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Product analytics tools: Pick your poison.

What is the best way to pick a product analytics tool for your situation?

Mike Watson

Jan 2, 2023

Hello! Mike with Product Party here 🎉. Welcome to the Product Party newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, click the button below to get all the latest updates. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you, and don’t forget to click the comment button below and leave us a comment!

Robot Overlord Joke of the Day

Q: Why did the computer go to the bar?

A: For a byte to eat and a pixel to drink.

Start doing searches on products on any platform, and you’ll pretty quickly get targeted advertising about product tools to add to your tool belt. They’re probably better than the Excel or Powerpoint you’ve been using to maintain your roadmap, but many of them aren’t going to help you tell your story the way you want.

You’ll soon start researching product analytics tools (assuming you don’t have one…or at least one that works for you), and you’ll quickly be overwhelmed by the options. Not every product offering will fit your needs, so you’ll need to do a deep dive to find your best option before you start trying to sell your company on why you should test them out. Here are a few things to consider while you’re on this journey.

1. Sign up for free trials and “kick the tires”

As you poke around and start to see the Pendo or Mixpanels of the world, you we quickly realize how many options there are. Here’s a result of a page reviewing a bunch of them - you can soon find many like this.

Click through and document a few options that might work for you. Maybe you’re in a situation where you need a low code option to add because you’re battling priority with dev resources. Perhaps you need to be able to view certain types of metrics that not every product offers. The best part about many of these products is that it’s free to sign up and go for a trial run. I would recommend signing up, working with your team to add their snippet of code into your product, and feeding some data into the platform to see if the insights are what you want to understand.

2. Get a demo from the vendor

You must ensure your NDA situation is understood before kicking the tires on new analytics platforms, whether at a startup or in a well-established organization.

Once you get messaged or called by the sales folks from these product vendors, you’re ready to have a conversation with them. Once you have the NDA locked in and have had a preliminary call with your new salesperson, highlight all of the insights you’re hoping to achieve with their product and ask for a full product demo. These sales folks aren’t always the best at checking all the boxes and answering your questions, but they won’t know what you need to see unless you are explicit with them.

3. Document the benefits and sell your need for a trial run

Add your decision-making stakeholders onto your sales call, assuming the sales folks know what you are trying to achieve by buying the product. If not, you’re good - document each of the goals you’re trying to achieve and identify what you have seen or read on how this new platform will help you achieve your goals.

You are not always looking to add a full-stop enterprise software license situation with them. You want to be able to start small and ensure the product will work for you and your company.

Once you gain buy-in for everyone who needs to help you pay for a trial (or single license), work with the product as much as you can to determine if it’s the right one. If it is, compile all of your hypotheses about the product along with your product and make the pitch to your leadership team to adopt the product further.

Video of the Day

I found an interesting video with some great ideas around leveraging AI for future products on Brett Malinoski’s channel that you might be interested in. The algorithm is starting to push more content like this my way, and this one is the first I have seen in a while that gave practical application and ways you can string together the tech into products. Check it out.

Podcast of the Day

I stumbled across this great “new year, new you” themed podcast from Hidden Brain that I wanted to share. My favorite part related to product is the idea of capitalizing on the path of least resistance. They give an example where a flip in 401k savings accounts from an opt-in model to an opt-out model increased people’s ability to leverage and save money for retirement dramatically. Here’s a link and a snippet from the description:

It's the time of year when many of us make resolutions for the year ahead. We pledge to quit smoking, eat better, or get more exercise. Then a few weeks go by, and we abandon our best-laid plans. That’s because change is hard. This week, we revisit a favorite 2021 conversation with behavioral scientist Katy Milkman, who shares how we can structure our lives to do what we know is good for us.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics above. Click the follow button to leave a comment. Let’s go!