In business, finding the right path to customer acquisition and retention is crucial. And product-led growth¹ (PLG) metrics provide the roadmap that gets you there.
They are your GPS to modern business success.

In this article, we'll dive into how these metrics are transforming onboarding strategies.

What is Product-led growth (PLG)?

Product-led growth is a business methodology that relies on using the product itself as the main driver of customer acquisition, activation, satisfaction, retention, and scalable expansion.
PLG metrics play a crucial role in measuring the success of a product-led growth strategy.

By tracking these metrics, businesses can identify areas of improvement and optimize their product-led growth strategy. For example, monitoring user engagement can help businesses identify which features are most valuable to users.

These metrics can be divided into three categories: user acquisition metrics, user activation metrics, and user expansion metrics.

The Relationship Between Product-led Growth Metrics and Onboarding Strategies

In product-led growth, numbers help us make good onboarding plans. Let's see how these numbers guide our approach to welcoming users.

Activation Rate

This metric measures the point at which a user experiences real value in your product. Imagine it as the "aha" moment when your product's magic clicks for them. When businesses optimize their onboarding to guide users towards these activation events, they can increase the activation rate and boost user engagement. It's all about making users see the value quickly.

Time-to-Value (TTV)

TTV is the time it takes for a user to find real value in your product. Faster is better here. For instance, if users get value from your product by accessing a library of resources right after signing up, you'd want to track how quickly they reach this stage. If it takes too long, it's a sign that your onboarding process needs some tuning. A speedy TTV enhances user engagement and retention.

Onboarding Support Ticket Count

By quantifying how many users are experiencing problems and asking for help when they're getting started with a product, you can determine the quality of your onboarding process.

If the stats are high, it's a sign that something is probably off with your onboarding process. By keeping an eye on the volume and reasons behind these support tickets, businesses can fine-tune their product-led experience and make the onboarding process smoother and more successful.

Providing an Intuitive and Anticipatory Product-Led Experience

This is the ultimate goal. You want your users to glide through your product without hitting roadblocks or having unresolved questions. By anticipating what your users need, you can give it to them before they even ask. This not only puts them at ease but keeps them engaged and ensures they stick around.

By keeping tabs on user activation, TTV, and support tickets, you can make data-driven decisions and provide an intuitive, anticipatory product-led experience. And that, my friends, is the secret sauce for achieving your growth and retention goals.

Using Metrics to Improve Onboarding

To successfully leverage metrics as a way of improving the onboarding experience you need to tick these five boxes: Track, Personalize, Message, Evaluate, and A/B Test.

1. Track the Right Onboarding KPIs and Metrics: To refine onboarding, you must monitor metrics and KPIs such as retention rate, engagement rate, and time to value.
   By keeping tabs on these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions to enhance the onboarding experience.
2. Personalize the Onboarding Process: Personalization goes a long way in improving the user experience.
   Collecting data on Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) during the signup process allows you to create customized onboarding experiences. It also ensures users grasp your product's core value proposition and encourages them to embrace your product.
3. Use In-App Messages for Feature Discovery: In-app messages are a valuable tool for driving feature discovery and helping users make the most of your product.
   Employing the right onboarding elements at each stage, such as checklists, tooltips, hotspots, and interactive walkthroughs, prompts users to use your product effectively, increasing its value with each interaction.
4. Continuously Monitor and Evaluate Onboarding Performance: Once your contextual onboarding process is live, it's crucial to keep a close watch on its performance. Metrics like engagement, churn rate, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction score allow you to fine-tune your onboarding infrastructure.
   Collecting user feedback during the onboarding process is also invaluable for improvements.
5. A/B Test In-App Onboarding for Optimization: A/B testing your in-app onboarding is a smart strategy. Through testing different onboarding flows, you can pinpoint what resonates best with your audience.

Utilizing metrics to elevate onboarding is a critical step in creating the finest onboarding experience for your product and audience. By tracking the right metrics, personalizing onboarding, using in-app messages effectively, monitoring and evaluating performance, and A/B testing your in-app onboarding, you can boost user retention and drive product-led growth.

Your Gateway to Onboarding Success

Platforms like Bonboarding offer a comprehensive set of tools to assist you in tracking the most relevant metrics, personalizing the onboarding journey, and optimizing the process to create an intuitive product-led experience that keeps users actively engaged and returning for more.