Beta Launch and Measuring Metrics--We will be launching our Beta (Web Platform) in a month or two and I'm trying to set up our metrics dashboard and aquisition tracking.

August 12th, 2013

Right now we are focused on user acquisition and what marketing channels work best. There are tons of products out there, but many seem to overlap and being a startup our budget is tight. More specifically I’m looking for suggestions on:

1. The simplest way to track our “AARRR” metrics and what tools are required? (For example is there a difference in different services like Kissimetrics, SEO MOZ, etc.? Do they provide different data? Since manpower is short and we are so early, should we try and limit the tools?)

2. What tools do you use to test and track your marketing channels and how do you do it? (For example do I need to use the metrics from bitly, mailchimp, social media, etc. and tie it all together?)

3. Any suggestions on a dashboard to monitor all this data (i.e. Geckoboard, Ducksboard is one better than the other? Or do tools like Kissimetrics already provide me that dashboard?)

4. What tools do you suggest for User testing?

Obviously the metrics and tools can easily get out of hand, so looking for some of the most simple plans and suggestions on how others have done it. Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide.

Best,

Mark

Jay Cahill Tech Advisers Network - WPI School of Business at Worcester Polytechnic Institute

August 12th, 2013

Hi Mark -

Been involved with quite a few analytics projects in my day. Not specific to the products and tools you use - they're a boat load out there - you may want to validate your approach before you get lost in the tool shuffle. Here's my collection of 10 tips that I've found effective:

1.) Make sure you have your business goals identified before you start spec'ing you systems.

2.) Align your reporting to how your going to measure the business goal.

3.) Identify the Trackable events in your product(s). Track everything you can - but do not report on everything.

4.) Define your starting point (ie. Jan 1, 2013, or Version 1.0, etc.)

5.) Identify your standard compare periods (Yesterday, 1 week ago, 1 month ago, 1 Quarter ago, etc.)

6.) Pick the tools to best support your needs that are adaptive to when your needs change (they will)

7.) Assign a each reporting metric to someone for accountability

8 .) Allow time for a trend to have developed before making rash decisions.

9.) Regularly report & review only on items relevant to the current goals.

10.) Check that your business goals are still your business' goals.

Its easy to get lost in the mass of data. Hooking up and collecting data is relatively easy - making sure you report and analyze on the right data is what can be tricky.

Have fun!

jay

Konstantin Filatov CTO, Co-Founder at FlyEasy Corp.

August 12th, 2013

Hi Mark, This is a quick reply. We used: Google Analytics - for tracking demographics , geo locations, traffic sources; MixPanel - for tracking custom events, e.g mouse rollover on UI elements/menus, etc... Inspectlet - great for tracking heatmaps, cursor movements and scrolls - this only makes sense for non-mobile version. All of these tools wirked great and really helped a lot.

Jonathan Vanasco

August 12th, 2013

This is also a quick reply...

1. I find it best to overload on what you initially track, and then pare down. Typically a mix of Google Analytics (w/custom vars & events) , Charbeat, mixpanel and whatever else is free/cheap -- then adding in some backend stuff. If you do a bit of research before diving in, you can construct the analytics in a general way so that adding new services is trivial. also you should look into the topics of "events" and "conversion funnels"

4. Assuming you mean "user acceptance testing": for global user behaviors, I liked CrazyEgg, which gives the visual heatmaps. One-on-one was mostly interviews and screencapture.

James Cavalier Helping mobile marketers maximize ROI | James@Liftoff.io

August 12th, 2013

Hi Mark, If you are looking for a great way to track mobile and buy mobile media, look at Apsalar.com. We have free analytics and attribution. Plus, the most powerful DSP and RTB ad platforms for iOS and Android with almost a billion mobile app users in data! James

Janelle Maiocco

August 12th, 2013

THX Mark for the Question - happily eavesdropping.

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