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Product Adoption & Onboarding

Strategies to drive user activation, reduce time-to-value, increase feature adoption, and build product-led growth flywheels.

44 articles
Adoption Benchmarking: Measuring Your Performance Against Industry Standards and Competitors

Adoption Benchmarking: Measuring Your Performance Against Industry Standards and Competitors

Establish meaningful benchmarks for adoption metrics, understand your competitive position, and use comparative data to set realistic goals and identify improvement opportunities.

April 22, 2025 8 min read
Our Product Adoption & Onboarding Framework

Our Product Adoption & Onboarding Framework

After three years of trial, error, and iteration, we finally built a repeatable framework for product adoption and onboarding. Here's the complete system that took our activation from 38% to 73% and retention from 52% to 81%.

April 1, 2025 10 min read
Self-Serve Enablement Strategies: Empowering Users to Succeed Without Human Intervention

Self-Serve Enablement Strategies: Empowering Users to Succeed Without Human Intervention

Build self-serve resources and experiences that enable customers to onboard, learn, and extract value independently, scaling customer success without scaling headcount.

March 28, 2025 8 min read
The Retention Loops We Built Into Our Product

The Retention Loops We Built Into Our Product

Our 90-day retention was 58% and flat. We needed users to stick around longer. Here are the five retention loops we engineered into the product that took retention to 79% within six months.

March 10, 2025 9 min read
Onboarding Personalization Tactics: Tailoring First Experiences to Individual User Needs at Scale

Onboarding Personalization Tactics: Tailoring First Experiences to Individual User Needs at Scale

Implement personalization strategies that customize onboarding flows based on user context, goals, and behavior to accelerate activation and improve engagement.

March 5, 2025 8 min read
What Behavioral Analytics Revealed About Feature Adoption

What Behavioral Analytics Revealed About Feature Adoption

We thought we knew how users engaged with our product. Then I spent a month analyzing actual user paths through behavioral data. What I discovered completely changed our product roadmap and feature priorities.

February 16, 2025 9 min read
Engagement Tracking Systems: Building Infrastructure to Monitor and Improve Customer Activity

Engagement Tracking Systems: Building Infrastructure to Monitor and Improve Customer Activity

Design comprehensive engagement tracking systems that capture meaningful user activity, enable predictive analytics, and drive proactive customer success interventions.

February 8, 2025 8 min read
How Product Adoption Data Improved Sales Conversations

How Product Adoption Data Improved Sales Conversations

Sales was demoing features customers didn't use and missing expansion opportunities they couldn't see. I gave them access to product adoption data and everything changed. Here's how usage insights transformed our sales process.

January 25, 2025 9 min read
Retention Drivers Analysis: Identifying the Behaviors and Features That Predict Customer Loyalty

Retention Drivers Analysis: Identifying the Behaviors and Features That Predict Customer Loyalty

Analyze user behavior patterns to discover which actions, features, and engagement signals most strongly predict long-term retention, enabling focused product and adoption strategies.

January 15, 2025 8 min read
The 12 Activation Experiments I Ran (and What Worked)

The 12 Activation Experiments I Ran (and What Worked)

Our activation rate was stuck at 51% for six months. I ran 12 experiments testing everything from gamification to AI-powered onboarding. Only 4 worked. Here's what I learned about what actually moves activation metrics.

January 3, 2025 10 min read
Adoption Goal-Setting: Defining Success Metrics and Driving Accountability for Product Usage

Adoption Goal-Setting: Defining Success Metrics and Driving Accountability for Product Usage

Establish clear adoption goals that align teams, drive accountability, and create measurable progress toward usage and engagement targets across your customer base.

December 20, 2024 8 min read
Building a User Engagement Scoring Model

Building a User Engagement Scoring Model

We had 15,000 users and no idea which ones would churn, expand, or stay flat. I built an engagement scoring model that predicted outcomes with 84% accuracy. Here's the framework and what it revealed about our customer base.

December 12, 2024 9 min read
Feature Discovery Mechanisms: Helping Users Find Capabilities They Don't Know Exist

Feature Discovery Mechanisms: Helping Users Find Capabilities They Don't Know Exist

Design discovery systems that surface relevant features at the right moments, driving adoption of underutilized capabilities without creating noise or interruption.

December 2, 2024 8 min read
Balancing Product-Led Onboarding with Sales-Assist

Balancing Product-Led Onboarding with Sales-Assist

We tried pure self-serve onboarding. Completion rate: 47%. We tried fully sales-assisted onboarding. Completion rate: 73% but couldn't scale. Here's how we built a hybrid model that got us to 68% completion at scale.

November 20, 2024 9 min read
Usage Analytics Interpretation: Turning Product Data Into Adoption Insights and Action Plans

Usage Analytics Interpretation: Turning Product Data Into Adoption Insights and Action Plans

Master the art of analyzing usage data to uncover adoption patterns, identify friction points, and make data-driven decisions that improve customer activation, engagement, and retention.

November 8, 2024 8 min read
Why 80% of Churned Users Never Completed Onboarding

Why 80% of Churned Users Never Completed Onboarding

I pulled churn data for 500 customers and found an uncomfortable pattern: the vast majority churned because they never got past our onboarding. Here's what that revealed about activation as the ultimate retention predictor.

October 29, 2024 9 min read
Health Scoring for Adoption: Building Predictive Models That Identify At-Risk Customers Early

Health Scoring for Adoption: Building Predictive Models That Identify At-Risk Customers Early

Design customer health scores that accurately predict churn risk based on product usage patterns, enabling proactive intervention before customers disengage or cancel.

October 18, 2024 8 min read
My Feature Adoption Launch Playbook

My Feature Adoption Launch Playbook

After launching 15 features with varying success rates (from 12% to 61% adoption), I finally cracked the code. Here's the exact playbook I now use for every feature launch to ensure adoption, not just awareness.

October 7, 2024 9 min read
Customer Adoption Playbooks: Systematic Frameworks for Driving Product Usage at Scale

Customer Adoption Playbooks: Systematic Frameworks for Driving Product Usage at Scale

Build repeatable adoption playbooks that guide customer-facing teams to drive consistent product usage, feature adoption, and value realization across your entire customer base.

September 28, 2024 8 min read
Building Product Stickiness Through User Habits

Building Product Stickiness Through User Habits

Our DAU/MAU ratio was 28%. Users tried our product once or twice a week and forgot about it. Here's how we redesigned the product around habit formation to make it indispensable.

September 15, 2024 9 min read
Value Realization Frameworks: Helping Customers Achieve ROI and Prove Product Worth

Value Realization Frameworks: Helping Customers Achieve ROI and Prove Product Worth

Build systematic frameworks that help customers measure, track, and communicate the business value your product delivers, driving retention, expansion, and advocacy through proven ROI.

September 10, 2024 8 min read
First-Use Experience Design: Making the First Five Minutes Magical, Not Confusing

First-Use Experience Design: Making the First Five Minutes Magical, Not Confusing

Design first-use experiences that hook users immediately, demonstrate value quickly, and create positive first impressions that drive long-term engagement and retention.

August 25, 2024 8 min read
We Personalized Onboarding for 4 User Segments

We Personalized Onboarding for 4 User Segments

Our one-size-fits-all onboarding had 54% completion rate. After building separate flows for different user segments, completion jumped to 76%. Here's how we identified the right segments and what personalization actually meant.

August 24, 2024 9 min read
Activation Cohort Analysis Changed Our Product Strategy

Activation Cohort Analysis Changed Our Product Strategy

We thought our activation problem was universal. Then I segmented activation rates by cohort characteristics and discovered we had three completely different products hiding under one roof. Here's how cohort analysis revealed our ICP misalignment.

August 2, 2024 10 min read
Onboarding Checklists: Driving Activation Through Clear, Actionable Task Lists

Onboarding Checklists: Driving Activation Through Clear, Actionable Task Lists

Design onboarding checklists that guide users to activation through strategic task selection, psychological motivation principles, and measurement frameworks that prove ROI.

August 2, 2024 8 min read
Progressive Disclosure Techniques: Teaching Without Overwhelming New Users

Progressive Disclosure Techniques: Teaching Without Overwhelming New Users

Master progressive disclosure strategies that introduce product complexity gradually, prevent information overload, and accelerate user learning through strategic feature and information sequencing.

July 15, 2024 8 min read
How In-App Messaging Tripled Feature Adoption

How In-App Messaging Tripled Feature Adoption

We launched a major feature and watched it die at 9% adoption. Six weeks later, after implementing a contextual in-app messaging strategy, adoption hit 34%. Here's what we learned about the right way to promote features inside your product.

July 11, 2024 9 min read
Tutorial Video Strategy: Creating Videos That Drive Product Adoption, Not Just Views

Tutorial Video Strategy: Creating Videos That Drive Product Adoption, Not Just Views

Build a video tutorial program that accelerates onboarding, improves feature adoption, and reduces support burden through strategic planning, production best practices, and performance measurement.

June 28, 2024 8 min read
What 50 User Onboarding Interviews Revealed

What 50 User Onboarding Interviews Revealed

I spent 6 weeks interviewing users about their first experience with our product. What I learned completely changed our onboarding strategy and activation rate. Most of what we thought we knew was wrong.

June 19, 2024 10 min read
Help Center Optimization: Turning Self-Serve Support Into a Growth Driver

Help Center Optimization: Turning Self-Serve Support Into a Growth Driver

Transform your help center from a cost-saving necessity into a product adoption engine through strategic content design, search optimization, and user-centric information architecture.

June 5, 2024 8 min read
The 6 Product Adoption Metrics I Track Daily

The 6 Product Adoption Metrics I Track Daily

Most product teams drown in metrics. I spent two years figuring out which six actually matter for understanding product adoption. These metrics tell me everything I need to know about whether our product is succeeding.

May 28, 2024 9 min read
User Education Programs: Building Scaled Learning That Drives Product Mastery

User Education Programs: Building Scaled Learning That Drives Product Mastery

Design user education programs that help customers maximize product value through structured learning paths, diverse content formats, and measurement frameworks that prove ROI.

May 12, 2024 8 min read
Finding Our Product's 'Aha Moment' Took 6 Months

Finding Our Product's 'Aha Moment' Took 6 Months

Everyone talks about the importance of the 'aha moment' in onboarding. Nobody talks about how hard it is to identify what that moment actually is. Here's how we found ours through behavioral analysis, false starts, and uncomfortable truths.

May 6, 2024 10 min read
Onboarding Analytics Dashboards: Tracking What Actually Matters

Onboarding Analytics Dashboards: Tracking What Actually Matters

Build onboarding dashboards that surface actionable insights, identify drop-off points, and guide optimization decisions through strategic metric selection and visualization design.

April 18, 2024 8 min read
I Completely Redesigned Our Onboarding Flow Based on One Insight

I Completely Redesigned Our Onboarding Flow Based on One Insight

Our onboarding completion rate was 34%. Users were giving up halfway through. One behavioral insight from session recordings led me to throw out the entire flow and rebuild it from scratch.

April 14, 2024 9 min read
We Launched a Feature. 8% of Users Tried It

We Launched a Feature. 8% of Users Tried It

Shipping a feature doesn't mean anyone will use it. After six months of development, our biggest feature launch of the year had single-digit adoption. Here's what I learned about the gap between launch and adoption.

March 23, 2024 9 min read
Product Tour Design: Guiding Users Without Annoying Them

Product Tour Design: Guiding Users Without Annoying Them

Create product tours that educate new users, drive feature discovery, and accelerate time-to-value without creating frustration or tour-fatigue through strategic design and user-centric thinking.

March 22, 2024 8 min read
Welcome Email Sequences: Converting Trial Users Into Activated Customers

Welcome Email Sequences: Converting Trial Users Into Activated Customers

Build email sequences that guide new users from signup through activation with personalized content, strategic timing, and clear calls-to-action that drive product engagement.

March 8, 2024 8 min read
Activation Strategy Frameworks: Moving Users from Signup to Habit-Forming Usage

Activation Strategy Frameworks: Moving Users from Signup to Habit-Forming Usage

Build comprehensive activation strategies that guide users from initial signup through meaningful value delivery to habitual product usage using data-driven frameworks and behavioral psychology.

March 6, 2024 8 min read
Cutting Time-to-Value from 14 Days to 3

Cutting Time-to-Value from 14 Days to 3

Our users took two weeks to get their first win with our product. Most churned before they got there. Here's how we collapsed time-to-value and why it transformed our retention metrics.

March 1, 2024 9 min read
Time-to-Value Metrics: Measuring and Optimizing the Path from Signup to Success

Time-to-Value Metrics: Measuring and Optimizing the Path from Signup to Success

Define, measure, and optimize time-to-value to accelerate user activation, improve conversion rates, and build products that deliver meaningful outcomes faster than competitors.

February 16, 2024 7 min read
Feature Adoption Campaigns: Driving Usage of New Capabilities Without Annoying Users

Feature Adoption Campaigns: Driving Usage of New Capabilities Without Annoying Users

Design targeted campaigns that increase feature adoption rates while respecting user attention and avoiding notification fatigue through strategic segmentation and timing.

February 15, 2024 8 min read
Our Activation Rate Was 23%. Here's How I Fixed It

Our Activation Rate Was 23%. Here's How I Fixed It

Most SaaS products have terrible activation rates and nobody knows why. I spent 6 weeks digging into our onboarding data and discovered the real problem wasn't where anyone thought it was.

February 8, 2024 9 min read
User Onboarding Optimization: Reducing Time-to-Value and Driving Product Activation

User Onboarding Optimization: Reducing Time-to-Value and Driving Product Activation

Build onboarding experiences that guide users to value quickly, reduce abandonment, and create habitual product usage through strategic design, measurement, and continuous optimization.

January 28, 2024 8 min read

Explore More Topics

Strategy

Frameworks for positioning, competitive strategy, and market analysis that drive long-term GTM success.

Go-to-Market

Tactical playbooks for coordinating cross-functional launches, aligning teams, and executing GTM motions.

Product Launch

Launch planning, timing, and execution strategies that maximize impact and drive adoption.

Sales Enablement

Battlecards, training programs, and sales tools that turn reps into product experts.

Messaging & Positioning

Crafting value propositions and messaging that resonates with buyers and differentiates from competitors.

Pricing & Packaging

Pricing strategy, packaging decisions, and monetization models that optimize revenue.

AI Agent Optimization

Optimizing product content, documentation, and data for AI agents like ChatGPT and Claude that recommend products to buyers.

Win/Loss Analysis

Systematic approaches to understanding why deals are won or lost and feeding insights back to product and GTM.

Customer Research

Methods for gathering customer insights through interviews, surveys, and jobs-to-be-done research.

Demand Generation

Lead generation strategies, campaign planning, and lifecycle marketing that drives pipeline.

Content Marketing

Content strategy and distribution frameworks that drive qualified leads and revenue.

Product Analytics

Using product usage data to inform GTM decisions, identify expansion opportunities, and prevent churn.

Market Research

Primary and secondary research methodologies for understanding markets, competitors, and customer needs.

Partner & Channel Marketing

Co-marketing programs, partner enablement, and channel strategies that drive revenue through partnerships.

Product-Led Growth

Self-serve onboarding, free trial optimization, and PLG strategies that turn users into paying customers.

Customer Marketing

Retention programs, advocacy initiatives, and expansion campaigns that grow revenue from existing customers.

Competitive Intelligence

Building competitive monitoring systems, positioning frameworks, and battle cards that help you win against competitors.

Product Marketing Operations

Team structure, tech stack, processes, and KPIs that make product marketing teams more effective and efficient.

Developer & Technical Marketing

Marketing to developers and technical buyers through docs, community, advocacy, and technical content.

International GTM

Strategies for international expansion, localization, regional planning, and managing global product launches.

Platform & Ecosystem Marketing

App marketplaces, developer platforms, partner programs, and ecosystem growth strategies for multi-sided platforms.

Founding PMMs

For the first PMM hire: building the function from scratch, proving value, working with limited resources, and establishing credibility.

Marketers at Scale-ups/Series A

Transitioning from startup to scale-up: building teams, standardizing processes, managing complexity, and driving systematic growth.

Product Marketing Frameworks

Proven frameworks, models, and methodologies that product marketers use to structure thinking, drive decisions, and execute consistently.

RevOps & PMM Alignment

Building partnerships with revenue operations to drive attribution, forecasting, pipeline management, and cross-functional GTM execution.

Event Marketing & Field PMM

Trade shows, conferences, webinars, and field marketing strategies that drive pipeline and build brand presence in target markets.

Executive Communication

Communicating with C-suite and board members through executive briefs, presentations, storytelling, and strategic influence.

PMM Visibility & Impact

Dashboard frameworks, attribution models, political navigation, and career strategies that help PMMs prove value and build executive influence.

Budget Season

Q4 planning strategies, budget defense tactics, and ROI frameworks for protecting PMM resources during annual planning cycles. Navigate finance scrutiny and prove necessity.

Pragmatic Framework

Practical guides for implementing the Pragmatic Institute framework, from market and focus to programs and readiness, helping PMMs get the most value from this popular methodology.

Future of PMM

How AI, product-led growth, and evolving buyer behaviors are reshaping product marketing. What skills, tools, and career paths will define PMMs in 2030.

Industry Marketing

Go-to-market strategies tailored for specific industries and verticals. How PMM approaches differ across SaaS, fintech, construction tech, healthcare, and other specialized markets.

Buyers Guides

Practical guides for choosing PMM tools and platforms. Evaluating competitive intelligence, messaging frameworks, and launch management solutions that consolidate workflows and save time.