Different Types of Analysts in Tech

A data analyst is a broad role responsible for gathering, aggregating, and drawing insights from a specific departmental type of data. "Data analytics" is the overarching category of analytics jobs within a company that includes three major specifications of roles. These primary specializations are derived from the data sources and problems each analyst is working to solve. The main analytics specializations are Product, Marketing, and Operations-- and they can each be wrapped under the general "data analyst" umbrella.

Examples of Analytics Specializations

• Product Analysts - these analysts specialize in user experience data on a platform or website. Some sub-specializations of a product analyst could be a Payment Analyst or Service Analyst.
• Marketing Analysts - these analysts focus on marketing channel performance. There are many different sub-specializations depending on the company size.
• Operations Analysts - these analysts focus on operational efficiency and reporting for the business. A popular sub-specializations is a Business Analyst.

Product, marketing, and operations analysts all focus on extremely different company problems and data sets. It can be difficult to change departments once at a company (but breaking in is the hardest part!), so we recommend a systematic approach to learning about the roles beforehand.

Take some time to learn and explore the broad responsibilities of each analyst type, then narrow down what problems sound the most interesting to you. After that decision, we recommend getting familiar with the skills and tools required to be competitive in your chosen role. Check out our skill tracker for more information.‍

To kick off your exploration, we've included high level descriptions of each analyst type below.

Product Analysts work with data to identify user funnels and drop offs within an application or website. This is a great gig for curious individuals who are more mathematically inclined, and enjoy thinking through logic problems to create segments to grab the right chunks of interaction / engagement data.

An example of product analytics could be creating different user funnels to show the steps a user took before adding a product to cart, then buying. Did they come back several times? Did they view content before viewing products? All site or platform questions are on the table for product analysts.

Product Analytics Example

An example of product analytics could be creating different user funnels to show the steps a user took before adding a product to cart, then buying. Did they come back several times? Did they view content before viewing products? All site or platform questions are on the table for product analysts.

Difference between Product Analysts and Marketing Analysts

Marketing Analysts focus on the best ways to attract users and potential customers to the site. They specialize in breaking down different customer acquisition channels like SEO (search engine marketing, meaning organic google or bing), paid search (google or bing sponsored ads), or paid media and tracking traffic levels and performance. Learn about the different types of marketing traffic here.
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Once a user is on the site, often from the optimization efforts of the marketing analyst, the user is passed along to the . Product analysts focus strictly on a website or application, and how customers interact with it. The primarily role of a product analyst is increasing site metrics like order conversion or product views.

To recap: a marketing analyst is responsible for analyzing and improving the ways at which a customer accesses the product, while a product analyst is in charge of making sure that customer completes the product's desired actions once acquired.

Product Analyst Job Requirements

We've compiled thousands of job descriptions for Product Analysts to record the most common requirements to save you time. While preparing for interviews, keep in mind specific times you've demonstrated these skills.

• Craft and tell compelling data stories
• Develop hypotheses for testing prioritization
• Assist with team's prioritization with data-driven methods
• Gathering and utilizing data to create strategic product decisions
• Identify popular user paths & funneled experiences
• Scope user friction from observing drop offs and engagement rates
• Design compelling data visualizations to showcase findings
• Experience with AB Testing and Optimizations
• Knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods

Product Analyst Tool Examples

We've also compiled the most common tools listed in job description. If you're serious about becoming a Product Analyst, get familiar with these and be ready to talk about them.

• Google Analytics
• Adobe Analytics
• Amplitude
• Heap
• MixPanel
• Segment
• Fullstory
• HotJar
• Excel / Google Sheets
• Tableau

View Full Product Analytics Job Guide

Marketing Analysts work with data to identify marketing channel performance driving traffic to a product. within an application or website. This role is a lot of channel reporting, and analyzing things like source activity. The most popular are SEO analyst, Paid Media Analyst and Paid Search Analyst.

Marketing Analytics Example

An example of marketing analytics could be observing the various user touch-points before finding their way to your site. Was the user impressed by an ad on a search engine (Google)? Did they match with a keyword that your company had created content for? Anything involving how a user was exposed to your product is on the table for a marketing analyst.

Marketing Analyst Job Requirements

We've compiled thousands of job descriptions for Marketing Analysts to record the most common requirements to save you time. While preparing for interviews, keep in mind specific times you've demonstrated these skills.

• Good understanding of paid search, paid social and display traffic (Learn More Here)
  
• Excellent quantitative and data analysis skills
  
• Experience building & maintaining forecasting models
  
• Understanding of key marketing funnel metrics & KPIs
  
• Experience with data visualization such as Tableau and high proficiency in Excel and/or Google Sheets
  
• Intellectual curiosity, creative thinking, a passion for problem solving and an A/B testing mindset
• Strong project management skills: proven ability to drive and execute an agenda in all kinds of environments
  
• Expertise in creating and managing complex financial models to drive deeper insight into specific performance areas and identify potential optimization change initiatives
  

Marketing Analyst Tool Examples

We've also compiled the most common tools listed in job description. If you're serious about becoming a Marketing Analyst, get familiar with these and be ready to talk about them.

• The entire Google Suite -- Including Analytics, Search Console, Merchant Center and Ad Manager
• Adobe Analytics
• Excel / Google Sheets
• PowerBI
• Tableau
• Lookr
• Mode

Types of Marketing Analysts

• SEO Analysts - these analysts specialize in search engine optimization (SEO) and organic keyword research across search engines like Google or Bing.
• Paid Search Analysts - these analysts specialize in search engine marketing (SEM) and work to optimize paid ads across the same search engines. Often work closely with SEO analysts.
• Paid Media Analysts - these analysts specialize in other paid channels, including social media and display advertising.
• Social Media Analysts - these analysts specialize specifically in social media performance, with channels including Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

View Marketing Job Guides

Operations analysts work with data to optimize company efficiency on and offline. This could be raw revenue reporting, efficiency reporting, or anything else relevant to the company.

Operations Analytics Example

An example of operations analytics could be examining which physical stores are doing best, or optimizing reporting on employee efficiency. Company finances also fall into operations analytics, so any sort of budgeting, forecasting, or revenue performance reporting would also be common tasks of this type of analyst.

Operations Analyst Job Requirements

• Ability to execute research projects, and translate the results into operational or analytical solutions to problems
  
• Problem management, root cause analysis and project/stake holder management
  
• Experience building & maintaining financial forecasts
  
• Familiarity with business applications including Sales Systems, Productivity Systems and Technical Systems
  
• Experience with data visualization such as Tableau and high proficiency in Excel and/or Google Sheets
  
• Strong working knowledge of sales strategy
  

Operations Analyst Tool Examples

We've also compiled the most common tools listed in job description. If you're serious about becoming an analyst in operations, get familiar with these and be ready to talk about them.

• The entire Google Suite -- Including Analytics, Search Console, Merchant Center and Ad Manager
• Oracle - Projects Module; Procurement Module
• Salesforce
• PowerBI
• Tableau
• Lookr
• Mode

Types of Operations Analysts

• Business Analysts - these analysts specialize in operational efficiency, and sometimes are responsible for financial work in smaller companies.
• Financial Analysts - these analysts work specifically with forecasting and budgeting at large companies and are responsible for reporting company performance financially to leadership.
• Sales Analysts - these analysts work specifically with optimizing and reporting on sales performance for sales-driven companies.
• Supply Chain Analysts - these analysts work specifically with optimizing and reporting on the supply chain (very relevant these days!) to help companies cut costs and maximize efficiency.

View Operations Job Guides

Analytics is often associated with coding, including SQL or Python to access huge swaths of data stored in warehouses. However, this is incredibly company dependent, and often product analysts are not required to code.
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Most popular web analytics tools -- Google & Adobe Analytics, Amplitude, Heap and others do not require programming to access data and have an intuitive user interfaces. If a company is requiring "coding" or "programming," it may be worthwhile to ask about the reason in an interview. If they have lots of data only accessible by warehouse, this may be more of a data scientist role!

One of the main distinctions between product analytics and data science is the ability to code-- and data scientists are paid better for it. Don't be fooled into doing data science for lower pay!

Tech Data Analyst vs. Consulting Analysts

Analysts in tech hold a different meaning than analysts in other industries, namely consulting.

In consulting, the term "analyst" refers to an extremely entry-level exploratory role, one that may never even touch real data. It's important while looking through jobs to be sure you're focused on a data-gathering analyst position instead of something else. Unless you're open to that!

And this is just the top layer of the analytics world. We recommend thinking about what user problems you find interesting-- how the user found the experience, how the user engaged with the experience, or operational excellence. After this decision, narrow down a relevant field and look at our job guides to see what skills you already can put towards an analyst job description. Good luck!