to take early action if we can see in the analytics that we're not on track.
Keen to hear your experiences if you have any other tips to share :)
This post is perfectly timed for me! We recently launched a new product, and we have all the tools in place, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Metabase, other things. We have all this data that we look at, and maybe talk about a bit. I was literally just discussing with the team that we need to be more focused and intentional when looking at our data - we need to analyse and analyse for a reason!
Great Post! Product Analytics is definitely a key to develop better product features. I am not sure if PM has capacity to do analytics role themselves. Otherwise, they can rely on Data Analytics team to generate insights. This is what I have experienced at Insurance industry in Australia.
Hey Anik, thanks so much for your feedback! 🤗Depending on the team make up and product it might not always be feasible for the PM to do all the analysis themselves you're right!
However I strongly advocate for the PM to develop a deep understanding and integrate analysts in the company closely into their product teams. If the analytics teams are working in a silo, they often lack context of the products and miss out on the close feedback loop (i.e. it's important for the analysts to know what the team is working on and what the product strategy is to make sure they can deliver the most useful insights).
Good point Corinna. That's a hard topic actually because tagging the right analytics can take as much time than building some part of it... Also since you mentioned the North star it's good to see what is happening for real. I work in a startup that I think is blinded by it's north star, and some said this as well --> https://brianbalfour.com/essays/north-star-metric-growth
Anyway, curious to read your progress on building a comprehensive topic. This is needed beyond product, but also UX peeps
Great post, completely agree with the lack of content out there on product analytics - majority of it is "How to break into Product Management" then it seems like once you've made that leap, that's where the content ends.
Curious to hear your thoughts or tips on how you would go about selling Product Analytics into a business that doesn't yet have these systems set up, or better still, doesn't understand the benefits?
Hey Jamie, I have recently launched my first ebook on the topic of product analytics to fill the content gap that is still there today (!) - you can download it here if you're still looking to upskill your fellow PMs 😃 https://www.insightsdrivenpm.com
I so agree Jamie! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Historically (and I also think because of that lack of knowledge in PMs), data analytics ownership and knowledge often sits mainly with an insights and analytics team within the org, very far away from the product team..
That is a very good question. From my experience, it's best to start with a metric the business (hopefully) understands well - the business goal which is typically a financial goal. But rather than having to wait for the yearly financial reports to find out whether we did well (or not), we need to be able to find some earlier indicators that will hopefully lead to the financial goal. This is where the product metrics come in, e.g. our goal could be to have our customers use this key feature at least once a week, as we know from our data that they are more likely to stay a long term paying customer.
So one way to explain the value of product analytics to a business that worked from my experience is to show how it ties in with the financial / business goal, and that it will allow the organisation to take early action if we can see in the analytics that we're not on track.
Keen to hear your experiences if you have any other tips to share :)
This post is perfectly timed for me! We recently launched a new product, and we have all the tools in place, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Metabase, other things. We have all this data that we look at, and maybe talk about a bit. I was literally just discussing with the team that we need to be more focused and intentional when looking at our data - we need to analyse and analyse for a reason!
Oh that's great to hear, thanks so much for sharing your feedback Adam! It's awesome you're advocating for more focus in your team!
I actually decided to dedicate an articles series on this topic - first one came out just this morning in case this helps with your discussions 🙌 https://productandsystems.substack.com/p/product-analytics-series-stop-lying
My next one in draft is also talking a lot about the lack of focus so you're spot on, it's a common pain point for teams!
Great Post! Product Analytics is definitely a key to develop better product features. I am not sure if PM has capacity to do analytics role themselves. Otherwise, they can rely on Data Analytics team to generate insights. This is what I have experienced at Insurance industry in Australia.
Hey Anik, thanks so much for your feedback! 🤗Depending on the team make up and product it might not always be feasible for the PM to do all the analysis themselves you're right!
However I strongly advocate for the PM to develop a deep understanding and integrate analysts in the company closely into their product teams. If the analytics teams are working in a silo, they often lack context of the products and miss out on the close feedback loop (i.e. it's important for the analysts to know what the team is working on and what the product strategy is to make sure they can deliver the most useful insights).