How do you track success of product launches?

Success…you know it when you see it. Well, we all may see it a different way. So, for me, it’s all about establishing what success looks like with stakeholders and leadership (early and often), ensuring reliable measurements of success metrics are in place before launch, and taking an honest and candid approach to evaluating the launch.

We use the Go-to-Market strategy document to align the team on objectives, measures of success and goals/targets. As we prep for the launch, we ensure dashboards and data measures are in place to read out the measures/KPIs and diagnostics and that we all have access. Finally, we create a recap of the launch to share the outcomes. In the recap, one key is to embrace the good and the bad! Don’t be afraid of surfacing the things that didn’t work…otherwise, your launch playbook can get overloaded with ineffective tactics. So, do your future self and team members a favor and take the learnings forward.

Here are some OKRs my teams track for product launches:

Awareness - Web, social and blog activity (impressions, engagements and link clicks)

Sales if not self-serve - MQLs and SQLs

Time to value - how long does it take a customer to onboard and get value?

Consumption - How often are new features being used (DAU / MAU)

Renewals - NRR