Hello Iva,

I think it is a good exercise to think about this framework once you start to add tags, triggers, and parameters and connect data between different tools (Amplitude, Google Ads, Linkedin Ads, Twitter Ads). I really love a post where Daniel Wolchonok shared a video about the Data Stack at Reforge (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6963174688554414080/). My suggestion and what I see in other startups, centralise everything in one platform, Segment, and then send data whatever you need. Allow Google Tag Manager to be the tool for marketers and don't allow them to use Segment (I am a marketer). It is good that marketers have the freedom to set up tags and triggers for conversions and audiences but it is good that they don't have access to everything. So, I found it very simple to do it that way, Segment for everything and then connect Segment with Google Tag Manager where Google Tag Manager will allow marketers to work on the events, conversions, tracking, pixels, etc.

I hope you find this helpful. I will try to work on creating basic documentation to collect all of that information. I found really interesting for many startups at the beginning.

Cheers,

Functionally, Amplitude and Mixpanel are incredibly similar. They both offer almost all the same functionality around tracking and visualizing user actions for analytics. You can track A/B test results in both. We ended up going with Amplitude at BaseDash because it has a more generous free tier for our uses (10 million actions per month, versus Mixpanel's 1000 monthly tracked users).

Segment isn't meant to compete with these tools, but instead acts as an API to send actions to them, and other analytics tools. If you're just sending event data to one of these tools, you probably don't need Segment. If you're using other analytics tools like Google Analytics and FullStory, Segment makes it easy to send events to all your tools at once.

Another option you might consider is Google Analytics App+Web.

It is a new type of Google Analytics property which is event-based (like Amplitude and Mixpanel). In App+Web you can collect exactly the same data and in the same format as the other 2 tools mentioned.

The great things about it are: - it is free - there is a free integration with BigQuery (though you'll need to pay for BigQuery, but for most SmB's it is peanuts - $5-30 a month)

Not so great: - reporting side is pretty buggy (App+Web is very new).

So if you are ok building your reporting in something like Google Data Studio, App+Web will be a great option. Your data analyst will especially be happy to have all the data in SQL format (BigQuery).

If you choose App+Web, then you can use Google Optimize (also free) as an A/B testing solution.

Hello Ben,

I have been using Mixpanel and Amplitude and both of them are good solutions in order to track events on your product; events, funnel analysis, retention and so on. The most important thing is that you set up properly the taxonomy and naming convention of your events' structure. I don't have anything against Segment I tried once but I didn't work with that tool but it for sure is a good one based on other workmates' opinions. ¡Important! When tracking distribution channels, take into consideration the attribution channel and all the touches that the users do in all the channels before your conversions. Some of them are good to open a path and other ones good to close.

Besides that, for A/B testing there are several options in the market but VWO is a good one that with a lot of features to get good insights into the A/B testing. Another one could be Optimizely or Google Optimize. ¡Important! Some teams instead run A/B testing because sometimes that could be a technological issue, they run cohort tests, where basically they change features on the product and they analyse this performance with the new users and compare. That could have another issue like seasonality but it is another option.

Overview, I recommend Amplitude and VWO but just to make simple the answer, because Mixpanel, Segment and the other options that the other users wrote here are good too.

All the best, and let me know how your experience was with all these tools. :)

Cheers,