Product Analytics
Measure what matters and make data-driven decisions.
North Star Metric
The ONE metric that represents customer value
Examples: Slack: Weekly Active Users Airbnb: Nights Booked Spotify: Time Listening Shopify: GMV
Your North Star should: ✅ Represent customer value ✅ Correlate with revenue ✅ Be measurable frequently ✅ Rally the team
Key Metrics Hierarchy North Star Metric ├── Input Metrics (drive North Star) │ ├── Acquisition │ ├── Activation │ └── Retention └── KPIs (business health) ├── Revenue ├── Churn └── LTV
Event Tracking // Track user actions analytics.track('Button Clicked', { button_name: 'signup', page: 'homepage', user_id: '123' })
// Track page views analytics.page('Homepage', { referrer: document.referrer, path: window.location.pathname })
// Identify users analytics.identify('user-123', { email: 'user@example.com', plan: 'pro', created_at: '2024-01-15' })
Funnel Analysis Sign-up Funnel: 1. Land on homepage: 10,000 (100%) 2. Click signup: 2,000 (20%) 3. Fill form: 1,000 (10%) 4. Verify email: 800 (8%) 5. Complete onboarding: 400 (4%)
Insights: - Biggest drop: Homepage to signup (80% lost) - Fix: Clarify value prop, add social proof
Cohort Analysis Week 1 Cohort (Jan 1-7): - D1: 80% active - D7: 40% active - D30: 20% active
Week 2 Cohort (Jan 8-14): - D1: 85% active (+5%) - D7: 50% active (+10%) - D30: 30% active (+10%)
Insight: Onboarding changes improved retention!
Retention Curves Good Retention: - D1: 60-80% - D7: 40-60% - D30: 30-50% - Flattening curve (good!)
Bad Retention: - D1: 40% - D7: 10% - D30: 2% - Steep drop-off (bad!)
Key Metrics to Track Acquisition Traffic sources (organic, paid, referral) Cost per click (CPC) Conversion rate (visitor → signup) Activation Signup → first core action Time to value Onboarding completion rate Retention DAU / MAU (stickiness) Retention rate D1, D7, D30 Churn rate Revenue MRR / ARR ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) LTV (Lifetime Value) LTV:CAC ratio Referral Viral coefficient Referral signups NPS (Net Promoter Score)
Tools
```yaml Event Tracking: - Mixpanel (best for products) - Amplitude (good alternative) - PostHog (open-source)
Session Recording: - FullStory - LogRocket - Hotjar
A/B Testing: - Optimizely - VWO - Google Optimize (free)
Dashboard Design Executive Dashboard: - North Star Metric (big number) - Revenue (MRR/ARR) - Key metric trends (graphs)
Product Dashboard: - Active users (DAU/WAU/MAU) - Feature usage - Retention cohorts - Funnels
Marketing Dashboard: - Traffic sources - Conversion rates - Cost per acquisition - ROI by channel
Summary
Great analytics:
✅ One North Star Metric ✅ Track everything ✅ Regular review (weekly) ✅ Share insights widely ✅ Act on data quickly