So much data, not so many data-informed decisions.
Despite the abundance of data available to product teams, only 10% reported being able to validate all of their important product decisions with data.
Across industries, product teams at companies in the B2B space seem to be struggling the most to measure their top focus metrics. eCommerce and Retail came in lowest at 19%, suggesting product teams in this space feel most confident in their ability to measure their top metric, conversion.
One possible reason for this could be that there are more available tools for measuring a widely understood metric like conversion rates. Metrics like engagement, on the other hand, are often uniquely defined across various organizations and are measured differently as well.
Industries struggling to measure the focus metric
(in order of most to least)
Having data is not enough—you need access to the right kind of data.
In fact, 50% of product teams aren’t confident that they have the tools they need to get the right answers. This number shoots up to 74% for novice-level product teams.
Data may be abundant in various forms, but in order for product teams to measure the metrics that matter and drive product innovation, they need a dedicated product analytics solution that empowers them to quickly and reliably self-serve answers.
“Everyone is looking to level up their skillset, toolset, and–most importantly–their mindset. We are seeing more and more ‘data champions’ within our clients’ business. These are the individuals who are not only finding creative ways to share insights across the organization, but are finding meaningful ways to empower others to discover insights on their own.”
—Alex Cohen, Client Partner, Director of Strategy and Transformation, Bottle Rocket
Meanwhile, in Europe...
Access to data was still among the top barriers to making data-informed decisions; mistrust in data was ranked as being of equal importance.
Size matters.
Access to data was a bigger issue in large companies (over 500 employees): 53% struggle with lack of access. Across smaller organizations, that number averages 43%.
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Feeling the pain: consequences of unremoved barriers
When these barriers to measuring key metrics aren’t removed, the consequences are significant. Across product teams at all levels of sophistication, industries, and locations:
“Now is a fantastic time to double down on instrumentation and quantitative data collection, especially as you continue to learn about the new needs of your customers and end-users. That way, as soon as you’ve shipped new functionally to address the new pains that you’ve discovered, you’ll be able to refine and iterate much faster than your competitors can.”
aren’t confident they understand their conversion rates and know where and why users drop-off
aren’t confident they know what brings users back to their product
aren’t confident they understand their customer journeys through their product
aren’t confident they have the ability to measure the impact of their feature launches
Obviously, this is a problem. Conversion and retention are among the top three metrics that product teams care about, and measuring the impact of a feature launch and understanding customer journeys are the top two goals of product teams. Not being able to measure these metrics and answer critical questions ultimately inhibits product innovation and negatively impacts the user experience.
