Embracing Behavioral Insights and Self-Service Analytics at Grover

Co-authored with Manav Veer Gulati, Product Manager at Grover

Everyone wants the latest and greatest technology, but there’s always something new around the corner, and nobody wants to get stuck with last year’s model. Some people want to try a new product to make sure it fits their needs, but that’s not always possible with limited return windows on purchases.

Grover is a startup with a simple mission: Instead of selling tech to users, we rent it. We cater to both B2B and B2C customers. If you’re a consumer who upgrades your iPhone every time Apple launches a new one, you can lease it instead of having to sell it or trade it in. If you’re not sure AirPods stay put when you’re jogging or have high-quality audio, you can rent them for a couple of months and put them through their paces. If you’re a solopreneur or a small business, you can lease exactly the tech you need for only as long as you need it.

A One-Dimensional CRM Strategy

Grover’s initial CRM strategy was one-dimensional and focused entirely on sending out newsletters. This approach didn’t leverage behavioral insights, use cases, or consumer personas. Our initial customers were Germans in their 20s and 30s who preferred renting equipment over buying. Focusing on this segment made it difficult to scale our business. Had we not looked beyond this demographic, we would never have expanded outside Germany, moved into the B2B space, or considered our impending entry into the U.S. market.

On top of lacking a robust CRM strategy, Grover didn’t have a customer data platform (CDP) that aggregated and organized customer data across channels. We needed new tools to start building behavioral cohorts. We did some brainstorming and then got moving on implementation.

Rolling Out Behavioral Cohorts for Black Friday

In 2021 we set an ambitious target: building behavioral cohorts and launching a new CRM stack for Black Friday, which was less than six weeks away. At the time, we were relying on data from Facebook and Google Analytics, our core performance channels. We were also using Snowplow to collect behavioral analytics, Tableau to visualize them, and Braze for real-time reporting and analytics. But we had no way of putting everything together to create behavioral cohorts.

If one of our marketers needed behavioral data to launch a campaign, they had to ask our BI team to compile a report manually, which took its members away from their other duties. But what if we could automate the creation of behavioral cohorts and consolidate our marketing data with a single platform?

We looked at two solutions: Mixpanel and Amplitude. However, Amplitude provided a more robust set of digital optimization tools, and it was flexible enough to serve as our CDP, which simplified our technology stack and reduced our costs.

We rolled out our Amplitude-powered behavioral cohorts as planned on Black Friday and watched the results come in. We saw the usual spike in traffic—we typically get two or three times the normal number of visitors that day—and we also witnessed an increase in order submissions right away. Our conversions went from 32% to 38%, so we knew we were on the right track.

Everyone Gets Access to Amplitude

This initial success attracted the attention of my colleagues in other departments. The Marketing team started to ask our BI team for dashboards that synched acquisition channels or built cohorts of users who had added more than two items to their cart. Then our commercial team started asking for live dashboards. These requests started to overwhelm our BI team. They couldn’t sustain the pace without losing sight of other priorities.

When a self-serve analytics solution is accessible to everyone, a BI team doesn’t have to drop everything to build dashboards for others. Click To Tweet

After a few hectic months where our BI team pumped out one Amplitude dashboard after another, we shifted gears. We rolled out Amplitude as a self-service analytics tool across our entire organization. Because Amplitude is critical to organizational growth, our product teams integrated it into their mandatory onboarding so all hires receive advanced training in Amplitude.

Our BI team no longer has to spend all their time creating sales funnels, running A/B tests, mapping user journeys, and building dashboards. They no longer have to drop everything to build dashboards for the product and marketing teams. Instead, they can focus on using analytics to improve operations and optimize the business.

Simplifying A/B Testing and Increasing Transparency

Amplitude has empowered everyone at Grover. Our product managers now build dashboards in Amplitude, and when logging into the platform, each team has a separate dashboard with unique milestones. Our teams perform extensive A/B tests against quarterly and annual OKRs.

We use Amplitude Experiment to streamline and simplify how we author and execute these A/B tests. In the past, it would take a week or more to create a test in Tableau, and we would only run a couple of tests a year across the entire site.

Now, we run between six and eight simultaneous tests on every conversion funnel. We base our marketing decisions on evidence, not guesswork. More data means increased transparency and less friction between teams. Click To Tweet

When a team launches a new feature, other internal stakeholders can look at an Amplitude dashboard and determine whether the change is driving conversions or other key metrics. There is data to support every product, marketing, and design decision. The result is data democracy and increased transparency between teams. We can all see what our peers are doing, celebrate their victories, and give helpful feedback that will drive them to greater success or send them back to the drawing board.

Grover Has Tripled in Size but Digital Optimization Keeps Us Lean

Over the last two years, Grover has tripled in size, but we are committed to running a lean business. Amplitude helps us maximize our resources by giving us deep insight into our sales and serving up metrics that matter.

We are no longer looking at vanity metrics—like visitors and page views—that look good on paper but don’t add to our bottom line. We can quantify what’s working, drop what’s not, and leverage data to choose projects that will optimize our digital product and bring value across the entire organization.

Learn how to use Amplitude and implement popular product-led growth strategies with these step-by-step video guides from Amplitude experts.