product-analytics

name	product-analytics
description	Measure what matters with proper event tracking, funnels, cohorts, and metrics. Use when setting up analytics, tracking features, or understanding behavior.
license	Complete terms in LICENSE.txt

Product Analytics

Measure what matters and make data-driven decisions.

North Star Metric

The ONE metric that represents customer value

Examples:
  Slack: Weekly Active Users
  Airbnb: Nights Booked
  Spotify: Time Listening
  Shopify: GMV

Your North Star should: ✅ Represent customer value
  ✅ Correlate with revenue
  ✅ Be measurable frequently
  ✅ Rally the team

Key Metrics Hierarchy

North Star Metric
  ├── Input Metrics (drive North Star)
  │   ├── Acquisition
  │   ├── Activation
  │   └── Retention
  └── KPIs (business health)
      ├── Revenue
      ├── Churn
      └── LTV

Event Tracking

// Track user actions
analytics.track('Button Clicked', {
  button_name: 'signup',
  page: 'homepage',
  user_id: '123'
})

// Track page views
analytics.page('Homepage', {
  referrer: document.referrer,
  path: window.location.pathname
})

// Identify users
analytics.identify('user-123', {
  email: '[e-mail]',
  plan: 'pro',
  created_at: '2024-01-15'
})

Funnel Analysis

Sign-up Funnel:
  1. Land on homepage: 10,000 (100%)
  2. Click signup: 2,000 (20%)
  3. Fill form: 1,000 (10%)
  4. Verify email: 800 (8%)
  5. Complete onboarding: 400 (4%)

Insights:
  - Biggest drop: Homepage to signup (80% lost)
  - Fix: Clarify value prop, add social proof

Cohort Analysis

Week 1 Cohort (Jan 1-7):
  - D1: 80% active
  - D7: 40% active
  - D30: 20% active

Week 2 Cohort (Jan 8-14):
  - D1: 85% active (+5%)
  - D7: 50% active (+10%)
  - D30: 30% active (+10%)

Insight: Onboarding changes improved retention!

Retention Curves

Good Retention:
  - D1: 60-80%
  - D7: 40-60%
  - D30: 30-50%
  - Flattening curve (good!)

Bad Retention:
  - D1: 40%
  - D7: 10%
  - D30: 2%
  - Steep drop-off (bad!)

Key Metrics to Track

Acquisition

• Traffic sources (organic, paid, referral)
• Cost per click (CPC)
• Conversion rate (visitor → signup)

Activation

• Signup → first core action
• Time to value
• Onboarding completion rate

Retention

• DAU / MAU (stickiness)
• Retention rate D1, D7, D30
• Churn rate

Revenue

• MRR / ARR
• ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
• LTV (Lifetime Value)
• LTV:CAC ratio

Referral

• Viral coefficient
• Referral signups
• NPS (Net Promoter Score)

## Tools

```yaml
Event Tracking:
  - Mixpanel (best for products)
  - Amplitude (good alternative)
  - PostHog (open-source)

Session Recording:
  - FullStory
  - LogRocket
  - Hotjar

A/B Testing:
  - Optimizely
  - VWO
  - Google Optimize (free)

Dashboard Design

Executive Dashboard:
  - North Star Metric (big number)
  - Revenue (MRR/ARR)
  - Key metric trends (graphs)

Product Dashboard:
  - Active users (DAU/WAU/MAU)
  - Feature usage
  - Retention cohorts
  - Funnels

Marketing Dashboard:
  - Traffic sources
  - Conversion rates
  - Cost per acquisition
  - ROI by channel

Summary

Great analytics:

• ✅ One North Star Metric
• ✅ Track everything
• ✅ Regular review (weekly)
• ✅ Share insights widely
• ✅ Act on data quickly