Opening a new app can be a mixed bag. You have a problem you need to solve or a goal you want to achieve, and you think you’ve found an application to help. You may have read some reviews or seen the app in action, and for a brief moment, the possibilities stretch out before you.
But what happens over the next few minutes can change your perception of the product. If the user onboarding process is good, it just flows naturally. There is minimal friction between you and your goals, and you feel confident you're engaging with the tool you need to resolve your pain point or objective.
However, when your user onboarding experience is unsatisfactory, it can be disheartening. These situations can happen for any reason, including an overly complex signup process, too much information, a lack of guidance, or anything else that disrupts you getting value from the product.
So, how do you know if your onboarding isn’t making good on your product’s promise? The simplest way is to track onboarding metrics. Here are the top 10 that matter most.
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Why you need to measure user onboarding metrics
Reduce friction: Tracking onboarding metrics helps pinpoint any friction in your user onboarding journey. Essentially, it enables you to know exactly where users are struggling, meaning you can remedy issues quickly.
Drive user experience and activation: When you have the right data on user onboarding, you can leverage it to improve the user experience and increase activation rates.
Boost retention and revenue: Onboarding metrics help you understand and optimize the onboarding process. Great onboarding experiences mean you’ll hold onto more users, which will translate to revenue growth.
Better product development: Feedback and user data are the lifeblood of improved product development. Improving onboarding metrics is tightly aligned with great onboarding experiences.
The 10 onboarding metrics you need to track to transform the customer journey
Here are the 10 onboarding metrics you need to track in 2024 to take your onboarding to the next level.
#1. Time-to-value (TTV)
Time-to-value (TTV) measures the amount of time it takes your user to “get” your product's core value proposition.
Tracking time-to-value is a little subjective. For starters, you need to define what value means in the context of your product. It could be your “aha moment,” completing a particular task, or other milestones that suggest your onboarding has been a success.
Formula
Time to value is typically measured in days, and you can calculate it like this.
TTV = date value achieved - onboarding start date
Users want products that provide value by solving their problems. However, they are impatient and generally unwilling to stick around if your solution takes too long to solve their problems. Tracking TTV helps you understand how effective your onboarding is at moving users toward their “aha moment” and reducing churn rates.
#2. Onboarding completion rate
The onboarding completion rate measures the number of users who have completed your onboarding flow. It tracks if your onboarding flow is helping users adopt your product.
Formula
Onboarding completion rates are measured in percentages, and you can calculator it with this formula:
Onboarding completion rate = (# of users who completed onboarding / Total # of new users) x 100
Why track the onboarding completion rate?
A low onboarding completion rate can signify a few things. For example, your onboarding flows could be too complex, too long, unstable, or lacking in either clarity or value. Good user onboarding software and a little experimentation can go a long way.
#3. User retention rate
The user retention rate is the number of your users who continue engaging with your product after a specific period. User onboarding is a strong predictor of retention. So, if your user retention rate is high, it’s a good sign that your onboarding is working.
Formula
User retention rate is measured in percentage and requires setting a time frame, like a week or a month. For example:
User retention rate = (users at the end of June - users at the start of June) x 100
Why track user retention rate?
Your retention rate is a vital indicator of business health. Alongside other key metrics, it can assure you that your onboarding is working.
#4. User churn
User churn is the opposite of retention. It’s the number of users who cancel or stop using your product over a particular time.
Formula
Like the user retention rate, user churn is measured in percentage and over a time frame that you can decide.
User churn rate = (users lost during 2023 / users at the start of 2023) * 100
If you’re losing lots of users, you need to identify the cause. One of the reasons could be weak onboarding experiences.
#5. Product adoption rate
Product adoption, also frequently called user adoption, measures the percentage of first-time users who start using your product or service as it was intended. In essence, it’s about tracking the people who try your product and adopt it into their lives.
Formula
Product adoption rate is measured in percentages and requires you to define how you measure adoption. For example, adoption could mean making a purchase, particular use cases, daily use, or so on.
Product adoption rate = (# new active users / # of sign-ups) x 100
Why track product adoption rate?
User onboarding software is built to help convert signups into active users. Tracking the adoption rate lets you measure the efficiency of converting new signups to active users. You can leverage user onboarding software as it is built to help in that process.
#6. Feature adoption rate
The feature adoption rate has similarities to the product adoption rate. However, instead, it measures how many users have adopted a particular feature within your solution.
Employing user onboarding software to teach users about features helps them get more value from your product, which in turn, can boost retention.
Formula
Feature adoption rate = (# users using a feature / # of users) x 100
Why track feature adoption rate?
Tracking your feature adoption rate can help you determine whether your onboarding solution workflows can demonstrate your product’s full capacity. If you find uneven use of your features, it could indicate that you need to rework your onboarding content.
#7. Free trial conversion rate
Offering potential customers a free trial is standard practice. With the right onboarding approach, you can convince prospects to adopt your product. The free trial conversion rate can tell you a lot about how well-adapted your onboarding approach is to converting users from free trials to paying customers.
Formula
The free trial conversion rate is measured as a percentage in the following way:
Free trial conversion rate = (# of paying customers converted from free trials / Total # of free trials) * 100
Why track the free trial conversion rate?
Converting users from free trials to paying customers is effectively a bottom-line growth indicator. Tracking this metric is a financial imperative. If you find that your free trial conversion rate is low, it could suggest that you need to put more work into user onboarding.
#8. Activation rate
The user activation rate metric helps you measure the number of users who have taken a specific action or reached a critical milestone within your product. That can be something as simple as signing up for your solution or making their first purchase.
Again, onboarding software plays an instrumental role in this process because it helps give your users the information they need to become engaged.
Formula
To calculate your activation rate, you need to define what action embodies the user being active.
User activation rate = (# of users who took a specific action / # of users) x 100
Why track activation rate?
User activation is correlated to important milestones or actions that imply users are engaged and getting value from your product. It’s essential to track this metric because if it’s low, one of the reasons could be poor user onboarding.
#9. Support ticket rate
Users raise support tickets when they can’t achieve their objectives within your product. There are two major problems with this: a) it costs your team time and money, and b) it takes users out of the flow of engaging with your product.
You can measure the support ticket rate during and shortly after onboarding. If you get your users onboarding right, they will feel confident in achieving their goals within your product.
Formula
Support ticket rate is easy to measure, but you must pick the right time frame to measure onboarding effectiveness specifically.
Support ticket rate = (# of tickets during onboarding / number of onboarded users)
Why track support ticket rates?
Tracking this metric helps you understand if your onboarding is good at engaging your users. A high rate should prompt you to analyze issues and add frequently occurring questions directly to your onboarding materials.
#10. Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a proven and much-used customer satisfaction survey. All it asks is how likely your customer is to recommend your business on a scale of 1-10. You can also use these surveys to ask for opinions right after onboarding is complete
Formula
NPS works by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your business on a scale of 1-10.
Responses are split into three categories based on the score they give.
Detractors: 0-6
Passives: 7 or 8
Promoters: 9 or 10
From here:
NPS = Promoters - Detractors
Why track NPS after onboarding?
NPS is a strong predictor of user retention, revenue growth, and referrals. Tracking this during or after onboarding — potentially via an in-app survey — can provide a lot of insights about your onboarding process.
How Usetiful helps
Usetiful provides a flexible no-code onboarding solution packed with features to help you improve each metric above. Here is how:
Product tours for activation rate and product adoption
Onboarding checklist for onboarding completion rate
Smart tips for TTV, and feature adoption
Banners for user retention, user churn, feature adoption
Interactive product demos for free trial conversion
Assistant and Knowledge base for support ticket rate,
Survey and NPS for Net Promoter Score rate
User onboarding metrics give you visibility into your onboarding process. Start Free today to get the tool to turn those insights into improvements.