How do you share your SaaS stats (e.g., daily visitors, downloads, sales, etc.) with the community?
Naveed Rehman
7 replies
Replies
Naveed Rehman@naveed_rehman
While Google Analytics and similar tools are excellent for logging website usage stats, sharing that information with the public/community is complicated. I have seen people sharing snapshots of graphs that are static (oops!) and sometimes look a bit ugly as well (lol!). So, please let me know if you use a different, community-friendly analytics tool :)
Share
Hello Naveed,
On previous projects I used Google Analytics and shared data with specific contacts by adding them to the property with read permission, but of course by doing so I had to add contacts when necessary and it wasn't a "community-readable" solution.
For Veklar.com I had to look for something totally different, since using Google Analytics for a privacy-first project would've been laughable. I discovered Plausible.io, a privacy-friendly european project that give me just what I need, but I understand that it would not be suitable for deep data analysis because it only gives simple stats as unique visitors, page views, country and source.
I use it in a self-hosted version to increase the privacy, and I'm able to let a public access to the data. I'm not doing right now since the project is still in developement, but I'll surely give public access after the full release. It's all ready on analytics.veklar.com
@kearsan Thanks Anthony for your detailed response.
I was thinking about sharing my SaaS stats to attract (and perhaps acquire) potential adopters who are influenced by the ongoing trends. So, if they see that "hey! 35 users are now using that new app", they might get interested in at least trying it. I know, only that information wouldn't be enough to convince them, so please consider that only as an (unvalidated) example. The bounce rate, visit duration, etc., are unimportant for these adopters. In fact, I will never like to share these stats in public. I would still use GA (or some other comprehensive tool) for the detailed stats.
I tried opening analytics.veklar.com, but it is asking to sign in. It looks like, it isn't "actually" public. Also, I don't think we can control the display of fields in the dashboard (e.g. turn off Bounce Rate for public).
@naveed_rehman Yes my analytics aren't currently opened to public but it's all settled to be available at full product launch. I totally understand your words about potential adopters and that's exactly what I've in mind as well by sharing my analytics. For users or even for company or influencers who could take the project more seriously by seeing charts.
Unfortunately indeed it seems that we're not able to disable some stats like bounce rate on Plausible, but I think it's already a really simple and clean solution that doesn't bring too much stats for the public.
Another way could be to simply share your data in publications, that could be done via social networks or blog posts, or displayed somewhere on your website. But I agree that it's not the most convenient and up-to-date solution, and like the examples you gave in your first post it doesn't look very professional
Ultimately if you want to use Google Analytics and have full control on what you share, I suggest to take a look at their API. I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to get and display only specific data. But it's some work and knowledge, and a lot of time 😔
Launching soon!
One of the best ways to share your SaaS stats with the community is through a blog. This way, you can keep everyone updated on your company's latest achievements.
You can provide detailed information on how customers use your products or services; It can attract or acquire potential adopters influenced by the ongoing trends.
You could also participate in online forums and guest posts for related companies to increase your brand's visibility.
Track customer feedback carefully to continuously improve upon what works well for your business.
I share my progress weekly on YouTube. Each Friday I post a video where I try to summarize the week. This gives me enough time to actually work on building while dedicating time for sharing.
I will periodically share stats, budget, numbers, etc, by sharing my screen in my video and talking through it. Narrating my sharing makes it easy for me to dig into the numbers, make hypotheses, etc.