How to Conduct SaaS Data Analytics in Excel?

Are you struggling to make sense of your SaaS business’s data?

Are you ready to take your software-as-a-service business to the next level with data?

Look no further!

This blog post will introduce you to some of the top SaaS data analytics hacks that can help you revolutionize your business.

With these tips, you’ll be able to easily visualize your data for insights, enabling you to make informed and data-backed decisions.

Table of Content:

1. What is SaaS Analytics?
2. Why Do You Need SaaS Analytics?
3. Which SaaS Metrics Should You Track?
4. Best Charts to Create a SaaS Analytics Dashboard
5. How to Analyze SaaS Data in Excel?
6. Wrap Up

If you’re ready to unlock the full potential of your data, keep reading to uncover game-changing SaaS data analytics solutions.

What is SaaS Analytics?

SaaS analytics is a key component of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector. And this is because it allows you to track and analyze your data to make data-driven decisions.

The current SaaS marketplace is super competitive and saturated. In this landscape, if you can effectively use data to understand your market and differentiate your brand, you can have a significant advantage.

As such, we recommend you put together robust data analytics systems in place to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) for in-depth insights.

Your SaaS data analytics strategy should be easy to implement and execute, even for non-technical users. Besides, it should be flexible and agile enough to allow other key players in your business to customize reports for personalized insights.

To sum up, SaaS analytics is crucial if your goal is to succeed in the dynamic and rapidly evolving SaaS marketplace.

In the ensuing section, we’ll address the following question: Why do you need SaaS analytics?

Why Do You Need SaaS Analytics?

There are numerous benefits to analyzing data in a SaaS (software as a service) firm.

Check out the benefits below.

• Data-Backed Decision-Making

By analyzing data, you can easily gain valuable insights into your operations and use the resulting insights to make more informed decisions.

For instance, a solid SaaS data analytics strategy can help you:

• Identify inefficiencies
• Optimize processes
• Identify new opportunities for growth

• Increases Customer Experience

You can leverage SaaS data analytics to understand your customers and your needs. This can help you improve the customer experience in the long term.

For example, SaaS data analytics can help you identify customer pain points and develop solutions to address them.

• Boosts Efficiency

Data and analytics services can help you identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your operations, leading to cost savings and improved efficiency.

For example, it can help you uncover and optimize workflows, streamline processes, and identify opportunities for automation.

• Increased Agility

By analyzing data in real-time, you can identify and respond to changes in the market.

Or, even within your internal operations. This can help you be more agile and flexible in adapting to changing conditions.

• Greater Forecasting Capabilities

A well-crafted SaaS data analytics strategy can help you better understand trends and patterns in your business.

This can improve forecasting and planning.

For instance, it can help you to identify potential risks, predict the future, and develop contingency plans.

Recap: SaaS data analytics is a powerful tool that can help you to improve the customer experience, make better decisions, increase efficiency, and be responsive in a rapidly changing market.

So, which SaaS metrics should you track?

Which SaaS Metrics Should You Track?

Several key SaaS metrics can help drive revenue in your Software-as-a-service business.

These metrics or KPIs can provide valuable insights into the performance of your business. Besides, it can help identify areas for improvement and growth.

Some of the SaaS metrics we recommend you track include:

• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

This metric represents the expected, monthly recurring revenue generated from subscriptions.

MRR is a key indicator of the health and growth of your SaaS business. And this is because it reflects the long-term value of the customer base.

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This metric depicts the total expenses of acquiring a new customer. And it’s made up of marketing and sales costs.

By tracking customer acquisition costs, you can identify the most cost-effective methods for acquiring new subscription-based customers.

Also, it can help you optimize your sales and marketing efforts.

• Lifetime Value (LTV)

This metric shows a customer’s total value throughout your relationship.

The Customer Lifetime Value can help you identify your most valuable customers. More so, it can help you optimize your retention efforts to maximize revenue.

• Churn Rate

This metric shows the percentage of your customers who cancel or do not renew subscriptions.

Churn rate can help you identify factors that may be contributing to customer drop-offs and implement strategies to reduce them.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

This metric represents customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It’s measured by asking your customers how likely they are to recommend the product or service to others.

The NPS chart can help you identify opportunities for improvement and increase the overall customer experience.

To sum up, tracking these metrics can help you unlock the full power of SaaS data analytics in your business.

In addition, these metrics can help you drive revenue by providing valuable insights into the areas that need improvement to drive growth.

By keeping a close eye on these metrics, you can:

• Optimize your sales and marketing efforts
• Retain valuable customers
• Drive revenue over the long term

In the ensuing section, we’ll take you through the best charts to create a SaaS analytics dashboard.

Best Charts to Create a SaaS Analytics Dashboard

Check out some of the charts we recommend you use to unlock the full potential of your SaaS data analytics strategy.

Let’s dive in.

• Sankey Chart

Sankey Diagram is one of the SaaS data analytics-friendly charts we recommend you adopt in your SaaS data analytics strategy.

Check out how you can use a Sankey in your business to get the most from your data.

• Visualizing customer journeys

This visualization design can help you to show how customers move through different stages of your business funnel, such as awareness, consideration, and purchase.

A Sankey Diagram can help you identify areas for improvement and optimize your customer acquisition efforts.

• Analyzing your funnel

A Sankey Diagram can help you to visualize the flow of leads through your SaaS business sales and marketing funnel, from initial contact to conversion.

This can help you uncover the marketing channels that are most effective. Also, you can easily identify opportunities for optimization.

• Tracking user behavior

This flow-based visualization can help you to track how users interact with a product or service .

Besides, by using the customer journey visualization, you’ll be able to understand user behavior and identify areas for improvement.

• Analyzing data flow

A Sankey Diagram can help you to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your SaaS business.

Recap: Sankey Diagram can be a valuable tool for visualizing data in your startup by helping you to identify trends, optimize processes, and drive growth.

• Sentiment Trend Charts

The Sentiment Trend Chart can help you uncover the overall sentiment of your market base. In other words, you can leverage the visualization design to visualize survey responses for insights.

Check out the benefits of the SaaS data analytics-oriented chart below.

• Tracking customer satisfaction

By tracking sentiment over time, you can learn how satisfied customers are with your offers. Furthermore, you can easily identify areas for improvement.

• Monitoring brand reputation

Use a Sentiment Trend Chart in your SaaS data analytics strategy to track the overall sentiment towards your brand. You’ll uncover and timely respond to any negative sentiment or reputation issues.

• Identifying trends and patterns

By tracking sentiment over time, you can identify trends and patterns in your customer sentiment.

• Likert Scale Chart

Use a Likert Scale Chart in your SaaS data analytics strategy to visualize responses from your target audience.

Check out more benefits below:

• Measure customer satisfaction

Likert Scale questions help you to gauge customer satisfaction with your SaaS products, and identify areas for improvement.

• Gather feedback on feature releases or new products

Use Likert Scale questions to gather feedback on new feature releases. By doing this, you’ll understand how well new feature releases are being received.

• Waterfall Chart

A Waterfall Charts shows how a value changes over time. Each bar in the chart represents a positive or negative value that contributes to the overall change.

Check out the benefits below

• Visualizing financial performance

The visualization design can help show the changes in your SaaS business’s financial performance over time.

This can help you identify trends and patterns and make informed decisions about your financial strategy.

• Uncover customer acquisition costs

This visualization design can help you display the costs associated with acquiring new customers, including marketing and sales costs.

This can help you understand the most cost-effective methods for acquiring new customers and optimize your sales and marketing efforts.

• Tracking product or feature adoption

Use a Waterfall Chart in your SaaS data analytics strategy to track the adoption of a new product or feature over time

This will help you understand how well it is being received and identify any issues or concerns.

• Pareto Chart

Pareto Charts can help you to display the relative importance of different factors.

In a SaaS business, the visualization design can be used to:

• Identify key drivers of customer satisfaction

You can use Pareto charts to identify the most important factors contributing to customer satisfaction in your SaaS business.

• Prioritize product development

Use Pareto Charts to prioritize product development efforts by identifying the features or functionality that are most important to customers.

• Analyze and optimize business processes

Pareto Charts can identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your business’s processes and prioritize efforts to improve them.

In the coming section, we’ll show you how to analyze SaaS data in Excel.

How to Analyze SaaS Data in Excel?

These charts (highlighted above) are unavailable in Microsoft Excel.

You don’t have to do away with Excel in favor of other expensive tools.

Install the ChartExpo add-on to access ready-made charts for your SaaS data analytics strategy, such as Sankey, Pareto, Likert Scale, and Sentiment Trend Charts.

ChartExpo comes with ready-to-go and SaaS analytics-friendly charts, plus many insightful charts you’ll never find in Excel.

The tool costs $10 per month after a week of a free trial. ChartExpo can help you create insightful and easy-to-interpret charts for your data stories in minutes.

Why?

It’s an easy-to-use application that does not require hours of tutorials.

How to Install ChartExpo in Microsoft Excel?

1. Open your Excel application.
2. Open the worksheet and click on the “Insert” menu.
3. You’ll see the “My Apps”.
4. In the office Add-ins window, click on “Store” and search for ChartExpo on my Apps Store.
5. Click on the “Add” button to install ChartExpo in your Excel.

ChartExpo charts are available both in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Please use the following CTA’s to install the tool of your choice and create beautiful visualizations in a few clicks in your favorite tool.

Example

In this section, we’ll use the Sankey Chart to visualize the hypothetical data from a SaaS firm.

Let’s dive in.

Starting Point	Platforms	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Cart Status	Ending Point	Traffic
External Ad	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	29246
External Ad	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	6133
External Ad	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	12954
External Ad	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	22337
External Ad	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	14685
External Ad	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	10210
External Link	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	29605
External Link	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	27600
External Link	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	5637
External Link	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	23336
External Link	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	28281
External Link	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	17939
Direct Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	5490
Direct Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	19138
Direct Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	27311
Direct Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	19560
Direct Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	24788
Direct Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	10914
Organic Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	29043
Organic Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	12028
Organic Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	24685
Organic Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	8508
Organic Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	12448
Organic Search	Mobile App	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	5034
External Ad	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	23552
External Ad	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	19632
External Ad	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	18914
External Ad	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	19234
External Ad	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	26871
External Ad	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	29736
External Link	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	14141
External Link	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	10680
External Link	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	23756
External Link	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	18491
External Link	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	15740
External Link	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	5976
Direct Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	19080
Direct Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	22204
Direct Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	22736
Direct Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	25578
Direct Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	11141
Direct Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	6881
Organic Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	18022
Organic Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	21183
Organic Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	15307
Organic Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Clear Cart	Exit	11557
Organic Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Checkout	Purchase	26480
Organic Search	Official Website	View product & details	Read Reviews	Add to Cart	Click on another product	Purchase	29140

• To get started with ChartExpo, install ChartExpo in Excel.
• Now Click on My Apps from the Insert.

• Choose ChartExpo from My Apps, then click Insert.

• Once ChartExpo is loaded. Click on “Sankey Chart” from the list of charts.

• Click “Create Chart From Selection” button after selecting the data from the sheet, as shown.

• The Sankey Chart will look as follows.

• If you want to have the title of the chart, click on Edit Chart, as shown in the above image.
• To change the title of the chart, click on the pencil icon that is available very next to Chart Header.
• It will open the properties dialog. Under the Text section, you can add a heading in Line 1 and enable the Show option. Give the appropriate title of your chart and click on the Apply button.

• To change the node color, click on the pencil icon available with the node. Expand the Node properties and change color from the Node Color property. Click on the Apply
• For saving changes click on Save Changes. This will persist the changes.

• The final chart will look as follows.

Insights

• As you can notice most of your traffic came through External Ad, which is 234k.
• 456k traffic was generated by a website which is the most of the traffic if we compare it with Mobile App 427k traffic.
• All the traffic landed on the product page and read reviews as well. Almost all traffic added products to the cart.
• 317k cleared their cart and exited.
• 299k checked out, & 267k clicked on another product. So they can also buy other products as well with current products in the cart.

FAQs

What is SaaS data analytics?

SaaS analytics is a critical component of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketplace. it empowers you to track and analyze your data to make data-driven decisions.

In the competitive SaaS marketplace, using data to understand your market and differentiate your brand has a massive advantage.

What are the benefits of SaaS data analytics?

By analyzing data, you can gain valuable insights into your operations and use this information to make more informed decisions.

For example, SaaS data analytics can help identify inefficiencies, optimize processes, and identify new growth opportunities.

It can help you identify customer pain points and develop solutions.

Wrap Up

In conclusion, analyzing data is a powerful tool for SaaS (software as a service) businesses looking to:

• Improve operations
• Enhance the customer experience
• Increase efficiency
• Drive growth

By leveraging SaaS data analytics to identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement, you can make more informed decisions, optimize your processes, and stay agile and responsive in a rapidly changing market.

The charts that can help you unlock the full potential of your SaaS data analytics strategy, such as Sankey and Pareto, are unavailable in Excel.

You don’t have to do away with Excel in favor of other expensive tools.

Install the ChartExpo add-on to access ready-made charts for your SaaS data analytics strategy.

Sign up for a 7-day trial to access SaaS analytics-friendly charts for your analysis.