What to Look For in Your Next Digital Analytics Platform

Is your current solution for managing customer experience not working out? Adopting a new digital analytics platform means facing a big decision: where to go next.

Evaluating a new digital analytics platform raises a host of considerations about everything from value to privacy. These concerns are heightened by a rapidly changing digital world that demands an approach that better reflects how we use digital products and experiences.

The bottom line: Digital analytics platforms are not all the same. To help you cut through the noise, we’ve put together a checklist that covers the major questions to ask about any potential solution.

Will it meet your business goals?

Although marketing and product teams have traditionally relied on disparate digital analytics and customer experience tools, that model has proved inadequate in today’s multi-touch, multi-channel reality. The best solutions offer a unified approach with a holistic view of your customer journey, helping you reach key business objectives such as:

• Driving better outcomes. The ability to use one source for a clear view of customer behavior across channels and platforms helps teams make better decisions that directly impact your business.
• Reducing costs. With only one solution to manage, support, and implement, you save on software integration, support, and engineering costs, as well as data pipeline control and troubleshooting time.
• Streamlining onboarding. One solution means an expedited training process since teams don’t have to learn multiple tools.

That’s one of the main reasons why ecommerce company Haven switched from Google Analytics to Amplitude.

Amplitude stood out, Dan says, because it is committed to capturing the full breadth of analytics.

Will it offer a return on investment?

The right digital analytics platform can do a lot for your organization—and your bottom line—by providing a wealth of data and insights across the full customer lifecycle, from acquisition through monetization and retention. An all-in-one platform offers greater customer long-term value—and more revenue—than tools like Google Analytics, which are only focused on acquisition.

After switching from Google Analytics to Amplitude, the swim app MySwimPro saw increases in revenue per user of up to 70% by experimenting with monetization and pricing. Nick Newell, VP of Engineering at MySwimPro, cites the fast insight and experimentation that comes with Amplitude’s all-in-one solution. The company is just one of many that have seen Amplitude pay for itself: Forrester Consulting found that Amplitude offers a 217% return on investment, with payback in less than six months.

Will it help you make better decisions?

It’s hard to take action when you only have half of the story. But that’s what teams are often forced to do in the absence of tools that give them insight into the full customer journey. For example, if you’re using a marketing analytics platform, you might know where you’re acquiring your customers, but not how—or even if—they’re using your product. Any decisions about the efficacy of your campaigns or the product experience would be tantamount to guesswork.

Leia Schultz of real estate platform Homebot describes her team’s experience using Google Analytics and a patchwork of other solutions this way:

That’s why the company turned to Amplitude, she says, noting that Homebot now has “quantifiable data to back up—or disprove—our hunches and base product decisions on facts instead of opinions.”

Will it protect the privacy of your customers?

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have increased scrutiny of personal data collection. These new regulations have led to the push for internet browsers to eliminate third-party cookies—which digital marketers have traditionally used to identify and advertise to large audiences across the internet—in favor of first-party data to safeguard consumer privacy. This has made it more difficult for platforms such as GA to accurately identify users, know if they are new or return visitors, and attribute campaigns.

Since Haven operates in the EU, it looked for an analytics provider that would store its data there, as mandated by the GDPR—another reason it opted for Amplitude.

In fact, Amplitude has designed our platform and services with privacy in mind so our customers can use the platform in a data-responsible and compliant manner, and rest assured that personally identifiable information (PII) submitted is securely and properly handled.

Will it grow with your business?

A stack of analytics products may be effective—at first. But as you grow, they tend to become more and more unwieldy; the disparate parts don’t always scale or operate in tandem, if at all. These snafus can cost time and money, but most importantly means you won’t be able to meet your customers in the moment, negatively impacting your business. That makes it all the more important to look for a platform that can grow with your organization.

Scalability was a major factor in ThriveMarket’s choice of Amplitude.

Amplitude also recently introduced Amplitude Plus, a self-service offering that enables businesses of all sizes to access the most powerful capabilities of its digital analytics platform.

Will it offer customer support?

Digital analytics is incredibly powerful, unlocking insights that can change the way you create experiences and products. But its power lies in its accuracy, making it incredibly important to get your implementation right. And that’s where customer support comes in.

Support was among Haven’s top criteria when looking for an analytics solution. “I very much wanted to find a vendor we could treat as a partner rather than a supplier,” Dan says. The company found that partner in Amplitude, which guides customers through the entire migration process with its wide-ranging support offerings. Amplitude also offers professional services packages to further alleviate your team’s resources and accelerate business outcomes.

When rebuy, an online marketplace for used electronics and media, migrated to Amplitude, timing was critical. “We could not interrupt ingesting sessions and tracking users,” says rebuy’s Head of Product Hernán García.

Start your move today with the right digital analytics solution

Choosing a new digital analytics platform requires careful consideration, especially as marketing and product analytics converge.

Amplitude’s all-in-one platform is built for this moment, empowering teams to fully understand and quickly activate customer insights to deliver better digital experiences across the entire customer journey. As a single unified platform, Amplitude ensures teams have easy access to everything they need in one place so they can quickly and cost-effectively improve digital products and experiences—and build customers for life.