Getting Ready to Get Started:
Have you ever tried driving fast at night while reading your phone? Of course not! Who would ever do that!? (Me looks around nervously)
Well that’s what doing marketing without good data is like. Before you start marketing your product, it’s super important to set up a tracking system so you can see and understand what your users are doing. This setup keeps you on track to make smart decisions. With this system, you can adjust quickly, track progress, and understand what your audience likes or doesn’t like so you can get them to do more of the things you want them to do.
New to the series? Start here: So You Wanna Grow? Product-Led Growth for Software Startups
Key Areas to Set Up
Let’s go over some of the technical concepts we’ll be using in the series:
UTM Tracking: Adding UTM tags to your URLs (like where the user came from or what campaign brought them in) helps you figure out exactly where your visitors are coming from. This is really important to see which of your marketing efforts are working. For example, you can track if traffic is coming from social media ads or organic searches, which helps you decide where to put your time and money. Here’s what a decorated URL would look like:
https://churnassassin.com/pricing?utm_source=nodans&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=plg-blog-seriesIf you are new to UTM parameters, these resources provide detailed instructions:
Web Analytics: Web analytics tools are essential for tracking things like how many people visit your site, which pages they look at, and how many of them actually do what you want (like sign up or buy something). These tools provide both the big picture and the small details, showing where users come from and which pages they drop off on. With this data, you can improve your content, test what works, and get more leads/sales/whatever.
Click and Conversion Tracking: You should also track specific actions (like clicks or sign-ups) as being important high value interactions. This helps you see what makes people convert into the behaviors you want. Knowing where people are most engaged with your content and what finally makes them take action lets you improve your website or calls-to-action, so even more people will convert.
User Behavior Analysis: User behavior analysis tools give you heatmaps, scroll maps, and session recordings to see how people are using your site. Heatmaps show where people click the most and which parts they ignore, while session recordings let you see the paths users take through your site. These insights help make your site easier to use and more engaging. These tools are really helpful to understand how first-time users experience your website and content.
Traffic Value Understanding: Not all visitors will buy or sign up right away, especially at first. But understanding how long people stay on your site and how often they return helps you see how valuable your traffic could be in the future. If a lot of people are coming back, they might convert later with some targeted re-engagement. By tracking these “soft” metrics, you build a long-term picture of customer interest. Google Analytics Retention Guide explains retention metrics for assessing value over time.
Collecting Data Over Time: Collecting data over time helps you build a historical record that becomes really useful. Setting up tracking now means you’ll have insights you can use for months or even years. For example, cohort analysis helps you see trends in specific groups of users over time. This can be really helpful for startups that want to see patterns and predict what different user groups will do. You might enjoy SEMrush’s UTM Tracking and Cohort Analysis Guide.
Recommended (Free) Tools
Google Tag Manager (GTM): GTM lets you add tracking codes (tags) without needing to change or redeploy the site code. GTM saves time and cuts down on errors, which is especially helpful for small teams. Here’s the Google Tag Manager Documentation so you can get started.
Google Analytics (GA): GA is your main tool for looking at data, bringing together info about traffic, user behavior, and conversions. It helps you understand both the big patterns and the small details. GA can track almost anything, which makes it great for a startup looking to grow. The basics are covered in the Google Analytics Setup.
Google Search Console (GSC): GSC helps you understand how your site performs in search engines. It shows what keywords bring in traffic, where your site ranks, and which pages are popular. For startups that want to grow through SEO, GSC is essential to make sure search engines are bringing in new visitors. Setting this up is super easy and you shouldn’t wait, as it takes time for Google to crawl, index, and categorize your site and site content. See the Google Search Console Guide for more information.
Lighthouse Reports: Lighthouse checks your site’s speed, accessibility, SEO, and other best practices, and gives you advice on how to fix things. Improving site speed and functionality helps you keep visitors and improve search rankings. Read Google Lighthouse: What It Is & How to Use It as a primer.
Hotjar: Hotjar works well with GA and Google Tag Manager to give you a visual look at how users are interacting with your site. It can be turned on or off as needed, and helps you see why users might be dropping off without messing up your analytics. I really like watching the screen recordings to understand how newcomers experience our site. You can see everything they do and this will help you optimize your site4 really fast, without having to try and piece together what you think users were doing. It integrates easily with Google Tag Manager, see: Hotjar GTM Integration.
Why This Matters
Every marketer knows how maddening it is to have messy or missing data. It’s like trying to bake a cake without knowing if you have all the ingredients. Good tracking from the start means you’ve got all your ingredients laid out perfectly, so you can whip up something great. When you build a solid tracking system from day one, you’ll bang your head on your desk a lot less later.
Take my advice, prioritize setting this up correctly now. You’ll thank me later.
