Pendo: Technical Integration Best Practices

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!

Integrating Pendo.io into your product can seem like a straightforward process, but there are several best practices we learned over a two year engagement working with a large client that should be taken into consideration. 

The "Tip of the Iceberg"

Integrating Pendo.io into your product can seem like a straightforward process, but there are several best practices we learned over a two year engagement working with a large client that should be taken into consideration. This is the second in our series on Product Analytics Integration and Rollout Best Practices, that will dive deep into the technical aspects of the initial Pendo integration. By the end of this post, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to successfully integrate Pendo.

First: Get the Right Team in Place

To get started, make sure you've assembled the right team. In our experiences working across a large client with several business units and many product teams, you will need a minimum of 2 specific roles. You'll need a Product Manager who understands the product well enough to identify what data matters most and can align with your product strategy. You'll need an Engineer who can do the technical integration work (usually a strong Frontend Engineer). These two roles are non-negotiable. Additionally, we recommend ensuring a Senior Leader is engaged who can provide insights into the strategic vision and leadership's needs when it comes to analytics reporting. Another role that can help is a Project Manager, who can help shepherd the integration work initially but will be instrumental in coordinating training and other broader team rollout activities later.

By forming a well-rounded team, you set the stage for a smoother integration process and ensure that all aspects of the project are covered. Each team member brings a unique perspective and set of skills, which collectively contribute to a successful Pendo integration.

Second: Put a Solid Plan in Place

Before you start the technical integration, it's essential to build a strong data and analytics plan. Identify the strategic goals or KPIs related to your product. What questions need to be answered for leadership? For Product Management? Design the ideal reports or dashboards that will help answer these questions. Wireframing can be particularly valuable at this stage to visualize the end product.

Once you have your goals and designs in place, back into the specific product metrics that need to be captured. This can serve as an engineering spec when integrating Pendo and for the Product Manager when configuring it. Having a clear data and analytics plan ensures that everyone is on the same page and that the integration aligns with your overall product strategy.

Third: Get the Data Flowing!

Now that you have your team and plan in place, it's time to get the data flowing. The easy part is integrating the Pendo code snippet. Less straightforward is making other decisions on how to best configure Pendo. Do you have specific HTML identifiers you can dedicate toward analytics instrumentation? Or perhaps you need to exclude specific identifers because they are dynamic in nature? Do you have specific CNAME needs or CSP policies that you need to comply with? etc. These config details will need to be hashed out with your engineer. 

One approach we always recommended with new teams integrating Pendo was to just get the code snippet in as fast as possible to begin capturing the "out of box" data that Pendo automatically collects on integration, even if further work is required by engineering to customize and/or configure. Why? One of Pendo's coolest capabilities is capturing data that can later be identified (tagged), organized, etc. The Pendo marketing folks call it "Retroactive Analytics" - which is true to some extent; by capturing data as quickly as possible, your team will have more to work with in retrospect as you really dive into Pendo tagging and reporting. 

Fourth: Your Metadata is Critical

If you are to take anything away from this post, it should be this: while integrating Pendo is technically straightforward, the biggest challenge we faced was figuring out what additional metadata each team needed in order to achieve their specific product analytics goals. (NOTE: we will devote specific blog posts to each of these topics in the coming weeks) 

Pendo has visitor and account metadata, both of which need careful consideration. Additionally, Pendo's concept of "historical" metadata (attributes updated at the event level) versus regular metadata ("last in, first out") is important to get right. Ensuring that your metadata is accurately populated will enable you to make the most out of Pendo’s analytics capabilities.

Another advanced metadata capability that Pendo offers is its Location API, which enables teams to update the URLs passed into Pendo at the page event level. This can be used to send extra context about the session or the page itself. For instance, you could use the Location API to pass additional user context directly in the URL to Pendo for extra flexibility in segmenting or filtering.

Pendo also has custom events capabilities called Track Events. These are events that engineers need to explicitly instrument into the code, giving even more flexibility to pass additional properties for context. For example, adding Track Events around user search queries or the results they choose can provide Product Managers with extra visibility into how users are interacting with the search UX.

Tying your analytics & reporting needs to the technical metadata captured in Pendo is one of the most important and challenging design considerations we encountered over two years of integrating across 16 distinct product teams. 

If you are to take anything away from this post, it should be this: while integrating Pendo is technically straightforward, the biggest challenge we faced was figuring out what additional metadata each team needed in order to achieve their specific product analytics goals.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we've covered best practices for the technical integration of Pendo, from assembling the right team to ensuring your data flows correctly. However, remember that the technical integration is just the beginning. The real challenge lies in configuring Pendo correctly, focusing on the right data, and embedding product analytics into your team's day-to-day operations.

Upcoming posts will cover technical gotchas to beware of, as well as the more challenging aspects of bringing product analytics to a team or organization. This includes rollout, training, and establishing best practices for the team to develop and cultivate over time. Stay tuned for more insights and practical tips on mastering Pendo integration for your product’s success.