Beyond the App: Seeing Product Management Through Data

How Behavioural Data Expands Product Management

By Craig Parker

Digital product managers are expanding their view beyond in-app analytics to understand users through behavioural data. This broader perspective reveals intent, reduces blind spots, and helps build products that fit within real digital journeys.

Why Behavioural Data Matters?

Behavioural data captures what people do and why they do it across digital environments, not just within a single app or digital product. It includes searches, comparisons, and switching between apps.

Traditional analytics stop at the edge of the product. Behavioural data fills the gaps by connecting decisions made before and after each interaction. Without that context, even a well-designed feature can miss the mark.

Seeing Two User Experiences

My work sits at the intersection of data and product, focusing on how information is both created and consumed.

I think about two types of users every day:

• Analysts and strategists who rely on clarity and context to uncover insights.

• Consumers whose digital actions generate the data we deliver.

Most product decisions do not happen in isolation. A search, a social post, or a quick chat with an AI tool can all redirect intent. Measuring only what happens inside the app misses much of the real story.

The Journey Is Bigger Than the App

A user sees a budgeting tip on TikTok, searches for it, asks ChatGPT for a summary, and reopens a finance app they downloaded months ago.

In a traditional funnel, that looks like reactivation.

In behavioural data, it is a cross-app journey shaped by multiple triggers.

Understanding these paths helps teams build for the why, not just the what. It connects product metrics to the real moments driving behaviour.

Beyond First-Party Analytics

First-party analytics show how users behave inside your product but not how they discover, compare, or decide elsewhere.

Behavioural data helps product teams:

• Identify triggers behind installs or churn

• Understand how users move between competing products

• Spot friction that happens outside their own experience

This wider view turns analytics into a discovery tool rather than a performance dashboard.

The Broader Craft of Product

Working with behavioural data has reshaped how I think about product craft. It has reminded me that:

• Friction can be intentional and valuable

• Not every journey begins when the app opens

• The “happy path” is rarely the only path

• Every product lives within a larger ecosystem

Data is part of the user experience. When it is clear and meaningful, it helps others make better decisions, just like a well-designed interface does.

From Flow to Context

The best product managers focus not only on smooth flows but also on understanding context.

They ask what triggered the moment, what users are trying to achieve, and what will happen next. Product management then becomes less about features and more about orchestrating experiences across time and touchpoints.

Conclusion

Behavioural data gives product managers a fuller picture of how people move, decide, and engage across platforms.

When we design with context in mind, we create products that fit naturally into users’ lives, not just their screens.