Tools Boost Access to Product Data

A new set of features is designed to give application developers greater access to critical product data that in many enterprises is viewed only by small groups of employees.

Amplitude, a product analytics specialist, said new features added to its platform also account for the fact that product teams are still using analytics tools designed for marketers. The San Francisco-based company said Thursday (Sept. 28) the new taxonomy and scaling features would make product data more accessible to developers at scale.

The upshot, the company asserts, is faster decisions on product development along with the ability to spot patterns in user behavior and greater trust in the accuracy of customer data.

Rather than leveraging product analytics, developers are hamstrung “by limited tools and are forced to wait for data science resources to provide the insights they need,” Justin Bauer, Amplitude’s vice president of product development, noted in a statement. The tool set is designed to replace ad hoc product approaches such as Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) analytics.

Among the new features is a taxonomy tool designed to ensure data quality regardless of its source. The tool allows users to “stage and approve data” while simultaneously identifying errors or inconsistencies. For example, incorrectly tagged data can be revised in real time, boosting the accuracy of product data.

Amplitude said customers such as PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) are currently using the taxonomy tool to manage product data.

Meanwhile, a data insights tool leverages machine-learning techniques designed to help product teams discern customer preferences and   key performance indicators. The tool provides real-time alerts about changes in product usage, the startup said.

An “Accounts” tool is designed to provide insights into how products are being used. For instance, it can be used to segment customers based on product or licensing purchases as well as the rate at which customers embrace a product.

Finally, the tool set incudes a scaling capability based on Amplitude’s proprietary dynamic sampling methodology, behavioral algorithms and a whitelisting capability. The scaling tool is promoted as allowing “highly accurate and real time behavioral analytics to run on data sets that are a fraction of a customer’s total inventory,” the company said.

Along with PayPal, Amplitude said it customers include Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK), Booking.com, marketing and sales software vendor Hubspot, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR).

In August, Amplitude announced the closing of a Series C funding round totaling $30 million, bringing its total venture funding to $59 million. IVP, Battery Ventures and Benchmark Capital led the latest funding round. The company was launched in 2014.

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