Disclaimer: I am no expert in product analytics and definitely not claiming to be. I did spend the last 5 years playing with a lot of different analytical tools and made a lot of mistakes. With this post I hope other people can avoid some of those.

While most startup books and marketing series talk about being '

', I've come to understand that it's easier said than done. 

I've done my fair share of product analytics and I have found myself trying to convince people that the only way the project could be successful if we would 

, became a segment.com product expert and have used over 30 integrations 

Here are some things I learned to get better at (product) analytics:

Let me know if you have any other important tips I can learn from.

Look at all these cool/powerful reports we can make

Before you think about tracking or product analytics, try to define the thing you want to measure as simple as possible. 

. I recommend to formulate it in a question format:

When we started out we had different integration code for Mixpanel, Customer.io and other platforms we wanted to send data to. Which meant that we had to maintain those tracking calls separately.

Customer.io Tracking call - Mixpanel Tracking call

Note that the more integrations you use (we currently use 6) the more code you need to maintain. Abstracting this all in one tracking language/standard was the main reason for switching to segment (using 

) will translate that payload into the format your integrations require. 

Install a consistent naming scheme for your events. We stick with the following rules:

Don't use event names if you can use event traits

Regardless of which integrations you have enabled there is always a limit on the number of events you can use. 

 so at some point you're going to hit limits.

That's why you'll find yourself balancing when to use a dedicated event vs adding more context in the tracking payload.

But that decision also depends on which integrations you have enabled. While Intercom only allows setting up automation based on the event name, other tools like Customer.io are much more powerful.

Mixpanel allows you to use that tracking payload to 

Most tracking libraries (as well as analytics.js) will start tracking data right away based on page paths or routing changes (SPA libs). That means that you immediately have interesting data to use.

I learned that this data is oftentimes not that trustworthy or useful:

That's why today we're not tracking or using any page() calls in the app anymore but rather use our own events.

Most SaaS businesses have the concept of one account that is linked multiple user accounts. When we started using product analytics all events and tracking properties could only be linked to the user entity and thus also every report was tied to a user.

To work around this we found ourselves adding grouping tracking properties to the user analytics payload:

These properties allowed us then to create reports for all trials` or grouping certain reports by company...

There is a better way to do it and that's using group() calls which is much more inline with most SaaS businesses` user/grouping model.

This way we're splitting up user and company properties in their own calls:

 and while most integrations have caught up make sure to double check that your integration supports group() calls. It makes product analytics so much easier!

You can't fully count on client side tracking calls for important reports. That is because: 

That's why we're using a mix of server side and client side calls. Important calls like 'Trial Account Activated' are triggered both on the server and the client to make sure that any automations also trigger for people that don't want tracking.

I have yet to see a company with a clean tracking plan. As time goes by people add tracking properties, rename certain traits or create events that are not named properly. What about 'test' events?

That's why I'd suggest creating some kind of tracking document (

) to keep track of your events and user/company traits.

Bonus points for keeping some kind of status to deprecate/clean up old events and getting everyone to use this!

For any business to embrace data driven decision-making, your team needs to understand what's going on and be able to make better calls using data.

Here are some things I do to encourage people to use data:

Even if you do all of the above, it's not a guarantee that people in the company will take data as serious as you want them to.

While most analytics platforms require you to load their javascript/sdk on your page I  strongly recommend making the tracking components part of your build pipeline. This will bundle all analytics interactions as part of the main application and will be much more reliable. 

In combination with that, you can proxy your analytics calls. This will turn third-party tracking calls (to external domains) to a first-party XHR call similar to how most applications interact with their API making it practically impossible to block by browsers or blocking extensions.

Because we're doing an extensive feature audit I am going to write more about the different ways we use product analytics to make roadmap decisions. In absence of a subscribe box you can 

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Lifelog

Disclaimer: I am no expert in product analytics and definitely not claiming to be. I did spend the last 5 years playing with a lot of different analytical tools and made a lot of mistakes. With this post I hope other people can avoid some of those.

10 tips for better product analytics

 my phone usage was messing with my mood I've been trying to limit my phone usage with mixed success. 

Telling people about what happened most reactions were something like

Sounds like a you problem, not a phone problem

It feels like you just have a problem regulating your own usage.

Which I would agree with. But for me the easy way out would be to not carry that device in the first place. It's like I'm constantly carrying a heroine/crack/pinball machine in my pocket.

A colleague compared it to an alcohol addiction: The first step is to admit you have a problem and start owning it. But to train new habits the next weeks would be a whole lot easier if the fridge wasn't filled with cold beers 🍻.

After the weekend I left my phone at home which was easier than expected. I did learn the hard way about some things I need my phone for:

My first idea was to figure out if these things can be solved with other devices.

Here is a list of stuff I considered buying to replace some of the functions listed above:

With this I was replacing one device (Android phone) with about 1500-2000$ other hardware doing exactly the same 🤯. 

Most high-end smartphones would be support all of these functions and more cost-efficient. So what if I do keep my phone for pure essentials? I started analysing my behaviour (digital wellbeing app in Android) together with taking notes about my mood.

For the last category I found that sometimes an hour flew by just doom scrolling my phone leaving me in a bad mood (something along the lines of '

This also affected the total hours of sleep as it was harder to catch sleep or I just stayed up too late. 

What would be the best way to keep my phone usage to everything in the 'good' category and preventing me from using it to do anything else?

Both android and IOS have extensive tools on restricting phone usage. I decided to uninstall all apps in the bad/ugly category and only allow the apps that are good for me.

For everything else I set the timer to 0 minutes/day and asked my daughter to choose/remember the unlocking pin code so I could not cheat.

Because <a href="https://www.lifelog.be/i-forgot-my-phone-at-an-airport-and-its-the-best-thing-that-happened" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">I learned the hard way that</a> my phone usage was messing with my mood I've been trying to limit my phone usage with mixed success.

Can I get rid of my phone?

Because I learned the hard way that my phone usage was messing with my mood I've been trying to limit my phone usage with mixed success.

Annelies and I had planned a last-minute four-day road trip through the Spanish Pyrenees to see what it would be like living there.

As we lost a lot of time in the airport (instructions on where to go in Charleroi Airport are terrible), we were caught queuing while we heard the last call for passengers to Santander Airport. You know it's not a good sign if they start calling out your name from the airport speakers.

In a last-minute rush to try and make the flight, we raced through the security checkpoint and managed to make it on the Boeing right before they closed the door. 

With my heart racing at 140bpm, I found my seat trying to ignore the evil looks from the other passengers. As I had to put my luggage in the overhead compartment, I took out my headphones and checked my pockets for my phone.

After checking with Annelies, I realised I didn't know where my phone was. While the stewards provided safety instructions, we dialed my number to check: 'Hello security?' 

It turns out that I left the phone in one of the plastic trays at the security scan. Good luck convincing the security officer to move heaven and earth to try and get the phone on the plane. 😃

The first thing that raced through my mind was the Covid Safe app to go through customs in Spain. Luckily we had generated and printed the Spanish tourist document that included a step regarding what they call 'the health passport.'

The first 24 hours in Spain, I felt like a part of me was missing. So many small interactions where I would typically have taken out my phone: Reconnecting to the mobile network while being taxied to the gate, checking social media to pass the time in a queue, or just taking a picture.

Because of the lack of dopamine kicks, I noticed that I was a little moody the first night wondering what I would have missed while trying to convince myself that a holiday without a phone would be hard. 

In the following days, I started to feel much calmer and less anxious. I realised it had been over ten years of being close to a mobile device in one way or another and I have developed some unhealthy habits.

After that, my mood just got better and better. Fair enough, that can also be explained by the beautiful landscapes or the fact that we had a long weekend only having to take care of ourselves for the first time in five years. :-)

Spending so much time together, I became annoyed by everyone else's phone usage. And even though Annelies has a much more healthy attitude towards her phone, I still find it noticeable how big of a role that phone plays in our daily lives: Voice/video calls with the kids, reading up about changes of rules around wearing masks at schools, or just browsing the web to find tips on what to visit or where to eat. 

Even now on the flight where I write this, the guy to my left is playing on his Switch while the guy on the right is browsing/typing in WhatsApp, although we don't have internet service on the flight. The sad part: we didn't even say hello. 

In half an hour, we're going to land in Charleroi Airport and I'm about to head to lost and found to retrieve my phone. I will try and keep it powered off for a few more days while I figure out what my world would look like without my phone. 

Annelies and I had planned a last-minute four-day road trip through the Spanish Pyrenees to see what it would be like living there.

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Can I get rid of my phone?

I forgot my phone at an airport and it's the best thing that happened!

10 tips for better product analytics