Amplitude Pathfinder: How Does It Work? [+ Better Alternative]

If you’re getting started with product analytics and want to better understand your users and how they reach conversion, then Amplitude Pathfinder is one of the most commonly recommended tools.

Using a legacy pathfinder like this one can do wonders for your SaaS business: Tracking the steps users take to complete a specific event means you can study whether users take a less-than-optimal route or if they run into any friction.

In this article, we’ll break down all the details, pros, and cons of one of Amplitude’s analytics features – the Pathfinder.

TL;DR

Amplitude Pathfinder is designed to track the various paths users take through your product that lead them to conversion.
Using such a path analysis tool enables you to identify inefficiencies across the user journey and fix them before product adoption and conversion drops.
There are two key Amplitude Pathfinder chart types to know about:

Amplitude Pathfinder chart displays all the events or the sequence of events users fire during a given time period.
Amplitude Pathfinder users chart displays all the paths users have taken across your product.

Journeys is the latest feature for examining conversion paths, similar to Pathfinder but with additional functionality. Journeys is currently in beta testing and aims to replace Pathfinder soon.
To make a well-informed decision, let’s look at some pros and cons of Amplitude Journeys:

Pros: It provides detailed visualization and has comprehensive filters allowing for deeper insights.
Cons: There is a high learning curve and limited data on drop-off paths and individual user levels.

Userpilot might be a better choice if you want a more granular approach to path analysis. Plus, it comes with other no-code features to help you build engaging product experiences!
Book a demo with our team to see how we can help you improve conversions.

What is Amplitude Pathfinder?

Amplitude Pathfinder is an analytics tool that tracks user flows within your product. With Pathfinder, users can analyze the steps or paths customers take within a specified time frame.

Studying these paths is beneficial because they can help reveal gaps in your funnel and highlight opportunities to improve user experience.

For example, upon analyzing path data, you may notice an increase in drop-offs due to users navigating the wrong path to complete a specific event. You can easily solve this by introducing more tooltips and in-app messages to better guide users towards the right path.

Types of Amplitude Pathfinder charts

There are two types of Pathfinder charts available in Amplitudes Analytics: Pathfinders and Pathfinder Users. Let’s see what’s the difference.

Amplitude Pathfinder chart

The Amplitude Pathfinder chart provides a comprehensive view of the sequences of events fired by users within a specified time frame. To get started, you’ll need to select an event and specify whether you want to view events before or after it.

You can filter the paths shown by:

Events and properties – so you are only shown sessions containing those events or event properties.
User segments – so your analysis only targets the relevant users you’re interested in.

For a more granular analysis, you have the option to expand or exclude events based on their properties.

Here’s an example: If you choose to expand events by weekday properties, it allows you to analyze the frequency of specific events such as “search song or video” on individual days like Monday, Tuesday, and so forth.

In terms of visualization, you can use either a funnel or flow diagram to better understand the conversion paths.

Amplitude Pathfinder users chart

Next, you have the Pathfinder users chart, which displays the paths your users take through your product.

However, unlike the Amplitude Pathfinder chart where paths were measured by total events, here they are measured by user or session count. Therefore, instead of simply observing how many times an event occurred in a particular sequence, you’re analyzing how many users or sessions followed that specific path.

Here are the steps to set up a Pathfinder Users analysis:

Start by choosing a starting event or an ending one.
Then expand events by properties (the same way you did with Amplitude Pathfinder).
You can also filter by different user segments and properties.

Amplitude Pathfinders vs. Amplitude journeys

Journeys is Amplitude’s latest feature meant to study conversion paths, similar to Pathfinder. Journeys is currently in the beta release stage and will soon replace Pathfinder altogether.

Let’s look at how Amplitude Journeys works and how it is different from Amplitude Pathfinder:

Instead of having to only view paths before or after a specific event, in Journeys, you can see all the paths between pre-determined starting and ending events.
Journeys is also more actionable because it lets you view the converted path and drop-off points, both of which are unavailable in Pathfinder.

You can also view greater details of a specific customer path and save the segment of users taking that path. This is unlike Pathfinder, which provided limited path details.

Pros and cons of Amplitude Analytics Pathfinder

If you’re considering adopting a user flow analytics tool, it isn’t enough to only focus on its features and the good it does. For a more holistic view, you must be aware of both the benefits and limitations of Pathfinder. Let’s look at what these are.

Pros of Amplitude Pathfinder

Detailed visualization: You have different chart options (i.e. funnels, flows, etc.) to understand how users navigate through your platform.
Comprehensive filters: It provides you with a wide range of filters for granular analysis of user behavior i.e. options to filter your results by segments, event properties, etc.
Auto exclusion of noisy steps: It also automates the exclusion of events that have low frequency, so you only focus on paths that matter.

Cons of Amplitude Pathfinder

High learning curve: Pathfinder isn’t something you learn overnight, and many Pathfinder users struggle to get the hang of it.
Limited details on drop-offs and individual user level: Pathfinder does not provide a visualization of the drop-off path. Similarly, it only provides an overview of user paths and does not allow you to dive deeper into details i.e. individual user level.
Cannot monitor pages-to-pages path: There are instances where you might want to track the pages-to-pages path since so many events can happen on the same page. However, you can only track event sequences, not page sequences.

Why should you choose an alternative tool for path analysis?

While Pathfinder is a good option to consider, here are some reasons why you might need an alternative Amplitude analytics tool:

The high learning curve is a huge hindrance to cross-team collaboration.
Only the “most queried 50 events” are available at a time for path analysis. So Pathfinder won’t work for you if your products need more user events for a comprehensive analysis.
You can’t view user path data in detail, such as all of the users who take a certain path. This renders the Pathfinder users’ data unactionable. For example, if you need user path data for other engagement campaigns, Pathfinder won’t work for you.

Userpilot’s Path report: A better alternative to Amplitude Pathfinder

Userpilot is a no-code product analytics platform that helps you better understand everything related to user navigation and the impact of your engagement strategies.

It has a wide range of analytics features such as funnels, trends, paths, etc., and analytics dashboards to monitor all the core product metrics.

Particularly, for path analysis, you can:

Understand the customer journey and how they interact with your product by tracking their sequence of actions (not limited to 50 events) before or after a target event.
Choose the target event and filter it by not just event properties (like Amplitude Pathfinder) but also by user and company properties.

For results and visualization, you can view both event and page paths by switching the toggle (not just event paths like in Amplitude).

Click each data point to find more information about the users or companies that appear on each user flow. You can also download the data for your engagement campaign elsewhere in addition to in-app, i.e. by email.

You can also filter by path types, either viewing all paths or top paths.

In addition to path analysis, Userpilot also has other engagement and analytics features, so you have everything in one place!

Conclusion

Amplitude Pathfinder enables you to identify inefficiencies across the user journey and fix them before product adoption and conversion drops. However, if you need a better option with a lower learning curve, it’s not your go-to choice.

There are several alternatives available out there, like Userpilot, that can reduce the learning curve while also providing additional features for all your analysis needs.

Looking for an all-in-one solution for product experiences and user analytics? Book a demo call with our team and get started!

Amplitude Pathfinder: How Does It Work? [+ Better Alternative]

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