User Behavior Analytics Use Cases for SaaS

There are different user behavior analytics use cases you can implement when conducting user behavior analytics.

First, the use cases we’ve put together for this article present different angles of how to act on behavioral data at different stages of the customer journey. Second, you’ll learn the best tools to use for behavioral analytics.

So let’s jump straight to the article to uncover product growth insights with the help of behavioral analytics.

TL;DR

• User behavior analytics (UBA) is a way to track user activities across the web, mobile, and other digital channels.
• The 4 principal ways to monitor user behavior in SaaS include tracking feature usage, custom behavior tracking with events, using heatmaps, and user funnel analytics.
• UBA allows you to personalize user experiences and better understand customer needs. You can also use UBA data to recommend content and products contextually.
• Likewise, product marketers use the data to target the right audiences with marketing campaigns.
• Reduce product churn by finding behavioral patterns among churned users and reach out to existing customers with similar patterns to avoid attrition.
• Employ UBA data to find and resolve friction points to improve customer satisfaction.
• You can also measure the adoption rate of newly launched features and timely create modals to get users to discover them quickly if there’s a negative trend.
• Behavioral segmentation helps you filter out power users so you can proactively reach them with in-app modals to ask for reviews on sites like G2 driving word of mouth.
• The best software for customer behavior analytics includes:
  Userpilot — for tracking custom in-app events, measuring feature usage, and advanced segmentation to locate usage patterns at a granular level.
  Amplitude — for monitoring in-app user activity, measuring user engagement, and optimizing in-app experiences.
  Hotjar — for session recording and website heatmaps to see how visitors navigate your website, where they click and scroll.

What is user behavior analytics?

User behavior analytics (UBA) is a way to track user activities across the web, mobile, and other digital channels. It helps you to understand what your customers are doing on your website or application, why they do it and how you can use the insights to improve their experience.

Why is user behavior analytics important?

Here are what business outcomes you will get with UBA:

• Gain valuable insights into customer behaviors and segment them accordingly. This allows you to personalize experiences and better understand customer needs. You can also use the data to target the right audiences with marketing campaigns.
• Reduce churn by finding behavioral patterns among churned users and reach out to existing customers with similar patterns to avoid attrition.
• Find and resolve friction points to improve customer satisfaction.
• Gain a better understanding of how customers interact with your product or service and make data-driven decisions about product development.
• Detect security issues by examining suspicious customer behaviors.

Ready to practice?

How to track user behavioral data

The 4 principal ways to monitor user behavior in SaaS include tracking feature usage, custom behavior tracking with events, using heatmaps and user funnel analytics. Other ways include artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Let’s see how to perform each method.

Feature usage tracking

This method gives you insights into which features are being used most and least, where users spend the most time and which features need improvement.

For instance, you can track feature usage with Userpilot by tagging different UI elements and logging how users interact with them. This helps you to analyze in-app user behavior, measure the impact of product changes and prioritize feature development.

Feature heatmaps

Couple feature tagging with heatmaps to learn about customer behavior toward a specific feature in more detail. Userpilot’s heatmaps show where customers click, scroll, and hover.

You will also uncover the previous action items user have performed in the app. This helps to identify which features are most engaging, where users get stuck, and how they interact with certain elements of your product.

Custom behaviors tracking with events

Events are a great way to track user activity on your website or app. They provide an additional layer of detail to your analytics and allow you to track user behavior that isn’t tracked by feature usage or heatmaps.

For example, Userpilot allows you to add different events into one custom event.

You can’t read heatmaps to identify when a user has reached the activation point, but you can assign and order random events that users complete along their journey.

User funnel analytics flow

User funnel analytics tracks user activities and behavior through each step of the customer journey. Monitor how users go through their predefined user funnel and all the navigation the user performs in the app.

Track page activity to pull out the unique and total number of views by users and companies over time.

This helps to identify which stages of the process are most successful, which ones drive the most conversions, and where users are dropping off.

Use cases of user behavior analytics in SaaS

User behavioral analytics can be used in many scenarios, from customer segmentation to personalization. Let’s explore some of the use cases you can implement in your SaaS.

Measure product and feature engagement with behavioral analytics

Behavioral analytics give you insights into each user’s milestones in their journey and how they interact with different features. With that, you’ll discover the least/most explored features.

Further analytics and feature audits will help you spot and address friction points that prompted users to abandon particular features.

You can also measure the adoption rate of newly launched features and timely create tooltips to get users to discover them quickly if there’s a negative trend.

Personalize user experience based on user behavior

Leveraging user behavior analytics allows you to create personalized experiences based on each user’s journey. You can use it to recommend features they might find useful. It also helps you to stay in touch with customers through targeted in-app messages.

Here’s an example.

First, segment customers according to their in-app behavioral data. You can do so by tracking user behavior with Userpilot.

Second, create an experience to reach a concrete purpose. For instance, one has a specific JTBD but hasn’t used a feature designed for that. Filter out this segment as it showed above and showcase the feature with a tooltip.

Predict churn using historical data science

Increase retention and manage churn by identifying specific behaviors among your existing customers that correspond with churned users’ actions. Low NPS is one of the most common signals of user attrition.

Segment your users based on the NPS score and reach out to detractors with a personalized flow to avoid a drop-off.

Improve word of mouth with personalized messaging

Behavioral analytics and segmentation help you determine specific user events that could potentially trigger a referral, such as when a user reaches a certain milestone. You can also segment power users and reach them with in-app modals to ask for reviews on sites like G2 driving word of mouth.

We at Userpilot love this tactic as power users are more likely to leave positive feedback and spread the word about your product.

Improve UX across the customer journey

Behavioral customer data collected with heatmaps help you identify roadblocks in the user journey caused by poor UX or glitches and therefore, optimize the product for a better user experience.

With Userpilot feature heatmaps, you can also understand with which filters, buttons, and other UI elements users interact the most/least. The former will be colored in red and orange and the latter in blue accordingly.

This way, you may uncover features that need to be prompted with tooltips to increase their usage rates.

Entity behavior analytics for threat detection

User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) falls under new security solutions that combine machine learning and sensitive data analytics to provide detailed insights into user activities. With that, you can detect anomalies and unusual user activity in your system.

For instance, entity behavior analytics is used for insider threat detection to spot suspicious activities and respond to them quickly.

Installing UEBA software helps identify risky actions, like someone breaking into your organization’s network or an employee opening spam or initiating data exfiltration. The remedy is to secure your organization against external attacks and insider threats.

However, this topic falls under the ops team and is not the article’s purpose.

The best user behavior analytics software for SaaS

You need user behavior analytics software for conducting behavioral analytics and acting on the collected data. Here, we introduce you to the best 3 product analytics tools and their features for UBA.

Userpilot — in-app engagement and user behavior analytics tool

Userpilot is a versatile product analytics platform for tracking in-app engagement and user behavior. It helps you track users’ journeys, measure active users, engage them with personalized flows, and improve user experience. It also provides detailed reports on user activities, so you can quickly spot trends and opportunities for improvement.

For behavioral analytics, you’ll love features for tracking custom in-app events, feature tagging, and feature heatmaps.

Userpilot also offers advanced segmentation options to locate usage patterns at a granular level.

Product managers use Userpilot for monitoring key metrics like conversion rates, feature usage rates, etc.

Amplitude – advanced analytics tool

Amplitude is a product analytics platform that lets you track user behavior and build custom reports. Use it to monitor user activity, measure user engagement, and optimize experiences. The platform also comes with powerful insights into user behavior to encourage data-driven decisions.

Hotjar – session recording data collection tool

Hotjar is a session recording and heat mapping tool that helps you see how users interact with your site. It records visitors’ behavior, providing insights into how they use your website, where they click and scroll, as well as which elements are most popular.

Hotjar also has heat maps for identifying areas of friction in the user journey. This helps you collect and analyze customer data to optimize the website for maximum performance.

Conclusion

User behavior analytics enable SaaS companies to gain insight into user engagement and behavior, thereby improving their product. UBA helps you understand user needs, improve user experience, detect threats and measure the success of marketing campaigns.

With the right UBA tool such as Userpilot, Amplitude, or Hotjar, you can collect and analyze data for driving your product growth.

Want to get started with user behavior analytics? Get a Userpilot Demo to monitor customer behaviors and create personalized in-app experiences.