Should product marketing decisions be data-driven or more so data-informed? Should PMMs lead with intuition and use data to back up their assumptions?

Question

Jane Reynolds · Accepted Answer

The voice of the customer should be what drives your decisions as a PMM, and it reaches you through various channels. In some instances for OkCupid, that is completely data-driven. For example, when Roe vs Wade was overturned in 2021, we saw an 18% increase in users stating they are pro-choice on their profiles, so it was clear that finding a pro-choice partner was increasingly important to our users. Therefore, we launched our I’m Pro-Choice profile badge so users could filter for other users who were pro-choice. And it worked: people with the badge are nearly 2x more likely to get a reply to a message compared to those who don’t have it.

Other times, we are driven by ideas and feedback from our users (and potential users) that may come more anecdotally. We see what our key demo is discussing on social media and what topics are trending, and implement new features. Recently, we added new matching questions written by ChatGPT because we found that millennials and Gen Z are more and more interested in AI and how it will begin to play more of a role in our everyday lives. Those questions now have hundreds of thousands of responses from our users.

Having data to back up decisions and new product features is vital. But it’s important to remember the human aspect of the product you deliver, and listen to what your customer may be saying beyond just on your platform.

Liz Tassey (she/her) · Answer

I love the data debate. A couple of my favorite quotes:

"If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything" - Ronald Coase.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - maybe Henry Ford

I dont think it's an either-or answer. Data is obviously incredibly important, as it can be the objective source of "truth" and the rise of machine learning and AI have made data more powerful and helpful than ever. But as you think about how data is used in decision making, I think it's important to decide what is "data" -- is it "hard" numbers like conversion, click thru, average deal size, people saying yes to this feature or no to that feature, etc. Or, is it experience data representing the feelings, needs, wants of customers as they engage with a brand? Or is it the insights of skilled, seasoned professionals who are processing thousands of data points at once and it shows up as "intuition" (If you've read Blink, you will know exactly what I mean)?

If you have too narrow a view of data, you run the risk of missing an opportunity (e.g. building a car instead of finding faster horses), so I like to have a more expansive view. And if you take data at face value without considering how it was gathered, analyzed or presented, you can draw inaccurate conclusions.

So, I don't think it's either-or. I love data and heavily rely on it for decisions - with an overlay of human discussion and assessment. But I also don't always have enough of it (at least traditional sources) and have to rely on other inputs. A couple of principles I like to follow:

1. If you dont have the data you wish you did, make your decisions but have them backed by stated, educated hypotheses. This will help you make sense of the outcomes of your decisions, regardless of how much data you had.
 2. Get really clear on the questions you need answered to make an educated decision. Then determine the data you need to answer those questions. Often we have tons of data, but not sure what it is telling us.
 3. Get alignment on what data matters, the method for gathering it, how it will factor into decisions, and where will you be ok NOT having all the data. The biggest challenge in making data-driver OR data-informed decisions is the lack of "single source of truth." Teams will spend hours debating the data, while missing opportunities to win / keep customers.

Related Ask Me Anything Sessions

Drift Senior Director of Product Marketing, Aurelia Solomon on Product Marketing Skills

OkCupid Director of Product Marketing, Jane Reynolds on Product Marketing Skills

Plaid Product Marketing Lead, Valerie Angelkoson PMM Soft and Hard Skills

Related Questions