Tracking user activity - what works? Are Segment and MixPanel still a thing?
Hey IH'ers!
A long time ago in a startup far far away we wanted to track user activity - sign ups, sign ins, records created, conversions, etc.
We used a combination of Segment and MixPanel which worked very well for us. Segment sent the data to MixPanel and we could carve up the data to suit our needs.
This was some time ago and I was wondering if Segment and MixPanel are still 'the thing' or if there have been any younger, nimbler upstarts entering the space I should know about?
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Segment is still a great tool and analytics SaaS's like Mixpanel can be very helpful for quickly visualizing metrics or funnels. However, the latest trend is to use Segment or ETL tool to load data into an AWS Redshift database. Companies will then pipe their database and other business data into Redshift. Redshift allows you to store & query massive amounts of data quickly, this is called a Data Warehouse. Using a Data Warehouse, you can connect your business/revenue data to user site interaction, giving you a ton of power to generate profitability and churn analysis based on interaction data.
An even newer development is called the Data Lake. Thats the idea of combining Redshift with other data storage solutions like S3. Redshift can now query as a Data Lake. Another big Data Lake SaaS that is popular in the press right now is Snowflake. Data Lakes are probably the way of the future because it takes a lot of engineering infrastructure to build a consolidated Data Warehouse.
This is a great answer Alec, thanks!
Great to hear S + MP is still a thing.
I understand what you're saying about Redshift but it's beyond what I need for the stage my app is in at the moment (1 user!).