How Product Managers can get to Real Answers with Product Analytics

Are you considering integrating Pendo into your organization, or are you in the midst of these challenges? Leveraging Pendo's powerful product analytics can transform the way you understand and engage with user data to make informed decisions. For product leaders and managers, mastering product analytics is imperative to achieve success in today's competitive market. Interested in exploring this together? Let's chat!

Introduction

Today’s most successful Product Managers excel at addressing challenging strategic questions regarding their product's true performance. They deliver insightful answers confidently by effectively utilizing product analytics reporting that has been intentionally designed. This blog post explores how Product Managers can get to the "real" answers they must be able to answer by maximizing their use of Pendo for strategic purposes, by employing a top-down design approach.

Today’s most successful Product Managers excel at addressing challenging strategic questions regarding their product's true performance.

What Do We Mean by "Real" Answers?

Before we jump in, let's clarify what we mean by "real" answers. In the context of product analytics, real answers are quantified views into various aspects of your product that specifically address the most important product questions that need to be answered, whether it's for leadership, for the Product Manager themself, or stakeholders. "Real" answers provide a clear understanding of what users actually do in the product, rather than assumptions based on gut-feel or market expertise. Getting to "real" answers is crucial for making data-driven decisions that align with user behavior and needs.

So how do you get to the "real" answers with Pendo? Here's a simple top-down framework to try out:

1. First, start with your product questions
2. Next, wireframe your strategic reporting
3. Then build your metrics specification
4. Next, build your reports
5. Finally, answer your product questions 

First, Start with Your Product Questions

The first step in getting to real answers is to identify the strategic questions of which you need answers. This involves collaboration between Product Management and leadership to come up with a list of key questions that can be answered using product analytics data.

For example, you might want to know:

- What does adoption look like across various segments of users?
- What does the conversion look like for our membership sign-up and purchase flow?
- How are users engaging with our new features?

These are examples of essential questions that can guide your product development and marketing strategies. Having a clear list of questions ensures that your analytics efforts are focused and purposeful. 

Next, Wireframe Your Reporting

Once you have your questions, the next step is to imagine what an ideal dashboard or set of reports would look like. This involves wireframing your reports to visualize the data story you want to tell.

Consider the following:

- Who will be the primary audience or users of your reporting? 
- What would you start your story with? High-level aggregate counts or rolled-up KPIs?
- What kind of visualizations would be most effective? Simple snapshot counts or daily trends?

By wireframing your reports, you can outline the structure and order of the analytics you will feature. This helps you think through the types of visualizations you need to create valuable and insightful reports.

Build Your Metrics Specification

With your wireframes in hand, it's time to build a specification of the data points or metrics that need to be captured via Pendo in your product.

For each analytic, consider:

- What event data do you need? Clicks on specific UI elements? Visits to certain pages?
- How will you filter or segment your reports? By customer segments, active vs. disengaged users?

Defining these metrics and metadata ensures that you capture all the necessary data to answer your strategic questions. This step is crucial for setting up robust and comprehensive analytics.

Build Your Reports

Once your metrics data is flowing, you can start building the analytics components of your ideal reports. Use Pendo's dashboard features and out-of-box reporting components, or leverage Pendo's Data Explorer report for more custom views.

Pendo is continuously enhancing its features, so always stay updated with the latest improvements. Building your reports is where the magic happens, turning raw data into actionable insights.

Answer Your Product Questions

With your reports in place, you can now answer the strategic questions you set out to explore. This is where communication and transparency come into play. Share your findings with your team and leadership, discuss the insights, and determine the next steps.

Effective communication of data and insights ensures that everyone is on the same page and can make informed decisions based on real answers.

By following these steps, you can ensure that your product decisions are always backed by solid, data-driven insights.

Conclusion

This top-down approach to designing your product analytics reporting keeps you focused on your product strategy. By starting with key questions, wireframing your reports, defining metrics, and building insightful dashboards, you can uncover real answers that drive your product forward. By following these steps, you can ensure that your product decisions are always backed by solid, data-driven insights. This not only helps in better understanding user behavior but also aligns your product strategy with actual user needs and expectations.

Try this approach and see how it transforms your product analytics approach. If you have any questions or need advice, reach out, and let's have a conversation about how to get the most out of Pendo and product analytics in general.