The 10 Best Product Analytics Tools to Enhance Your Product’s Performance

Data. Lots of it, at every step of the user journey, in real time. This has to be a dream come true for every data analyst and a nightmare for every busy product manager. You see, it’s one thing to have every mouse movement and every scroll tracked – and an entirely different thing to know what the intent and expectation behind them was. When presented with data, not everyone will know how to deal with it, how to read the signs, and interpret them correctly. This is why there are product analytics tools. They act as the middleman between the rows and columns of raw numbers and the human being on the other end. Modern product teams rely heavily on great analytics interfaces that present the product data in neat dashboards, ready to be read and translated into data-driven, strategic decisions. Today, we’ll take a look at the best product analytics tools (the top 10, to be precise) that can easily fit into every product team’s daily routine!

What are product analytics tools?

Product analytics tools are software platforms that allow product teams to analyze and understand user behavior within their product or service. They help product managers and other stakeholders to make data-driven decisions, by providing insights into how users interact with their digital products, what features are most popular, and where there are opportunities for improvement.

There are several types of product analytics software tools available, including web analytics tools, mobile app analytics tools, and cross-platform analytics tools. Some product analytics tools are designed specifically for certain types of products, such as SaaS platforms or e-commerce websites. The most common features shared by product analytics tools include user behavior tracking, funnel analysis, retention analysis, A/B testing, and user segmentation – but there are many more. 

Product analytics can be compared to other types of analytics, such as business intelligence and marketing analytics. Business intelligence tools focus on providing insights into the performance of the overall business, while marketing analytics tools focus on understanding the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and channels. Product analytics, on the other hand, is focused specifically on understanding user behavior within a product or service.

While there may be some overlap between these different types of analytics, product analytics software is unique in its focus on user behavior and user experience. There’s also an emerging category of analytics called digital experience analytics that combines different types of product analytics with user experience analytics and even customer experience analytics.

Product analytics tools are indispensable to product teams – here’s why

Product analytics tools are essential across the whole arganization as they provide crucial insights into user interactions. By empathizing with users, you can identify opportunities to improve the overall experience, optimize specific features, and ultimately increase customer retention and revenue.

For engineers, product analytics tools can inform decisions around technical architecture and product development priorities. They can also help to identify and troubleshoot technical issues, such as bugs or slow loading times.

For product managers, product analytics tools can inform decisions around product roadmap prioritization, feature development, and A/B testing. This data-driven approach ensures that the product is meeting the needs and expectations of its users and achieving business goals.

To sum it up, product teams can benefit from product analytics tools in numerous ways, including:

• Gaining insights into how users are interacting with a product or service
• Identifying opportunities to improve the customer experience and optimize features
• Troubleshooting technical issues, such as bugs or slow loading times
• Informing technical architecture and product development priorities
• Making data-driven decisions around product roadmap prioritization, feature development, and A/B testing
• Ensuring that the product is meeting the needs of its users (and achieving business goals at the same time)
• Increasing product adoption, customer retention and revenue
• Staying competitive and deliver a product that meets the needs of its users

So, what are the best product analytics tools to have in your stack right now?

In this section, we’ll take a quick look at the best product analytics tools you can use to streamline your product’s UX analysis processes, screen for usability issues, and find opportunities for growth. We’ll go from the big names in the industry and move on to more niche solutions that can elevate your UX game to stellar performance. Let’s dive right in!

The Big Guys: best product analytics tools for quantitative data

These are some of the most popular product analytics software solutions out there – offering a great mix of quantitative product data, they are a solid home base for any UX explorations you might do. 

Amplitude

Amplitude is a product analytics tool that helps you dive deep into user behavior to optimize your product accordingly. It offers a range of features like user behavior tracking, funnel analysis, retention analysis, and A/B testing. The best part is its (somewhat) user-friendly interface and robust reporting capabilities. 

Mixpanel

When it comes to gaining advanced insights into user behavior, Mixpanel can be a true powerhouse. It provides a wide array of features including user behavior tracking, funnel analysis, retention analysis, and A/B testing. It’s a popular choice among companies looking to understand their users on a deeper level.

Google Analytics

You’ve probably heard of Google Analytics before because it’s one of the most widely used product analytics tools out there. It’s perfect for analyzing website and mobile app performance. With features like traffic analysis and conversion tracking, it’s a go-to tool for businesses of all sizes. Plus, its user-friendly interface and robust reporting capabilities make it super accessible and effective.

Pendo

If you’re looking for a comprehensive product analytics tool, Pendo is worth checking out. It offers a wide range of features including user behavior tracking, product usage analytics, and user surveys. What sets it apart is its ability to track user behavior across multiple platforms and devices. 

Heap

Heap is all about simplicity and ease of use. It’s a user-friendly product analytics tool that offers features like user behavior tracking, funnel analysis, and A/B testing. What’s really cool about Heap is its automatic tracking capabilities, which make setup a breeze.

Unfortunately, all of these options may require your organization to spend big. Some of them offer bearable pricing options even for smaller companies, but in general, to reach the full potential of these tools, you will need to pay for a higher tier. Other limitations include a steep learning curve paired with lots of manual instrumentation. And if that’s not unpleasant enough, you might want to consider occasional delays in data processing and real-time data availability with some of them.

The Cool Guys: best product analytics tools for quantitative & qualitative data

In this category, we’ve collected some of the best product analytics tools that combine quantitative and qualitative data – the kind of tools for a product team that wants to reach God level. The insights you can gain from them will help you get not only a clearer view of what’s happening in your product – but also why it’s happening. 

SessionStack

First up, let us introduce you to SessionStack – the comprehensive digital experience analytics platform that seamlessly blends qualitative and quantitative data. With its deep UX insights and the ability to identify conversion opportunities, SessionStack goes above and beyond the other products on our list by offering pixel-perfect session replay and co-browsing that allow you to truly immerse yourself in your customers’ perspectives.

SessionStack is a platform that eliminates the stress of the product manager’s daily monitoring routine – and supports the whole organization with in-depth insights. No wonder we have earned a consistent 5-star rating on G2!

So, what sets SessionStack apart? It is an all-in-one solution that combines the benefits of web, product, and UX analytics while also offering co-browsing to complete the perfect user journey. Here are some of the standout features:

• Effortlessly capture mouse movements, events, dead and rage clicks, DOM mutations, static resources, JavaScript exceptions, network requests, and browser console calls without any tags or performance impact.
• Enjoy pixel-perfect session replay that leaves no blind spots in the user journey. Now, it has integrated AI capabilities that help you save time and give you insightful tips on user journey optimization!
• Benefit from low-latency co-browsing, empowering your Customer Success team to deliver exceptional support and onboarding experiences.
• Leverage intuitive user segmentation and funnels to filter sessions based on common user attributes, session details, and events, enabling you to identify user trends and measure conversion rates.

The best part? None of these features require any instrumentation as they work with tagless autocapture, making SessionStack a hassle-free solution for your analytics needs. Curious already? We offer a forever $0 plan that gives you 1500 free sessions per month so you can see what we are talking about IRL…

FullStory

When it comes to understanding user experience, FullStory has a lot to offer: features like session replay, heatmaps, and conversion funnels to help product teams dive deep into user interactions. By visually replaying user sessions and analyzing heatmaps, they can pinpointusability issues and areas for improvement.

Smartlook

Smartlook is a great option for smaller businesses and startups that want an affordable behavior analytics tool. Like FullStory, it also provides features like session replays, funnels, and conversion tracking. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate, and the affordable pricing makes it accessible to businesses with limited budgets.

Appcues

If you’re a SaaS company focused on product-led growth, Appcues is worth considering. It’s a platform that combines in-app messaging, surveys, and product analytics. By leveraging in-app messaging and surveys, you can improve user onboarding and customer engagement. And the product analytics capabilities help you paint a fuller picture and make data-driven decisions to drive growth.

Hotjar

Hotjar is a user behavior analytics tool that’s also perfect for small businesses, startups, and larger organizations alike. It offers features like heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys. Its most popular feature is the heat mapping tool that allows UX teams to easily spot trends on specific pages and work from there to devise strategies for improvement.

And if that’s not enough, check out this short list of underrated analytics tools to complete your stack!

To put it in a nutshell…

Every product team has its own needs and requirements, as well as its own approach to data and analytics. In this article, we summed up some of the best product analytics tools – the big names and a few more niche offerings that can help your team upgrade from UX noobs to pros in no time. The result? With the right analytics tools, your organization can boost conversion rates, improve customer engagement, and increase product adoption, ultimately driving growth and MRR at light speed. In case this sounds good (we bet it does!), take a look at SessionStack’s plans here: