Sound familiar?
Do these questions resonate with any of your teams? Accoil Analytics helps you answer them…
What parts of our product are new users loving right from the start?
What's stopping users from getting the most out of our product, and how can we make their path smoother?
Which features or experiences are getting new users excited about our product?
How can we better reach and speak to people who'll love what our product can do for them right away?
What signs show us that a trial user is really ready to jump in with both feet and subscribe?
How can we tailor our pitch to show potential customers how our product is the perfect fit for what they need?
In a Nutshell....
Every team member involved in guiding our customers from their first hello to becoming long-term fans needs to focus on helping new users discover the value of our product quickly (that's what we call the 'first value' or 'early success moment'). Getting this Activation phase right is key to turning trial users into paid subscribers, increasing user satisfaction, boosting the bottom line and hitting those quarterly targets to impress your boss. Accoil Analytics helps you to gain critical insights by tracking account activation.
What's the lowdown?
Activation for your product is all about that make-or-break moment when new users start really using what you've built, hoping to find that "aha!" moment where they see its value for their business. It's a crucial step in their journey with your product, filled with highs of excitement for every new sign-up and lows of worry when users don't seem to click with it.
Your mission during this phase is to help these newbies reach that first milestone of value, proving to them why your product is worth sticking with. It's about showing them the light in a way that feels personal and direct, so they can see how your product can make a real difference in their work.
Why is this important?
Well, without hitting that first moment of "wow, this is great," there's really nothing to talk about. You can't expect someone on a trial to start paying if they haven't even seen what makes your product useful. That's why keeping an eye on this early stage, where they find that initial spark, is crucial. It's not just about counting how many get there, but understanding who does and why.
Getting this right is the key to not just making more money but also building a product that people genuinely love to use, making everything you do more valuable whilst cutting down on those unnecessary costs.
Who does this help?
Understanding activation benefits multiple teams within your organization, each for its unique reasons:
Product Team: They're at the heart of designing and refining the user experience. By understanding activation, they can identify which features or aspects of the product are resonating with users or falling flat. This insight helps them prioritize development efforts to enhance the product's value proposition and user satisfaction.
Marketing Team: These folks need to know what hooks new users and what keeps them engaged. Understanding activation helps them tailor their messaging and campaigns to highlight the most compelling features of the product. It also allows them to target their marketing efforts more effectively, focusing on prospects most likely to find value in the product.
Sales Team: Sales professionals benefit from understanding activation by recognizing the patterns or characteristics of highly engaged new users. This knowledge helps them identify promising leads and tailor their sales pitches to emphasize how the product meets specific needs, potentially increasing conversion rates from trial to paid subscriptions.
Customer Success Team: This team's goal is to ensure customers achieve their desired outcomes while using the product. Knowing which aspects of the product drive activation, they can guide new users more effectively towards those early wins, improving customer satisfaction, reducing churn, and potentially increasing upsell opportunities.
Key Steps
We are assuming that you have already done your Accoil Analytics set up, but if not, that's no worries—our four-step guide is here to walk you through the process.
Step 1: Set your Activation criteria check list
Every product is different, so you'll need to outline these milestones as a checklist of tasks a new user should achieve to fully engage with your product. Activation revolves around completing specific actions or activities that signal a new account is making the most of your product, essentially reaching the 'first value' moment. Go ahead and decide on your task check list.
For example:
Take a project management tool, for instance; the 'first value' could be marked by accomplishing the following:
Creating an account
Inviting at least two team members
Setting up a project
Uploading at least two files
Scheduling three or more calendar events
Adding at least one task
Completing at least one task
Once you have got your framework, your next step is to set this up in Accoil Analytics.
Step 2: Configure your Accoil Analytics tracking feature to monitor activation progress
Doing this, it allows you to pinpoint which accounts have hit your defined milestones and reached "Activation," which ones haven't, and everything in between." Accoil Analytics will start tracking activation progress to calculate your user’s activation rate.
You’ll want to track things like:
Account activation rate (% of new accounts that become activated)
Time-to-activation (how long it takes accounts to reach activation)
Activation by account type
Set up your activation criteria via the "Configuration" tab on the left sidebar. Select either "Account Activation" or "User Activation" to define the criteria for your users and accounts.
More configuration details can be found here.
Step 3: Segment your Activated accounts for greater clarity
Looking to dive deeper?
Segment your report data further. Under the "Views" tab, select the "Activation" tab to filter and add conditions, allowing you to explore your activation rates in detail.
In particular, you can set your activation rate.
Step 4: Deep Dive in the Activation tunnel
Under the "View" tab, upon clicking on your Activation tab, you will be able to see detailed information. For example:
This bar graph breaks down the Activation levels of users or accounts. Wondering how many out of your accounts have completed 2 out of the 7 Activation criteria? Or perhaps 5 out of 7? This chart offers a panoramic view of your Activation achievements, providing a clear snapshot of success.
More details on Viewing Activation Data here.
Step 5: Pipe your activation data to your teams' tools [Optional]
For maximum value, let your teams access Activation rates by connecting Accoil Analytics to your team’s other data. Import your engagement scores to tools like Slack, Hubspot and Intercom. We have it all set to go.
Want to learn more about using Connections?
Where to go from here using Accoil Analytic insights
Now that you've gained some valuable insights from Accoil Analytics, be sure to share them with the relevant teams for implementation
Team | Action |
Product Team |
|
Marketing Team |
|
Sales Team |
|
Customer Success Team |
|
Cross-Functional Actions |
|
Heads Up
Remember activation is a non-linear experience
Keep in mind that the activation milestone checklist comprises actions that can be completed in any order, creating a non-linear experience. Therefore, it's advisable not to track them as a funnel, as this could lead to misleading interpretations.
View from an account perspective for the full picture
No matter the type of service you offer, from low-touch, self-serve to high-touch, personalized onboarding, monitoring the activation progress of your accounts is crucial. Effective activation assessment requires looking at engagement on an account level, recognizing that activation typically involves multiple users per account. For instance, in Accoil Analytics, it usually takes two to three users on a new account to complete all necessary actions for the account to be considered "activated".
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