ClearBrain’s value-illustrative account setup process

ClearBrain is a free-to-try causal analytics platform, built to inform data-driven growth teams. Their proprietary approach to determining causation uses state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to show you what user behaviors drive your most important conversions. 

That’s a mouthful, right? ClearBrain knows they’re on the leading edge of growth analytics. To help users along, their account setup process does a great job of setting expectations, explaining to the user what they’re doing, and helping them understand why.

Helping evaluators understand the “Why?”

Especially when your product provides a genuinely new service, it’s critical that your users understand exactly where they’re headed throughout the trial process. 

In ClearBrain’s case, that means setting the right expectations early and laying out the roadmap for a successful trial. The onboarding process starts with an overview of the setup phase, delivered through a beautifully designed modal.

Because ClearBrain depends on reliable event data from their users’ platforms, the first step in the onboarding process requires connecting your event data source. In this case, ClearBrain is actively targeting users of the Customer Data Infrastructure platform, Segment.

Causal analysis takes time. Generally, teams of analysts would spend days, if not weeks, analyzing statistical correlations and identifying insights. 

The value of ClearBrain lies in the ability to generate these insights in less than an hour. Setting the right expectations up front helps ClearBrain both show the comparative speed of their platform and ensure they don’t run into the classic analytics product problem—the pre-analysis empty state.

Once the setup process is finished, ClearBrain doesn’t leave the user to figure out what to do next. They know successful onboarding means prescribing the correct next step. 

In this case, setting up your first funnel is the clear CTA, but the user still has the option to explore on their own.

Each time the user starts a new workflow, ClearBrain does an awesome job of explaining the “why” in context that the user can understand. Here, they explain the value of their funnel feature to help motivate their users.

Why this is really good UX

• ClearBrain does a fantastic job of explaining to users what’s going to happen and why. Well-designed UI patterns are presented at key stages in the account setup process to help the user along.
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• Because their concept is new and opens up analysis generally available only to advanced data teams, ClearBrain spends time explaining some of the key concepts directly within the product, at the relevant time.
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• The user is never left wondering what happens next. Seeding the correct next step keeps users from veering off and becoming distracted before they’ve completed all of the essential pieces of the setup process.

ClearBrain is bringing an innovative concept to the long-established analytics market. They know that not every evaluator will have an in-depth understanding of their offering.  
Keeping the product tour focused on explaining each step in the journey ensures users have the necessary motivation to move forward. The product does the heavy lifting in the onboarding process, and users learn about causal analytics along the way.