9 Best Startup Analytics Tools to Learn

9 Best Startup Analytics Tools to Learn

What are the most desirable analytics tools to learn? Let’s find out.

For folks looking to build a career at a startup, I love Wealthfront’s Career Launching Companies List. Wealthfront considers attributes of different organizations that means there is a higher likelihood of landing in a role with upward mobility, and the chance to prove yourself. Opportunities at these companies should set you on a solid path in your career. So, what are the most in-demand analytics tools at these organizations? I did the research. Check it out!

Plus, when you’re done, get the rest of my Guide to Startup Analytics Skills, Tools, and Titles.

The number by each tool is the percentage of companies on the Wealthfront List that is running that tool.

1) Google Analytics (78%)

No surprise that Google Analytics tops this list. If you want to do web analytics at basically any stage company, take the time to learn GA!

2) Google Tag Manager (56%) / Segment (11%)

Tag management is a critical path tool for managing analytics effectively. GTM is extremely popular (and free), where Segment offers a ton of additional functionality on top of being an event management tool. Plus, to get a little bit meta, Segment is also ON the Wealthfront list. Bonus!

3) Facebook (50%) / Google (60%) / Bing Ads (27%) / LinkedIn Ad (22%) Pixels

It’s interesting to see Facebook ad pixels so high up this list. Successfully measuring your marketing spend is a critical component of a web analyst these days and Facebook/Google top the list, with the others used less often.

4) Optimizely (34%)

I’m excited to see that such a large percentage of these companies settling on an experimentation / optimization tool. Optimizely lets you run basic website experiments extremely easily, and with a sophisticated team and development staff, you can do amazing testing.

5) Marketo (31%)

The highest ranking marketing automation suite. Personally, I’m a hubspot fan, but once you learn one MA tool, you can basically work in any of them. It looks like Marketo is the one you should choose to learn first.

6) Appnexus (25%) / Adroll (20%) / Quantcast (14%) / Demandbase (11%)

These third party advertising tools all have strengths and weaknesses, and could be a post on their own. Make sure to do your research and see which might be able to help any particular project or company that you’re working with! Side note here, too – Quantcast is also on the WF list!

7) Crazy Egg (18%)

Crazy Egg is a cool UX analysis tool helping you understand how users interact with your site (whether they take intended behavior, or not).

8) Mixpanel (7.8%) / Amplitude (6%) / Kissmetrics (3%)

Frankly, I’m mildly surprised that these tools are so low on this list. My inclination as an explanation is that by the time a company gets on the Wealthfront Career building list, they may simply use custom-built in house tools in lieu of options like these 3.

9) Hotjar (9%) / Fullstory (3%)

Watch real-time examples of users using your product. Learn where they struggle, experiment, and improve!


If you want to learn more about what to look for in your next startup analytics job, go get my Guide to Startup Analytics Skills, Tools, and Titles.

Do you have questions about Startup Analytics? Comment, or head to my contact form.

**If you’re curious, these counts were done by scanning each company’s homepage using ghostery. I know that won’t capture 100% of the tools being used, but it’s a pretty good estimate.

Published byStephen

I love helping people at all levels of a company use data to inform their decision making.