Rocketship Scholars: Introduction to Amplitude
Rocketship Scholars: Introduction to Amplitude
Rocketship Scholars Series: Written by Kristin Bjerregaard
For me one of the most interesting parts of the Unlocking Growth SaaS Trial Rocketship course is the wide range of topics and tools we learn about. Many of these were new to me, such as customer.io and Segment.
One of the tools we used in week 5 was Amplitude, a tool which I was looking forward to learning more about - I am an analyst after all. I had some exposure to Amplitude in the past, but this time I really understood how to use the tool.
Amplitude is a behavioural analytics platform, typically used by product analysts, and enables you to analyse your users’ behaviour. Why not use BI tools such as Tableau or PowerBI you might ask? These tools are excellent for creating insights and dashboards, but Platform tools, such as Amplitude, are superior for real time and behavioural event data. Real time event data is particularly common for e-commerce businesses and organisations operating online. Amplitude also allows you to more easily set up your funnel analysis, user journeys and help you dig into specific steps within the customer journey. Another great advantage of Amplitude is that anyone can set up a free account, ingest data, and create charts and dashboards with unlimited users. The paid plans do include additional features such as predictive analytics and advanced data governance features, which would appeal to larger organisations or those in certain industries such as finance or healthcare. For startups, however, the free plan is a good starting point.
There are other product analytics tools available on the market, such as Mixpanel, which has similar capabilities to Amplitude. I don’t have enough experience yet with both platforms to have a strong opinion, but here is a great article comparing the two. Basically, it comes down to your business model.
In the Unlocking Growth SaaS Trial Rocketship course we used Amplitude to create a funnel dashboard. Once I had connected the data sources to Amplitude and it was receiving events, the tool was very easy to use. I can see how powerful the analytics capabilities are. In other BI tools it would take a considerable amount of time to create a funnel like the one below. With Amplitude this was done in an instant. I would say the real work is what happens:
before the data arrives in Amplitude: Knowing which events to track, and set up the tracking plan correctly, and
after visualising the data: Analysing the results and providing actionable insights
*Source: https://amplitude.com/blog/funnel-analysis-in-five-industries*
One of the great benefits I see from the Unlocking Growth SaaS Trial Rocketship course is that you learn by using real tools and examples, and you can apply your new skills straight away. I know I will be using many of these tools in my new job. And this is a real motivator! Nothing beats knowing that you will be able to apply what you learn!
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