Drowning in Product Data? Here's How We Fixed That with AI

Julie Beynon
3 February 2025

Here's the story of how we transformed an overwhelming stream of product events into updates our teams actually look forward to reading. (I know—it surprised us too!)

Watch this quick overview to see how we did it:

 

The Problem with Event Stream Data (aka Why Everyone Was Drowning)

Imagine this: your product is busy collecting every click, swipe, and interaction. Sounds great, right? Except now you're buried under a mountain of events in your data warehouse, and your sales and customer success teams are starting to look like they'd rather do anything else than dive into yet another dashboard.

Been there, felt that pain. At Census, we were swimming in data about models created, syncs configured, and destinations added. But turning that into something meaningful? That was the fun part.

Turning Data Overload into Insights People Actually Use

Step 1: Organize the Essentials

First, we had to bring order to the flood of events. For us, that means capturing moments like:

  • Creating a new model
  • Setting up a sync
  • Adding a destination
  • And many, many more.

For you, it might be tracking cart additions, purchase patterns, or repeated visits to a particular product page (we're looking at you, undecided shopper 👀).

Step 2: Turning Customer Events into AI-Ready Data

Ever try explaining 90 days of customer activity to GPT? Yeah, we need to make that digestible. Here's how we do it at Census:

WITH source AS (
    SELECT
        account_id,
        event_name,
        happened_at,
        unique_id
    FROM
        census_on_census.production.product_usage_summary
    WHERE
        happened_at >= CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL '90 days'
)
SELECT
    account_id,
    ARRAY_AGG(OBJECT_CONSTRUCT(
        'event_name', event_name,
        'unique_id', unique_id,
        'happened_at', happened_at
    )) AS events
FROM
    source
GROUP BY
    account_id;


This SQL magic bundles up all customer events into a neat JSON array, with one row per account capturing recent activity. This gets the data neatly organized and ready for GPT to analyze.

Step 3: Bring in the AI Magic ✨

Our GPT prompt transforms raw JSON events into a structured report that actually drives action. Here's what we look for:

  • Negative Events: failed, deleted, paused
  • Exploratory Events: clicked
  • Positive Events: created, configured

The prompt analyzes these events across six key areas:

  1. Overview of Last 30 Days
  2. Growth & Potential Issues
  3. Feature Usage Breakdown
  4. Service Connection Type Concerns
  5.  Suggested Next Steps
  6. Sales Talking Points

Summarize the product usage trends based on available event types, focusing on key activities and changes over the last 30 days compared to the previous 30 days. Highlight significant positive, exploratory, and negative actions with a focus on actionable insights for customer engagement and issue resolution.

Event Types:

  • Negative Events contain: failed, deleted, paused
  • Exploratory Events contain: clicked
  • Positive Events contain: created, configured

Data Sources:

Guidelines:

  1. Overview of Last 30 Days:
    • Briefly outline overall product usage, with a focus on significant positive, negative, and exploratory actions, compared to the previous 30 days.
  2. Growth & Potential Issues:
    • Identify growth signals (e.g., increases in positive events like new destination creation) and potential concerns (e.g., a rise in negative events like sync deletion) without repeating details from other sections.
  3. Feature Usage Breakdown:
    • Summarize engagement with key actions such as sync configuration, model creation, and exploratory clicks, highlighting notable trends.
  4. Service Connection Type Concerns:
    • Focus on any issues by service type related to negative actions like failures or deletions.
  5. Suggested Next Steps (most detailed):
    • Outline actionable next steps for Customer Success to address negative events, promote positive actions, and encourage further exploratory engagement.
  6. Sales Talking Points (most detailed):
    • Provide talking points for addressing any negative usage trends, reinforcing the benefits of positive actions, and encouraging deeper product exploration. Use relevant case studies or success stories where applicable.

Example Output Structure:

Overview of Last 30 Days:

  • Key Activity: Active model creation and new sync configurations, with some increases in negative events like sync deletion.

Growth Signals & Potential Issues:

  • 🟢 Growth: 20% increase in new source creation, indicating stronger product adoption.
  • 🟡 Concern: 10% rise in sync deletions, indicating potential disengagement.

Feature Usage Breakdown:

  • 📄 Sync Configured: Increased configuration attempts.
  • 📄 Model Creation: Consistent activity in new model creation.
  • 📄 Negative Events: Sync deletions and pauses have increased.

Service Connection Type Concerns:

  • ⚠️ Investigate causes for increased sync deletions and workspace deletions.

Suggested Next Steps:

  • 🛠️ Address the increase in sync deletions by offering troubleshooting resources.
  • 📧 Schedule a follow-up to discuss setup improvements and encourage continued feature adoption.

Talking Points:

  • 📊 Emphasize the value of new sync configurations and model creation.
  • 🔍 Address any negative trends with proactive support, using success stories as applicable.

 

From Prompt to Action: The Output

Here's what our teams actually see:

Product Usage Summary

This structured format hits all the key points our teams need: what's happening, why it matters, and what to do about it. Best part? It lands directly in our CRM, ready for action. No data science degree required!

The Impact (aka Why We're Obsessed With This)

Let's get real - we built this because flying blind with customer data just isn't cute anymore. This system has transformed how our teams work:

  • Sales has actual context for every call
  • CS spots fires before they start
  • Account managers look like mind readers
  • Everyone's working from the same playbook

Is it perfect? Nope! We're constantly tweaking it. But it beats staring at dashboards or hoping for the best.

Ready to Give This a Shot?

Here's what you need:

  1. A few key events that matter
  2. Our SQL snippet above
  3. The GPT prompt we shared
  4. Your favorite CRM
  5. Willingness to experiment

Start small - maybe just one event type and a few accounts. The insights will surprise you.

Questions? Let's chat on LinkedIn!