What are Product Analytics Tools?
Product analytics can be defined as the process of analyzing the performance of a product and tracking user actions to improve the quality of any product or service. A product analytics tool enables an organization to collect and analyze data related to the product on a company’s website or application based on session durations, customer acquisition costs, conversion rates, bounce rates, and so on.
With the help of product analytics software, the product team can evaluate user behavior, gain insights into the product’s performance, and meet customer expectations for the product.
How Do Product Analytics Tools Work?
Product analytics tools follow a chronology of steps starting from capturing user actions, followed by visualizing the data and analyzing the insights hence derived. Mentioned below are the steps involved in the working of analytics tools for product managers:
- Capturing User Data: The first step involved in data analytics for products is identifying and capturing user data. The data analytics tools automate data capturing based on different parameters, such as product usage, session recordings, clicks, page views, swipes, and so on.
- Visualization of Collected Data: Following data collection, the acquired information is processed into visual insights by the product analytics platform. By curating a custom dashboard showcasing key metrics, product analytics software provides accessible real-time data insights.
- Drawing Product Insights and Identifying Trends: With the help of data visualization in business analytic software, users can gain product insights, identify issues, find patterns in user interactions, and improve product engagement. Product analytics tools facilitate informed decision-making with real-time updates.
- Making Product Decisions: Once the product insights have been derived, the next step is to make product decisions. Product analytics software allows organizations to leverage the insights derived from data collection, suggest changes, and form decisions to improve product quality and user experience.
- Communicating Insights with Stakeholders: Product analytics tools also enable product managers to share curated dashboards with different stakeholders such as the UI/UX team, product management team, product marketing team, and so on.
Product Analytics Tools Features
Product analytics tools are feature-packed software for performing data analytics and enhancing customer experience. The following are the key features to look out for in product analytics software:
- Data Management: A key feature of product analytics platforms is to collect, filter, and store data related to product and user engagement at a centralized location and offer real-time access to the product team for efficient data management.
- Customer Segmentation: Product analytics software enables data segmentation to divide customers into different groups based on similar characteristics. This helps in studying unique customer behavior and trends over a period and obtaining valuable insights for product marketing.
- Data Visualization: Product analytics software is equipped with data visualization tools to map user information on charts, graphs, and so on. The data analytics products help in creating custom dashboards for easily understanding the performance of a product.
- Engagement Tracking: By providing insights into session duration, click rates, bounce rates, and other user actions, product analytics tools enable engagement tracking. This helps in improving the product quality and enables users to explore untapped features of the product.
- Conversion Tracking: Another important feature of product analysis tools is to track conversions and match results with company goals. This also helps in undermining which product feature draws the maximum customer engagement, conversions, and revenue.
Benefits of Products Analytics Software
Product analytics software helps organizations improve product performance, revenue, and user experience with the help of advanced data analytics. Some of the key benefits of product analysis tools have been discussed below:
- Enhancing Customer Experience: Product analytics platforms help users improve customer experience by tracking customer behavior from start to end. The tools compile data related to product interactions and segment the collected data into different groups.
The insights derived from these groups assist in developing product value, personalizing customer experience, and gaining product feedback.
- Informed Decision-Making: Product analytics tools allow the product team to make data-driven decisions with the help of real-time data access and summarised insights into historical data. This involves making pricing decisions, changing product features, and improving product marketing strategies by addressing potential issues and predicting trends.
By optimizing data analysis capabilities, organizations can streamline resource allocation and solve product development issues effectively.
- Collaborative Efficiency: In the absence of an efficient product analytics tool, it is difficult for different teams to collaborate and communicate challenges faced in product development and marketing lifecycle. Product analytics platforms unify the efforts of different teams and collaborate efficiently.
The tool enables different stakeholders to curate personalized dashboards to track different product metrics and increase operational efficiency.
Top 10 Product Analytics Tools Comparison
Mentioned below is a brief comparison of the best product analytics tools based on their key features and pricing:
Top 10 Product Analytics Tools Comparison |
Softwares | Key Features | Pricing |
Google Analytics | Alerts/notifications, Conversion tracking, Customer journey mapping, Customer segmentation, Data visualization, Funnel analysis, Product data management, Usage tracking/analytics | Price on Request |
Full Story | Add, remove, & manage events, Streamline feedback loop, Retention charting, Journey mapping, Funnels & conversions, Keep sensitive data private | Price on Request |
LogRocket | Conversion tracking, Conditional recording, Data visualization, Engagement tracking, Funnel analysis, Issue management, Usage tracking/analytics | Starting at $69/month |
Mixpanel | Time period comparison, Customizable dashboards, Global filter in dashboards, Anomaly explanations, Total conversions and time-to-convert, Multiple correlation events, properties, and more. | Starting at $24/month |
Amplitude | Data management, Analytics, Unlimited data retention, Predictive analytics, Monitoring & automated insights | Starting at $49/month |
Glass Box | Customer journey tracking, Digital records, Hassle-free and error-cheque writing, Funnel analysis, Heatmaps | Price on Request |
June Analytics | Powerful metrics at your fingertips, Secured collaboration, Compare crawl & staging, Surveys & feedback, Validate/save transactions | Starting at $149/month |
Heap | Sessions, Digital Analytics, Engagement, Standard Event Tracking, Custom Event Tracking, Conversions, Funnels | Price on Request |
Quantum Metrics | Customer segmentation, Conversion tracking, Product data management, Entry and exit pages, Heatmaps and scroll/click maps | Price on Request |
Mouseflow | Campaign management, Value for money, User activity monitoring, Insights & analytics, Showing confirmation emails | Starting at $31/month |
How Do We Evaluate and Select the Best Products Analytics Software for You?
Product analytics software is used by product managers, product marketing teams, product development teams, and user success teams to analyze product performance and user behavior based on key performance metrics. There are various product analytics tools available in the market with different functionalities and features.
We understand that choosing the best product analytics software can be challenging, and to simplify your search we have compared different product marketing software based on key features like user-friendliness, integration capabilities, key performance metrics, and pricing. When evaluating the top product analytics tools, you need to evaluate these features and assess whether the software meets your business requirements.
How to Choose the Right Product Analytics Tools?
Choosing the best product analytics tools for your business requires you to make certain considerations related to the user-friendliness of the tool as well as the business requirements. Mentioned below are the factors to consider when choosing the right product analytics software:
- User-Friendliness: When choosing a product analytics tool for your business, evaluate the ease of use in analyzing data. Consider the functionality of the platform across different departments, such that the tool can be used without any technical knowledge or background. Also, consider the ease of operating the user interface and understanding the dashboard such that the results can be communicated easily with various stakeholders.
- Integrations: Another factor to consider when determining the choice of product analytics tools is the integration it provides with third-party tools and applications. The product analytics platform should integrate seamlessly with your existing product development and marketing tools for seamless data flow and quick data analysis.
- Performance Metrics: Product analytics tools should match the requirements of your business. Consider the different parameters on which the tool operates and the metrics it tracks. In addition, it is important to foresee if the data analytics software filters data as per channel usage, login activities, and other key metrics for in-depth analysis.
How to Use Products Analytics Software?
Using product analytics software follows a series of steps that may vary depending on the software in use. Here is a comprehensive overview of how to use a product analytics tool:
- Establish the goals of your product analysis project and define metrics to attain these outcomes in your product analytics tool.
- Pick the data collection sources and channels, integrate these sources with your product analytics software, and map the user actions against the performance metrics.
- Visualize data into the desirable format and analyze product information over custom dashboards.
- Compare product insights with pre-defined objectives, identify issues, record trends, and form data-driven decisions using the product analytics platform.
- Communicate data insights across different teams with the collaboration tools offered by the data analytics tools.
Modules of Products Analytics Software
Product analysis is performed to analyze different steps in the product life cycle and user journey. Discussed below are the different modules of product analytics tools:
- User-Behavior Analysis: User behavior analysis involves gathering, monitoring, and analyzing user actions captured by product analytics tools. This module provides insights into user behavior, requirements, and challenges.
- Trends Analysis: The trend analysis module of product analytics software analyses future data trends using historical data, real-time insights, advanced data analytics, and product data visualization. Trend analysis helps in estimating resources, defining goals, and identifying opportunities and risks.
- Journey Analysis: The journey analysis module facilitates tracking user journeys over a defined time frame. This module in product analytics software helps in defining user actions and identifying bottlenecks in the user journey.
- Attribution Analysis: The attribution analysis module in product analytics software highlights the touchpoints that contribute to user success in performing a specific action. This can be in terms of form filing, conversion, or a specified session duration.
- Retention Analysis: The retention analysis module evaluates the retention value of a product based on milestones achieved by the customer. This module of product analytics tools provides valuable information related to the recurring use of the product, seasonal influence on retention, and user actions linked to retention.
Implementation of Product Analytics Tools
The implementation process of product analytics tools may vary in complexity from one software to another. The following steps need to be followed to successfully implement product analytics tools:
- After the initial set-up and installation of the tool, integrate the product analytics software with the data collection sources, CRM, data warehouses, and other applications for a seamless data flow.
- Configure the analytics derived from the product analytics tools in the form of ‘tags’, ‘triggers’, and ‘variables’. Create properties for the products you want to analyse, define triggers to record user actions, and parameters to evaluate the performance of a product.
- Visualize the collected data with the help of pre-defined templates or custom dashboards. Make sure that the dashboard of the product analytics software includes all the required performance metrics.
- Establish user access and control rights to prevent unauthorized access to user data in product analytics tools.
- Enable notifications and alert messages to inform you about the changes in data. This will help you in making prompt decisions related to product development and marketing.
How Much Does Products Analytics Software Cost?
The cost of product analytics software depends on various factors including the number of users, number of products, integrations, add-ons, and more. Often, product analytics software is billed in a monthly or annual cycle at a fixed price as per the size of your organization and data volume.
The average starting price of product analytics tools ranges from INR 3000-5000 per month. There are also some free product analytics tools and demo versions available for product analytics software, subject to access limitations and features.