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Do They Use vs. Google Analytics and alike tools

Do They Use and Google Analytics apps are not competitors. They work together. For example, this website has both Google Analytics and Do They Use apps enabled. These apps are for different purposes.

Google Analytics-alike tools (Google Analytics, Heap.io, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Smartlook and similar) help us to convert our visitors to buyers, to customers, to users. Keywords for such tools identification: conversions, cohorts, retention, revenue, funnels, leads, events, aquisition, engagement, monetization, page views, scrolls, sessions, etc. — this is what these apps focus on.

But once visitors are converted, once they bought our digital product and started using it, there's nothing to convert anymore. Since that moment all we want — is to increase lifetime value both for and from our customers.

One of the ways we can do it — is by providing great UX/CX/PX in our apps. And this is where Do They Use app comes in: it helps us to build delightful UX/CX/PX for the customers who already buy from us, who already use our products. It does that by providing development teams with quantitative data analysis for their digital Products. Keywords for such tools identification: elements usage, features usage, users who most / least use this element / feature, users that never use an element / feature, elements that have never been used by specific group of users, element / feature adoption, frequency of use for element / feature, etc.

Google Analytics-alike tools are used mainly before the purchase of our app or product and are used much less after the purchase. They optimize for a purchase. Do They Use app is used mostly after purchase of our app or product and much less before the purchase. It optimizes for delight, for upsales, for repetition of purchases. That's why Marketing tools are mostly for "before purchase" (or choose to use) phase, and Product tools are mostly for "after purchase" phase. And that's why the name of the app: Do They Use. All Product tools could have been named "Do They Use?"-tools. While Marketing tools could have been named "Do They Convert?"-tools.

Google Analytics — is for Marketing

Google Analytics — is a tool for Marketing and Product Marketing analytics. It helps teams to understand if there any visitors on website, where do they come from (both geographycally and from any referring web resource), how much time do they spend on web site, do they visit links in the menu, do they "convert" and how much, etc. It helps teams to make Product Marketing decisions.

Google Analytics helps to get answers on the questions like:

  • Do we have visitors on our website and mobile app?
  • If yes, which pages or screens do they visit? And how many times?
  • How many visitors?
  • How much time do they spend on each page?
  • Did they view the page, did they scroll?
  • Which page to page paths do they usually navigate?
  • Do they "convert" (signup, buy, download, leave a email, etc.)? And how many? What is conversion rate?
  • Where do they come from (organic search, advertisements, social networks, etc.)?
  • Where do they come from (country, city)?
  • What platforms do they use (desktop, tablet, smartphone)?
  • What browsers do they use?
  • What is their screen resolution size?
  • What is about engagement?
  • etc.

This information helps teams to optimize their apps and services for the puproses they were created:

  • convert visitors into users / customers / players (buy, download something, leave an emeail, etc.);
  • connect customers with Support / Sales / HR;
  • provide visitors with open job positions;
  • provide visitors with more information about the company.

Do They Use — is for UX/CX/PX

Do They Use — is an app for Product Management and Product Development. It helps teams make product decisions to do what matters from Product and UX/CX/PX points of view. Do They Use helps teams to get answers on questions "what to develop next and why" based on their app real usage data.

Do They Use app helps to get answers on the questions like:

  • Do they use all webpage or app elements?
  • Which elements do they use most often?
  • Which elements they never use?
  • Which elements do most of the users use? Which ones are barely used by anyone?
  • What options do they choose most often? Which ones they never choose?
  • Does our new feature or web element gets traction? How it goes live?
  • What elements need our attention (because of too high or too low usage)?
  • What elements started to have anomaly of usage: too high or too low usage? Maybe we released some bug and now we have such anomaly there?
  • Who of them actually uses this? Are they real buying customers or they are just free trial users, leads, your employees or simply visitors?
  • etc.

Development teams get the insights on what could be improved in the app based on real usage data that helps to grow the business as well. They don't just optimize. They optimize for the categories of customers they see really use the app. It helps to understand if users use all the elements on each screen of the app, how much do they use and who of them namely. It helps to understand which options (radio, checkbox, dropdown list, file, range, etc.) are selected the most, which controls are most popular and which not.

This information helps teams to get rid of elements and options that never being used and to focus optimization of UX/CX/PX for the different kinds of users and users groups to grow the business:

  • already buing customers;
  • free users who eventually convert to buying customers;
  • free users who never convert to buying customers, but who ambasador and advocate for the app and help to bring more new buying customers.

Examples of areas of application

So, Product Analytics could be done differently, but in general there are two major domains there: Marketing and Product. Below are examples for Marketing and Product for different software development branches: GameDev, SaaS, Banking, Payments, Music, etc.

Games Development

As an example here I've chosen BrawlStars game (made by Finnish company Supercell) because we play it with my 9-year old niece. This is a multiplayer online battle arena and third-person hero shooter video game which is available both for iOS and Android.

Released worldwide on December 12, 2018, the game was nominated for "Mobile Game" and "EE Mobile Game of the Year" at the 15th British Academy Games Awards.

In 2020, Brawl Stars had the second highest gross of any mobile game in Europe. It grossed $526M in total in 2020, which accounted for more than half its life time revenue. It was also the fourth game by Supercell to surpass $1B in lifetime revenue.

Product Analytics: Marketing

On a Brawl Stars game website Google Analytics is used for Marketing analysis: to get to know visitors audience better and optimize UX/CX for them:

Brawl Stars marketing website

Examples of Marketing questions to answer:

  • What is the fraction of Mac and iOS visitors click on "App Store" link? What is a "Visitor to Player" conversion rate for this specific category of visitors?
  • Are we OK with this conversion rate for Mac and iOS visitors? Does this conversion rate meets our KPI's for this web site?
  • If it doesn't meet our KPI's, what can we do? What are the insights for improvements?

Product Analytics: PX

In a Brawl Stars game app Product Analytics tools are used to get to know users better, define different categories of users and optimize UX/PX for each user category separately:

Brawl Stars game screen

Examples of Product questions to answer:

  • What is the fraction of buying players who click on "Menu" icon in the top-right corner? Do they use this element?
  • Give me UserID's of those players who use the "Menu" button? I want to investigate why do they use it, what job to be done they hire this button to do.
  • Give me UserID's of players who used the "Menu" button less than 3 times during last 3 months? I want to investigate why they don't use it.

Software as a Service

I've chosen GitHub as an example here because I use it and I like it. More than that, this web-site is hosted by GitHub Pages right now.

GitHub — is an Internet service made for software development and version control based on Git SVC. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project.

As of January 2023, GitHub reported having over 100 million developers and more than 372 million repositories, including at least 28 million public repositories. It is the largest source code host as of November 2021.

Product Analytics: Marketing

GitHub. On SaaS service website Marketing Analytics tools (like Google Analytics) are used to get to know visitors audience better and optimize eXperience for them:

GitHub marketing website

Examples of Marketing questions to answer:

  • What is the fraction of Visitors convert to Customers signing up from this page? What is a "Visitor to Customer" conversion rate for web page visitors?
  • Are we OK with this conversion rate? Does this conversion rate meets our KPI's for this web site?
  • If it doesn't meet our KPI's, what can we do? What are the insights for improvements?

Product Analytics: UX

In GitHub account Product Analytics tools are used to get to know users better to optimize UX for them:

GitHub service website

Examples of Product questions to answer:

  • What is the fraction of users who click on "Settings" wheel icon near "About" section? Do they use this element at all?
  • Give me UserID's of those users who use this "Settings" icon? I want to investigate why do they use it, what job to be done they hire this icon to do.
  • Give me UserID's of users who used the "Settings" icon 1 time or less during last 3 months? I want to investigate why they don't use it.

Other digital Products categories

This section is just to show you the appliance of all the above in another different software development domains and apps and services.

Product Analytics: Marketing

Google Analytics-alike tools are used to optimize UX/CX for such kind of digital products:

Stripe marketing web-site:

Stripe service website

Spotify marketing web-site:

Spotify service website

Raiffeisen marketing web-site:

Raiffeisen service website

Product Analytics: CX

DoTheyUse-alike tools are used to optimize UX/CX/PX for such kind of digital products:

Stripe service web-site:

Stripe marketing website

Spotify service web-site:

Spotify marketing website

Raiffeisen service web-site:

Raiffeisen marketing website