If you’re on a B2B go-to-market team and drowning in product data you can’t wrangle—or sick of dashboards that never tell you what you actually want to know—this is for you. I’ve spent enough time elbow-deep in analytics tools to know that most promise you’ll “unlock insights” but usually just unlock a headache. Let’s talk about Amplitude: what it does, what it doesn’t, and how it really fits for B2B teams who need actionable answers, not vanity charts.
Who Should Care About Amplitude
- Product managers sick of flying blind after launch
- Growth and ops folks who want to tie product usage to revenue
- Customer success and sales looking for a clear picture of account health or expansion opportunities
If you’re in B2B SaaS and need to connect the dots between user behavior and business outcomes, Amplitude’s worth a look. But don’t expect magic.
What Amplitude Actually Does (And Doesn’t)
Amplitude is a product analytics platform. In plain English: it tracks what users do in your product and turns that into charts, funnels, and dashboards. For B2B, the pitch is that you can finally see how accounts (not just users) move through your product and where your best customers get stuck or succeed.
What Works
- Event-based tracking (page views, clicks, feature usage)
- User and account-level analysis (track teams, not just individuals)
- Custom dashboards and cohorts (slice data how you want)
- Retroactive data analysis (change your mind about what’s important later)
What Doesn’t
- It’s not a CRM or a full customer data platform; it won’t magically unify all your sales, marketing, and product data.
- Out-of-the-box reports are just okay—you’ll need to set up tracking thoughtfully.
- Doesn’t solve “bad data in, bad data out”—if your event tracking is a mess, so are your insights.
How to Actually Use Amplitude in a B2B GTM Team
Let’s break down what you’ll really do, day-to-day, to get value from Amplitude. This is not a setup wizard—expect some upfront work.
1. Get Your Tracking Plan in Order
Don’t skip this, or you’ll regret it later.
- List your key outcomes. What do you actually care about? (E.g., “How many accounts reach our ‘Aha’ moment?”)
- Map those to in-product events. Be specific: “User added a teammate,” “Account started a trial,” etc.
- Work with devs. You’ll need engineering to implement clean, consistent event tracking. Name events clearly and add properties you’ll want to filter on later.
Pro tip: Don’t try to track everything—start with the top 5-10 events that tie to revenue or retention.
2. Account-Level Analytics: Set Up Grouping
B2B teams live and die by accounts, not individuals. Amplitude lets you group users into accounts (they call this “group analytics”), but it doesn’t work out of the box.
- Choose a group property. Usually your Account ID from your database.
- Send group info with every event. This takes dev work—make sure your Amplitude SDK is set up to send both user and account data.
- Test it. Make sure you can segment by account, not just user.
What’s good: Once set up, you can finally answer “Which accounts are using X feature?” or “Which accounts are about to churn?”
What’s not: If your data model is messy, or users belong to multiple accounts, things get hairy fast.
3. Build Useful Dashboards (Not Just Pretty Ones)
Amplitude gives you a blank slate. Don’t fall into the “dashboard for dashboard’s sake” trap.
- Start with a question, not a chart. (E.g., “How many accounts reach onboarding completion in 7 days?”)
- Use funnels to spot drop-offs. Where do accounts bail during key workflows?
- Create cohorts for follow-up. E.g., accounts that haven’t used a feature in 30 days = prime for a check-in.
Ignore: Vanity metrics like “total events” or “active users” unless they tie to revenue or retention.
4. Tie Product Usage to Revenue
This is where most B2B teams get stuck. Amplitude doesn’t track revenue natively—you have to bring that data in.
- Sync your billing or CRM data. Use Amplitude’s integrations or import CSVs with account-level revenue or plan info.
- Join usage and revenue data. Now you can see, for example, which features drive upgrades, or if high-usage accounts actually pay more.
- Watch for gaps. Sometimes data doesn’t line up perfectly; that’s normal. Document what’s missing.
Pro tip: If your finance and product data live in silos, Amplitude can’t fix that. Get everyone on the same page about what “revenue” means.
5. Set Up Alerts and Monitor Changes
You don’t want to babysit dashboards all day. Amplitude lets you set up alerts—use them for real shifts, not every blip.
- Set thresholds for key metrics. E.g., if onboarding completion drops by 20% week-over-week, alert the team.
- Automate exports or Slack alerts. Keep the noise low—only trigger alerts for actionable trends.
What’s good: Helps you catch issues before they show up as churn.
What’s not: Too many alerts = everyone ignores them. Be ruthless about what matters.
Honest Pros and Cons for B2B Teams
Where Amplitude Shines
- Clear, flexible analysis: Once set up, you can dig deep, answer real business questions, and build custom cohorts.
- Good for product-led growth: Especially if you care about free-to-paid conversions or feature adoption.
- Retroactive querying: Change your mind about what matters? You can re-analyze old data if you tracked it.
Where It Falls Short
- Setup is not plug-and-play: You need buy-in from devs and ops, or you’ll end up with garbage data.
- Learning curve: The interface is better than most, but it’s not obvious for non-analysts. Training helps.
- Pricing: Not cheap. The free tier is limited, and costs ramp up if you want advanced features or lots of data.
What to Ignore (Unless You Have a Huge Team)
- Data governance bells and whistles: For most B2B teams under 500 people, you don’t need to obsess over every taxonomy feature.
- AI features: Amplitude has “predictive” stuff; most of it is too generic to be useful. Focus on nailing your basics first.
Pro Tips for Getting Real Value
- Less is more: Track fewer, more meaningful events.
- Document everything: Seriously, future-you (and new hires) will thank you.
- Align with sales and CS: Don’t cook up metrics in a vacuum—your insights are only useful if others trust and use them.
- Iterate: Start simple, measure, refine. Don’t try to build the perfect dashboard from day one.
Summary: Keep It Simple, Keep It Useful
Amplitude can be a game-changer for B2B go-to-market teams—but only if you stay focused on real questions and don’t get lost in the weeds. Fancy dashboards and AI features are useless if your team can’t trust the data or doesn’t know what to do with it. Get your basics right, start with the outcomes that matter, and build from there. The best analytics stack is the one your team actually uses—so keep it simple, review it often, and don’t be afraid to cut what doesn’t help.