Data is key to building great products. The more you know about how people use your product, the better equipped you are to innovate and refine it. But for product practitioners in the trenches, how (and when) does analysis actually get done? How exactly do top teams analyze their product data?
This report leverages proprietary data from Mixpanel, aggregating over 50B data points from more than 26,000 companies globally throughout 2020 to answer questions like:
- Am I analyzing product data more or less often than the average user?
- Should I explore data in greater depth to uncover trends I may be missing?
- What are the key characteristics of Data-Curious versus Data-Informed users?
- What are my competitors doing with their product data—and how can I keep up?
Most teams have multiple analyzers working with their product data. But how advanced are those users? For this report, we’ll focus on two key types of users:
Data-Curious
These users have added a filter or breakdown to a report on at least 3 but fewer than 30 unique days over the last 3 months. Data informs their product decisions but doesn’t propel them forward in an iterative or systematic way.
Data-Informed
These are the top 10% of users, who have added a filter or breakdown to a report on 30 or more unique days over the last 3 months. Data is the compass for nearly all of their product decisions.
Below, we’ll look at both of these groups to give you a sense of how different people approach product analytics, and what you should strive for. We’ll even look at the data through a few other lenses—company size and industry.
While our State of Product Analytics Report tells us what product leaders care about, this report uncovers what people actually do with their data.
Key findings
Engagement analysis reigns supreme.
Measuring user engagement is done 3x more than any other type of analysis, more than conversion, retention, or other usage analysis. Read more.
Data-Informed users are spontaneous with their data.
Data-Informed users don’t wait for product questions to pile up. They jump in regularly for brief bursts of analysis (in 10-minute increments) that enable quick iteration. Read more.
Startups run, save, and view queries the most often.
Additionally, they run retention analysis more than any other segment. Startups have to make quick decisions and rapidly experiment, and arguably, they stand to benefit the most from using data to guide their business. Read more.
Simple analyses can be incredibly effective.
Answering critical questions doesn’t always require complicated analysis. In fact, the most sophisticated product teams are zooming in on their product data for an average of just 3 segments. Read more.
Cohort analysis and custom properties = better customer experiences.
Data-Informed users save and update cohorts—groups of their most important users—7x more often than Data-Curious users. They’re also twice as likely to use custom events and properties. Such analyses inform decisions across product development, onboarding, and product education. Read more.
Build once, use over and over again.
Across the board, people rely on existing reports over creating new ones. Factors like time, skills, and the reliability of current reporting may influence this preference. Read more.
Read on for a detailed look at how leading companies are using product analytics, from the types of analysis they run to the visualizations they create.
Key takeaways
Save our short version of our full report to understand the key trends we discovered when looking at what people actually do with their data.
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