How do we measure the success of a product launch beyond just sign-ups and revenue?

Success isn’t just about adoption metrics. You need a balanced scorecard that tracks:

1. Product Engagement: Are users actually adopting the new feature and using it as intended? Usage data helps validate whether the messaging resonated.

2. Customer Sentiment: Feedback from surveys, NPS changes, and social listening can tell you whether the feature is landing well with your target audience.

3. Internal Alignment: Did you successfully enable your go-to-market teams? Track sales confidence and enablement content utilization.

4. Market Impact: Did the launch move the needle on competitive differentiation or brand perception? Often overlooked, but crucial when you’re positioning against incumbents.

Great question! Here are some metrics we use in LinkedIn Ads for our customers, who are generally brands and agencies advertising on LinkedIn:

• Product adoption (as a % of revenue)

• Incremental sales or deal flow (difficult to measure but doable with the help of a capable finance partner)

• Customer-value or customer success metrics: Incremental improvement to customers' cost per qualified lead, opportunity pipeline, or other core campaign performance metric

• CSAT or NPS of the product you just launched

• Customer willingness to pay (do customers say they expect to channel more budget your way or re-up for a higher-tier subscription now that you've delivered this amazing new product?)

• Retention/churn improvements

This list isn't exhaustive but it tends to work for us!

It depends on the type of launch, but here’s some additional ways I have measured "success" in the past beyond just sign-ups and revenue:

• Product Engagement: We track how often and deeply users interact with the product, using a tiered engagement score. Tier 1 captures basic interactions, while Tier 3 reflects advanced usage or stickiness. Our goal is to move users from awareness to deeper adoption, and we start measuring this during open beta as we gear up for GA.

• Content Engagement: With more emphasis on video content lately, we monitor video views, completion rates, and drop-off points. For blog posts, we track time on page and bounce rate to see if the content resonates or needs refinement.

• Narrative Impact: We also ask: Did we nail a story that resonated? Beyond impressions and clicks, we look at how the narrative spread—did it spark conversations on social, get amplified by influencers, or drive meaningful engagement in our target communities?

• Internal Success: How "smooth" was the launch? We assess how well we aligned stakeholders, influenced product direction, and prepped sales/CS for post-launch success. Did internal teams feel informed and ready? Was launch day just about pressing the right buttons? And did cross-functional collaboration run without friction?

Since a launch is just a point in time, these measurements help us assess whether our messaging, content, and channels can drive ongoing adoption. If something’s working, we double down. If not, we pivot quickly to keep the momentum going.

Here are a few other things to think about:

• Sales enablement

  • Number of reps trained

  • Pipegen

  • Pace of pipegen (if it is a product enhancement)

• Awareness

  • Social engagement

  • Employee social shares (helpful to use Sprout Social, etc for this)

  • Press articles

  • Blog view, shares

• Product

  • Trials

  • Engagement inside the product (if a new capability)

  • Onboarding flows