For PMs, nothing instills a bigger sense of dread than when doing events-mapping for their product with whichever analytics tool they use.
Of course, each product is different and business goals at different stages of the company also differ. However, some principles of data analysis and measurement remain the same.
For the ease of segmentation, we can split a user’s journey to be measured across these 5 stages:
The very first step of authentication and the path of least resistance when it comes to signing up or login. Be it B2B or B2C companies - orgs have moved towards simplifying this process and PMs often use it to filter out results from app installs or Sales Qualified Leads. This becomes your first measurement milestone in a linear measurement journey.
The next step in the onboarding journey often varies massively between B2B and B2C orgs. For a product like Bumble- this often involves adding your name, age, location, etc.
On the other hand, for a B2B product like SemRush, it often includes more information about your org like the platforms used and the size of the team. Every PM will be looking to measure this as an indicator of the user sharing personalized data with the product.
Another instance of a metric that vastly varies between B2B and B2C. If you’ve ever used Spotify or Netflix, you’d know how they urge users to select a few genres of their preference to curate better content. This is a crucial step in ensuring that the user experiences an initial delight by being able to see content they are interested in. When it comes to B2B products, this experience varies vastly. Slack, for example, allows you to search the directory of existing members to see if anyone you are familiar with exists in any workspace you’ve recently joined so that you can be notified.
Any PM worth their salt will tell you that activation without acquisition is a vanity metric. Most products have a mini-setup required before the user can try the product for the first time. A trading platform like Coinbase or Robinhood will ask you to verify your identity with a government ID. Analytics tools like SalesForce and Mixpanel ask you to connect the required datasources that you prefer so that you can see the value add instantly.
If all the metrics being mentioned above seem like appetizers, here’s the main course. The first metric a PM would measure is likely the activation metric. In a B2C product like Spotify, this could be things like listening to a song or creating a playlist. It becomes a tad bit more deeper in a B2B product like Mailchimp in which the first activation will be measured by sending your first campaign.
Products aren’t built like an inter-state highway where the milestone of activation is linear, but rather built like a roundabout in a busy intersection where there are multiple paths to take for a user once they enter.
Many products have secondary activation metrics that PMs measure to gauge the depth of engagement a users have with the product. Borrowing from Spotify again, a user listening to songs but also creating playlists would classify as a secondary activation metric. When it comes to B2B product like Amplitude analytics -downloading or exporting an existing dashboard would classify under the same.
Two basic questions you can ask of any product:
‘How many times’
‘How many things?’
For a CRM like Hubspot, this would pertain to how many additional features clients are using apart from social media scheduling, like website and SEO audits. For a consumer tool like Doordash, this can be attributed to how many users have order more than 5 times in last 7 days.
PMs and PMMs usually design their product engagement wit an integrated 'helping hand' section. This holds true strongly for B2B products in which tutorials and feature gamifications are built in order to ensure that users aren’t facing roadblocks due to a knowledge gap. SalesForce basically built their 'Trailblaze Academy' to address this.
For organizations smaller than Salesforce, this often comes out in the form of tutorial videos, loom videos from PMs and email drip campaigns. PMs shouldn’t shy away from measuring this by deflecting responsibilty to PMMs or marketers and should rather incorporate engagement metrics on this like video viewership, scroll depth on articles and CTRs.
This is a metric most PMs would likely keep outside the purview of product engagement and rather measure it independently. However, what is a better way to measure the true value of product for the users than actually asking the users about it directly?
Your NPS or CSAT score in tandem with the the input from your account executives(If you are a B2B) player should be able to give you a good overview about your product experience.
Possibly the most obvious of any of the metrics here, but nevertheless imperative. Keeping track of your conversion action and having it in the centre of your daily measurement dashboard is crucial.This can be a monthly subscription like in the case of Loom, or regular transactions like in the case of Uber.
When it comes to B2B products, pricing plans are often keep in mind a broader range of offerings. Products like Klaviyo have this ranging from almost free to $2K per month.
Zapier, on the other hand measures tasks completed and allocates pricing accordingly. Change in business needs often requires a readjustment in pricing and this gives a good measure of the real value the product is building to the growth of your client.
Measuring churn is crucial for understanding the value curve your product offers users.You’d need to measure this against MAU to understand the ratio of repeat transactions and drop off rate. For a product like Shopify, where there is a monthly subscription for plans and themes, this becomes a great indicator.
Social credibility is something PMs have been chasing in order to create a domino effect with respect to product awareness and adoption. Brands like Spotify allow users to share your playlist to other social media platforms and have even embedded it into dating platforms like Bumble. Within B2B, Figma allows users to share the designs and prototype in an interact-able manner to colleagues and stakeholders.
When it comes to user acquisition, PMM’s really favor this one. Referral events act as a strong signalling of the value your product brings to existing users. Products often incentivise their users to refer likeminded customers- this can be through cash-backs or discounts to in-app currencies. For example, Airbnb, who understand that their core users tend to be prolific travelers, tether their referral program with travel credits. By doing so, they are incentivising what can be classified as ideal behaviour that connects back to the app.
While going through a users journey, one measures their onboarding, activation, engagement, monetization and certain adoption traits. However, there are also other ways in which one can measure how deeply engrossed a user is in your product.
Have they done more than one integration with partner apps?
For example, integrating Mixpanel with SalesForce for CRM, Klaviyo for automation and Looker Studio for data overview.
Have they started integrating the app as part of their day to day?
For example, having multiple Doordash addresses saved for home, work, partners home, friend’s home etc
Identifying and measuring the correct metrics in a product is like taking hiking path through the middle of the forest. However, if you keep looking at the path trail from previous hikers, you’re less likely to veer off course. Similarly, your product will have a hundred metrics you can measure and report on in addition to hundreds of variables for each of these segment, but start with the basics of each product. Product analytics tools should aim to solve for this by measuring and correctly tagging them based on product user journey. It may not be possible to tag all the events correctly today, but you could pretty confidently say that it’s not that hard to track 20.
Crunch removes the need for tagging altogether.
Autotracking, coupled with a proprietary AI model for analytics data means that all your data is accessible at all times-in plain English.
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