“I have analytics(Mixpanel/KISSmetrics) up and running but I’m not sure if I’ve set it up correctly or if it’s actually helping us.”

That’s ok.

Handling growth at a SaaS company can be daunting since the discipline is brand new and evolving rapidly.

One of the major steps to understand how your app is growing or how to make it grow is to have your analytics setup, *correctly*.

How to pick events

There are several great analytics frameworks out there and most of them emphasize one key lesson: *Don’t measure everything.*

Any event that you track should be tied to a goal like “Increase signups”, “Increase product usage” etc.

To make it simple, I’ve created a 2+1 Framework which focuses on picking only 3 metrics based on your goal.

Step 1: List your goals that you’re trying to achieve with your product or marketing.

Increase signups
Increase buyers

Step 2: Each goal should have 3 metrics

One key metric for that stage (final stage of the funnel)
2 supporting metrics (3 total steps in the funnel)

The supporting metrics will be steps in the funnel leading towards the final step which will be the key metric.

Below is how it would look like:

So your funnel for the first goal would look like:

Visited Site > Used Feature X > Signed Up For Trial > Billed

How to name events

You thought picking the events was hard? Well it doesn’t end there.

If you don’t have the correct naming convention, you will end up creating a mess of events in your backend. (#firstworldproblem)

Diana from Segment has showed a great way to name events.

It’s called the “Object-Action” Framework.

UserCreated
UserDestroyed
SubscriptionStarted
SubscriptionCancelled

That looks clean but this doesn’t:

User-created
userdeleted
planstarted
trialcancelled

You get the idea.

One big mistake people make is not separating event names and properties.

An event name should ideally be an action like “SubscriptionStarted.” Any additional information should be added on as properties like “username, useremail, planname, planprice” etc.

Vanity metrics v/s Money metrics

It’s very common while picking events to get confused between vanity events and “money” events.

Vanity events make you feel awesome but mostly don’t add any value. Eg. Pageviews

Money events help you reach your growth goals. Eg. Billed

An easy way to make sure that you are picking the right events is to question why you’re tracking that event and what goal it gets you closer to. (Use the 2+1 framework that I mentioned earlier.)

Recommended Readings

Lean Analytics by Hiten Shah
Diane Smith’s presentation on measuring B2B engagement
AAARR framework by Dave McClure

ps. If you need help with analytics, check out LeakyFunnels ;)