AMA: ActiveCampaign Senior Director of Product Management, Veronica Hudson on Product Management KPI's

Create forcing functions that will encourage KPI creation and analysis throughout the product life cycle. Here are some ways I've had success in doing so: I've found OKR exercises to be incredibly helpful in orienting teams around KPIs. As you set those Objectives, you have to also understand what your key results are, which often requires KPI measurement. Once the team has landed on those, it can become a topic of discussion throughout the product lifecycle...how is this helping us hit our key ...Read More

Maybe this is controversial, but I believe KPIs should be hypothesis-oriented with an eye towards learning what is and is not working to move the needle on an overarching business objective rather that just a random number we think might mean...something? Let me give an example here. Say we are launching an update that we believe will increase adoption of a feature most closely understood to drive retention (ie customers that adopt this tool tend to stay with us longer and spend more money). I w ...Read More

This is not a single KPI, but often in the past, I've seen KPIs set that are not tied back in any way to broader business goals. For example, if a product manager on my team came to me and said, "My KPI for this product launch is 30% adoption in the first month." My first question would be, "How does that relate to our broader business goals of increasing net retention or driving trial conversions?" That KPI should only be measuring adoption if think it will directly impact one of those broader ...Read More

This has been a hot topic on my team recently. I think the default answer for many is that PMs own all of the metrics around a feature launch, including adoption. However, I believe that Product Marketing and Product need to be incredibly close partners on adoption KPIs, with each partner measuring the levers that they have control over to understand where they can drive the most impact. Once a feature is launched, the PM can listen to customer feedback and look at usage data to understand what ...Read More

Every KPI exercise should start by asking, "What are the direct business outcomes we hope to move the needle on with this intiative?" So often I see KPIs focused on something like pure adoption metrics. Ok great, we want people to adopt this feature but WHY do we want them to adopt it? Do we think it will help reduce churn? Do we think it will drive conversion? Do we see a correlation between customers that adopt this feature and stay past the 30 day mark? Is this feature a key part of our Aha m ...Read More

Bringing engineering into KPI discussions is a must for any Product Org, especially when we are considering key B2B business metrics like churn and retention. I think product managers can often get caught in the trap of only considering which new features are going to drive the business forward and excite new customers, but no business will survive on new customers alone. How are you keeping your current customers happy and satisfied with the product? This is where some important engineering-dri ...Read More