How LogMeIn increased access to standardized data across the business with a modern technology stack

The big win

To answer questions about customer behavior, LogMeIn teams would have to ask the development group to file a request with the database team to query its data repository. To keep up with millions of users across a wide array of products, LogMeIn needed to replace its slow, siloed process of one-off data analysis, with a system that collects all data, standardizes it, and makes it available to all internal teams.

LogMeIn chose Twilio Segment because the customer data platform allowed their engineering team to collect data once and then route it to other destinations, saving a lot of time on analytics instrumentation. At the same time, Twilio Segment gave their BI, product management, and product marketing teams access to data in whichever destinations they chose.

LogMeIn provides software products for access management, internal collaboration, and customer communication to small businesses around the globe. Today, the LogMeIn platform supports 2 million daily users, 200 million customer engagements, and 5 billion voice minutes per year.

To keep up with millions of users across a wide array of products, LogMeIn needed to replace its slow, siloed process of one-off data analysis with a system that collects all data at high speed and makes it available to everyone who needs access, even those who aren’t analysts.

"We are dealing with millions and millions of end users across these products, so it’s critical not only to be able to get to the numbers, but to do so quickly and in a way that people who aren’t analysts but need that information can use it," said Jon Borthwick, LogMeIn’s Director of Products, Identity & Access Management.

LogMeIn turned to Twilio Segment to democratize access to data analytics in an easy-to-use format and provide internal teams a central database to pull cross-product KPIs for the leadership team.

A lack of data analytics across different product lines

Before Twilio Segment, LogMeIn didn’t have the tools to execute a comprehensive strategy to use analytics across the company. Instead, individual groups used a limited number of tools to gain insight. Teams created their own one-off analytics programs and asked developers to create tracking and build analytics features to help them. The result was a slow, siloed process preventing groups from gaining actionable insights.

To answer questions about customer behavior, LogMeIn teams would have to ask the development group to file a request with the database team to query its data repository. "So as a product manager, I would have to go to them and say, 'Hey, can you tell me how many people used X feature today?,'" Borthwick said. The request could take more than week to fulfill.

"Before Twilio Segment, the slow process to gather data bred frustration among development, business intelligence, and product management teams to the point where people hesitated to ask questions, which is not a good place to be," Borthwick explained.

"We needed a standardized data platform to collect information at a high velocity across all of our products and platforms, then send that out to all of our team members who needed it," Borthwick said. "Investing the time to build a single source of truth was critical to our business."

LogMeIn needed to support a wide variety of PCs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices across more than a dozen companies, each requiring their own type of tooling and levels of aggregation.

"We needed access to better tools to serve the various data needs of our teams," he said. "For example, the product marketing team wanted access to both high-level dashboards and preconfigured views—that already put us at two tools for one team. And, we needed both systems to read off the same set of data without overly taxing our developers."

Unlocking new product insights and pushing for more usage

LogMeIn’s IT team tested and then onboarded Twilio Segment across their mobile apps, web apps, and websites and found they could easily turn on tools for other teams as needed. The company now uses a wide variety of analytics, tracking, and marketing tools through Twilio Segment, all of which require zero additional engineering work.

LogMeIn chose Twilio Segment because the customer data platform allowed their engineering team to collect data once and then route it to other destinations, saving a lot of time on analytics instrumentation. At the same time, Twilio Segment gave their BI, product management, and product marketing teams access to data in whichever destinations they chose.

Using Twilio Segment’s Replay feature, LogMeIn also tested a new analytics vendor by backfilling all of their historical data into the new tool. After comparing the new vendor against their previous provider, they decided to use both tools. LogMeIn now uses the new tool for event-based tracking and predictive modeling while continuing to leverage the legacy product for mobile analytics and A/B testing. This required zero additional engineering work, and both tools are powered by data collected via Twilio Segment.

While these tools helped answer many of their basic questions, the LogMeIn team wanted even more detail. Using Twilio Segment Warehouses, they piped all of their customer data into a database. With data in a structured format, their BI team now uses SQL to generate new insights and create new programs faster than ever.

"Analyzing our data in a database, we were able to find new product insights for sales by looking into how specific cohorts of users behave based on what features they tried," Borthwick said. "We wanted to know if usage was going up or down after we released a new feature. Being able to look at timestamps and rate of usage in SQL was something Twilio Segment Warehouses really helped us focus on."

Twilio Segment gives LogMeIn access to a single, standardized stream of trusted analytics data that can be used for a variety of tools as needed by managers. 

"With Twilio Segment we are able to track data once," he explained. "I can track a user event, say a 'remote control session,' on an iPhone, iPad, or an Android app, a native client on a Mac, or on any number of browsers. I can track data in lots of different ways with Twilio Segment, but it will still feed into a trusted set of data that lives in one place."

Twilio Segment allows LogMeIn to develop "a common language" for event tracking, he added. "If we tracked a 'remote control' event, we will know what that event means and where it’s coming from, whatever tools we’re using."

Driving more insights and experimentation with best-of-breed tools

Because Twilio Segment makes it easy to experiment with a wide variety of tools, LogMeIn has been able to develop a flexible array of best-of-breed analytics and marketing solutions. With the ability to prove that a tool creates value before justifying its purchase, LogMeIn is using Twilio Segment to modernize its analytics infrastructure.

"Twilio Segment allowed us to literally try out a tool over lunchtime. And once the data is live and operating, it becomes easy to spin up a file program and get some quick wins and go after a budget for it," Borthwick said. "You can do it in trial without having to get development or financial resources. Twilio Segment allowed us to experiment with a wide variety of tools, from customer success, to analytics, to survey tools, so we could provide value before we had to justify it."

For example, with Twilio Segment, the IT team can route data to its new analytics platform and quickly build a report for the product marketers. Or, using Redshift, the team can create charts on user and event data and also query the data to answer specialized questions for the CMO.

"Instead of needing to find one analytics package to solve all of our problems, sink the investment on development and training, and force ourselves to find something that is comprehensive but mediocre at best, we could go out and find the best tool to do X, do Y, and do Z," Borthwick said. "It immediately became obvious that Twilio Segment opened up the door for us to actually live in a world where we could have a tremendous amount of best-of-breed point solutions. Twilio Segment has definitely helped us lead the charge in modernizing our analytics infrastructure."