Certainly one of my principal jobs as a product supervisor is prioritization, which regularly means telling folks “no, not now.” Tackling each new characteristic or design change without delay is unattainable, however justifying “nos” with information will lend credibility to these selections.
Since April 2021, I’ve been the Senior Product Supervisor for Showcase IDX, the main IDX WordPress plugin for actual property that permits realtors to show native MLS listings immediately on their web sites. eXp World Holdings acquired Showcase IDX again in 2020 to make use of the IDX expertise to enhance the search expertise for his or her world on-line brokerage eXp Realty.
The engineering and product groups regularly work to refine our person’s general search expertise—from property searches, evaluating choices, and requesting extra info—and assist them in the end discover a house they love.
Knowledge sits on the coronary heart of this exercise. In my work as a product supervisor, I closely lean on my background in information warehousing and analytics. I dealt with large-scale information at unimaginable corporations like Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, and Rogers, which gave me a novel perspective on information use inside huge, advanced organizations. At Showcase IDX, I knew we had to make use of information to unravel a looming drawback – retention – and establishing the correct instruments and information tradition was essential.
The restrictions of Google Analytics and SQL
A key objective of Showcase IDX is to drive development in net site visitors for eXp Realty. To do this, we would have liked to extend our shopper retention charges. Sadly, we couldn’t decide the perfect methods to vary our product to spice up retention.
We primarily used Google Analytics for front-end journey monitoring, and SQL queries to question our backend databases, and each choices had limitations. On the time, Google Analytics solely allowed us to see high-level metrics reminiscent of web page views, and SQL queries have been advanced for a non-technical person making an attempt to realize insights. We additionally couldn’t observe person actions in actual time or comply with them by your entire buyer journey. What steps did customers take after initiating a search? Which customers dropped off the funnel after that? We couldn’t drill deeper into behavioral relationships to find out which options mattered probably the most, leaving us with huge blind spots.
When product groups don’t have a approach of surfacing insights, it’s laborious to determine a path ahead.
We didn’t have a approach of surfacing the data we would have liked, and with out that, we might solely be guessing at what to strive subsequent, and what was working.
A transparent selection for higher performance
Showcase IDX wanted a product analytics platform that might assist our experimental strategy with well timed and correct insights. Past that, we knew sharing capabilities can be important for partnering with key stakeholders and enhancing confidence in our forecasts. Not solely would this construct belief in our product growth course of, however it could direct higher funding selections and prioritize the correct initiatives shifting ahead.
We thought-about investing extra in our present instruments, however since this was important to our strategic development plan, we determined to guage different choices in the marketplace. Our core aims have been easy: to trace correct MAU information based mostly on a selected product utilization definition, measure person retention, observe conversion to key occasions, and decide which product options have been most definitely to affect enhancing retention and conversion.
Throughout our search, I couldn’t get Amplitude out of my thoughts. I had needed to strive Amplitude whereas in earlier roles, however there have been all the time obstacles to adoption. Once I obtained the chance to construct an enterprise-ready analytics platform from scratch, Amplitude was on the high of my listing.
After considering what we would have liked from a product, govt, and engineering perspective, it turned clear that Amplitude can be our greatest choice. We knew Amplitude would work properly inside our tech stack and grant us the performance we’d been dreaming of.
Establishing a constant path to adoption
I used to be lucky to have executive-level assist, and we created a small, tight-knit crew to work on implementation—important for one thing model new. I labored intently with an engineer and the implementation knowledgeable from Amplitude to develop a prioritized venture roadmap. We have been up and working in lower than a month. Then, I turned to our workforce.
From the beginning, information turned part of our day by day lives by curated Amplitude Analytics dashboards. I offered these dashboards throughout our all-hands and technique conferences and established a set of parameters we might look at to trace traits. It was tremendous useful to make use of dashboards and studies to indicate folks how monitoring results in traits and the way that impacts forecasting. We obtained used to asking questions as a bunch and exploring information accordingly to reply these questions, rising transparency inside our group.
We used the identical 4 or 5 chart varieties for the primary a number of months, and as we grew and gained slightly extra bandwidth, folks turned assured sufficient to discover and experiment independently. By way of repeated perception discovery and data-based resolution making, different product groups additionally adopted Analytics of their day-to-day operations. There was a snowball impact; as soon as one crew started to see the worth, one other crew picked up the ball and ran with it—and all of us started to note some thrilling modifications.
Difficult assumptions with information
Our mission as an organization is to create significant connections between customers and brokers. To assist that mission, we provide customers the choice to ask questions, request excursions, save a search, or save a selected itemizing. We initially theorized that buyers would start to construct a connection by saving searches so they may return to them repeatedly.
We have been incorrect. As soon as we deployed Analytics, we realized that prospects have been extra more likely to save a search, a lot later of their journey. We found different options that have been extra correlated with improved retention and probability of connecting with an agent. With that perception, we returned to the drafting board and began specializing in different factors within the buyer journey prioritizing deeper engagement previous to specializing in retention.
Utilizing Analytics additionally modified how we approached our viewers. Our product has all the time had a twin person base (brokers and customers), and we tried to account for this accordingly when making product selections. Our sister firm eXp Realty launched in 2009 as the primary cloud-based actual property brokerage. eXp World Holdings CEO Glenn Sanford grew that from dozens of brokers to now over 85,000 brokers globally—and noticed a corresponding bounce in brokers using and requesting new cloud-based instruments to develop their companies.
The corporate needed to develop the Agent Expertise product line to deliver brokers into our shopper ecosystem and assist them (and customers) discover different brokers for help, referrals or mentorship. However we have been blind to the precise product utilization all through the agent group till we dug into the info in Analytics and realized that utilization amongst actual property brokers was 2–3X larger than we first thought. We realized that one of many largest issues brokers valued was having a group and connecting with different brokers.
With that data in thoughts, our crew is difficult at work creating, refining, and rolling out instruments for our unimaginable agent group. We’re investing in precedence initiatives that make their lives simpler and convey them nearer to customers.
Measuring the outcomes of data-driven modifications
Analytics doesn’t simply assist us measure the outcomes of our modifications. It helps us spot issues with our decisions, too. Our prior UI had a search bar, filter buttons, and a “save search” button in a row. We modified the colour of that button and moved it to a special place as a part of a UI redesign, and we seen an enormous drop within the variety of customers saving searches. We have been at a loss. What occurred throughout the launch?
In Analytics, we found that not everybody who beforehand clicked “save search” needed to avoid wasting the search. Customers typed one thing within the search bar after which hit the “save search” button, considering they have been simply performing a search, not saving it. Shifting the button solved that drawback. Nonetheless, we noticed that individuals who needed to avoid wasting a search have been having a tough time doing that as a result of they couldn’t discover the button anymore. We modified the colour to one thing extra seen and saved searches returned to earlier ranges. The truth is, conversions greater than doubled, as a result of now, it’s principally folks with a excessive intention of clicking that button that may comply with by and end that motion.
As we gained extra insights, we additionally began to adapt our design philosophies. As evidenced by our Analytics, cell dominates our utilization and continues to develop. Each time we’ve a brand new product or a characteristic, we strategy all the pieces as a mobile-first design. We need to know the very first thing a first-time person does. From there, we think about fast, affordable actions to get them by the funnel with out getting slowed down in a multi-step, high-pressure expertise that requires them to enter quite a lot of info.
We used the insights from Analytics to revamp our UI and noticed a 20-25% enchancment in retention.
We used the insights from Analytics to revamp our UI, then tracked how our retention charges modified. We noticed a 20-25% enchancment in retention, and whenever you scale that when it comes to lots of and 1000’s or hundreds of thousands of customers, we begin to see the advantages of enhancing retention when creating a product-led development flywheel.
Analytics permits our complete crew to unravel issues, uncover new ones, and clear up these too—all utilizing information that adjusts to our wants.
Prioritizing as we speak for a prioritized future
I don’t need to push as laborious to drive information as of late. It’s each heartwarming and humbling to step again and see folks proceed to return to the desk with their very own evaluation. Knowledge has change into a giant a part of conversations and decision-making at Showcase IDX, and analytics play an enormous position in our product growth course of. Analytics permits our complete crew to unravel issues, uncover new ones, and clear up these too—all utilizing information that adjusts to our wants.
The info we floor from Analytics permits us to focus our efforts and enhance our product whereas contributing to the expansion of eXp Realty. We have now the arrogance to check smaller experiments, and ideate inside extra thrilling, nascent areas reminiscent of Machine Studying.
It’s not straightforward to construct a data-driven tradition, however when it occurs, life as a product supervisor will get quite a bit simpler. I can confidently say “no” to lower-priority concepts and “sure” to initiatives that may keep true to our tradition of “Outcomes over Exercise”.
