Less is more when it comes to which data your teams get.What does this mean?Think of it like using a 200-watt bulb in a 40-watt lamp. Too much wattage and the bulb will burn out. Your team will too if you give them too much data.That’s why you need to get uncomfortable with ruthless prioritization and avoid overwhelming your team with data and metrics. That being said, you can’t focus on single metrics and expect them to give you the full picture of how healthy your pipeline is or how well your product is meeting your users’ needs. You need to find the balance between being lean, but getting enough data to paint a full picture of your Product-Led Growth (PLG) motion. That’s why we’re here to help you develop a framework for deciding what metrics you should track and give you an overview of the PLG big hitters to help you focus on what matters.
What are Product-Led Growth (PLG) Metrics?
Product-Led Growth metrics are a set of KPIs that help a company understand and optimize their product-led growth motion. They give you insight into product usage, churn rate, feature adoption, revenue, and much more.
PLG metrics span departments, including metrics used by Revenue, Sales, Product, Marketing, and Customer Success teams. PLG companies will still measure metrics used by more traditional sales-led companies, such as Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), but will pay close attention to product-specific metrics like how many Product-Qualified Leads (PQLs) they’re generating.
Which metrics are worth tracking?
Most Product leaders struggle to be lean with their metrics, and this causes your team to become overwhelmed and distracted. We created a simple checklist to help you decide which metrics are worth tracking. This 4-part checklist will help you rise above the cacophony and focus only on those metrics that will keep you steering in the right direction towards your business goals.
Rule #1: The metric is understood by everyone on the team
If your team doesn’t understand the metric, it’s not getting accurately measured. They should be able to explain the metric, why it’s valuable to them, and how to leverage it. If you can’t get a general consensus for what a metric is and its importance, they’ll stop caring about it. They may even start entering shoddy values in your CRM to appease management. Make sure they understand what they’re tracking and why.
Rule #2: You are clear on what influences the metric
A metric should be yes/no. Winning or losing. Buy or no buy. Saying a given metric might be from cause A, but could also be from causes B, C, or D will just have your team throw out the metric entirely.
Rule #3: It’s relevant to your company’s wider goals
Your business goals should be quantifiable and measurable so alignment isn’t difficult. You always need to define what “better” looks like for your company. Maybe a sales team needs to do extra work to track their specific portion of the goal they’re responsible for (e.g. a % of a total revenue target for the company that they track instead of tracking the full number).
Rule #4: It’s actionable
A change in the metric should lead to a change in behavior. Strategy sessions, 1:1’s, pipeline meetings etc. are all opportunities to see if your team is taking a data-driven approach to their jobs. If the metric doesn’t mean anything to them, you won’t hear about it and won’t be able to use it with them.
STILL Not sure which metrics TO TRACK?
We help teams cut through the noise, align on the right data, and build systems that drive informed decisions. Let us know how we can help!
