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Overview
Product Analytics helps you gain insight into user behavior and make data-driven decisions. It supports the following use cases in your application:
Instrument your application
Product Analytics collects client-side user activity data through the Datadog SDK. You can also send server-side events through the API to supplement your client-side data.
To get started, add the Datadog SDK to your application and enable Product Analytics in Datadog. You can also send server-side events through the API.
Track client-side events (SDK)
Collect events, such as pageviews or button clicks, from your users’ devices, and send them to Datadog.
Add the Datadog SDK to your application to start collecting user activity data. If you have already configured RUM, you do not need to instrument your application again for Product Analytics.
If you do not have an application set up in Datadog yet, follow the instructions for your platform:
To set up your application with a coding assistant, see Agentic onboarding.
Track server-side events (API)
After you set up client-side collection, you can use the Product Analytics API to send custom events from your server, such as completed checkouts or processed payments.
Datadog bills server-side events separately. See the
pricing page for details, and contact your Customer Success Manager with additional questions.
Enable Product Analytics
For each application you want to monitor user behavior for, enable Product Analytics:
- In Datadog, go to Digital Experience > Real User Monitoring > Manage Applications. In the list of applications under Active, select the application you want to monitor.
- Under PRODUCT SETTINGS, click Product Analytics.
- Click the Enable button.
Understand your data
The Datadog SDK automatically collects three levels of client-side user data: Sessions, Views, and Actions. For a full breakdown of RUM event types, see Understanding the RUM Event Hierarchy. After you set up the SDK, you can also send server-side events through the Product Analytics API.
- Sessions
- A session is a single user’s complete journey through your application, from the moment they open it to when they leave.
- Views
- A view represents each page or screen a user visits within a session.
- Actions
- An action is something a user does on a page, such as a click, tap, or scroll. Actions are automatically collected by the RUM SDK. When configuring features like Funnels and Segments, you can select specific Actions as steps or filters. To see which Actions are available, open the RUM Explorer and filter by Actions.
- Server-side events
- A server-side event is a custom event sent through the Product Analytics API, such as a completed checkout or processed payment. In the event picker, select Server Events to scope your analysis to server-side data.
Navigate the Product Analytics UI
Each Product Analytics feature provides context about your users’ journeys.
Understand product adoption
The Home page gives you a bird’s-eye view of your users’ activity and your product’s adoption. This is where you most often land when accessing Product Analytics.
By default, this page displays the active users, page views, and average time spent by user charts, but you can add additional charts or a dashboard. The Home page also includes the following out-of-the-box sub-sections that provide additional context about your product’s users and usage:
- Users
- At a glance, see who is using your product.
- App & Devices
- Visualize the split between desktop and mobile usage, spot which versions are in use, and identify what can be deprecated.
- Engagement
- Understand how users are engaging with your product, answering questions such as how long users are staying on pages, and what their top actions are.
- Traffic
- See bounce rates, top traffic sources, and where your growth is really coming from.
- Performance
- View the most common errors and frustrations, and see exactly which views they impact.
Track conversion rates and their evolution over time
The Product Analytics charts help you visualize your users’ journeys as they use your product.
Each chart type provides a different view into the user’s journey:
- Pathways
- Visualize all user journeys across your application to analyze the critical path.
- Funnel
- Track conversion rates across key workflows to identify and address any bottlenecks in end-to-end user journeys.
For example, you can see if customers drop off at a certain point due to poor website performance, or measure how adding new steps to a workflow impacts drop-off rate. - Retention
- Measure how often users are successfully returning to a page or action to gain insights into overall user satisfaction.
- Analytics
- Aggregates usage data to show how users engage with your product.
Track key user behavior patterns
Use Users & Segments to group your users based on shared characteristics. For example, if you notice users are adding items to their cart but not checking out, create a segment for those users and send them a nudge email to complete their purchase.
Visualize user interactions
Use the following features to inform your product change decisions, such as changes to your application UI, by seeing how users navigate your pages, whether there is a path they take more than others, or where actions and flows could be smoother.
- Session replay
- Capture and replay your users’ web browsing or mobile app experience.
This is beneficial for error identification, reproduction, and resolution, and provides insights into your application’s usage patterns and design pitfalls. - Heatmaps
- Visualize your users’ interactions overlaid on Session Replay data. Product Analytics has three types of heatmaps: Click maps, Top elements, and Scroll maps.
Use heatmaps to review complex data at a glance, gaining insights into optimizing your user experience. - Playlist
- Create a playlist of Session Replays to organize them by any patterns you notice. Learn more about Session Replay Playlists.
Further reading
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:
