9 product-led growth metrics to use for your edtech app or learning platform.

So you’ve come up with a product-led growth game plan for your edtech or learning business. Fantastic.
But spoiler alert, the job isn’t done yet. You still need to track those ever-important product led growth metrics.

Product led growth metrics aren’t just buzzwords, they’re the compass for your product led growth journey. They reveal what you're doing right - if you use the right ones aligned to the stage your product is at, of course.

Let’s dive into nine of the best product led growth metrics you need to track your progress and success.

What are product led growth metrics?

Product led growth metrics are those fancy KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that measure the effectiveness of your product led growth strategy. 

These key indicators tell you how well your product is driving growth, engaging users, and generating revenue. In other words, they’re the lifelines of your marketing strategy, giving you the insights you need to keep your business thriving. 

Product led growth metrics are a big deal for teams wanting to scale up as they act like a common language, helping to measure and report progress.

For example, let’s look at Net Promoter Score. Sounds fancy, but it’s just a way of asking your users, “Hey, do you love us enough to tell your friends?” 

Tracking NPS helps you understand if customer growth comes from happy customers singing your praises. High NPS? Congrats, your users are your unpaid marketing team. Low NPS? Your product might be as lovable as you once thought. 

Let’s dive into some examples of product-led growth metrics below. 

Examples of Product-Led Growth Metrics

Here are some top product led growth metrics to help you measure your PLG strategy’s success. 

Note, these are a mixture of product and revenue metrics. Just pick ones which align with your business and product goals. 

1. Customer Acquisition Cost

Product led growth is all about slashing your customer acquisition cost (CAC) to practically nothing.

CAC is basically what you shell out to snag a new customer, including all the sales and marketing expenses. To figure it out, you just divide your total sales and marketing spend by the number of spending customers. Easy peasy. 

For product led companies, CAC is usually laughably low. Thanks to low-cost organic channels and word-of-mouth, potential customers just sign up on their own, No need for those pricey ads!

2. Churn Rate

Churn rate, aka customer attrition, is basically how fast your customers are bailing on you - whether they’re unsubscribing or just ghosting you when it’s time to renew. 

To figure out your churn rate, you take the number of customers who ditched you this month, divide it by how many you had at the start of the month, and then multiply by 100. Boom, there’s your churn rate.

High churn and its evil twin, low retention, spell trouble for tech startups. It’s a huge sign saying your customers don’t think your product is worth sticking around for. Ouch. 

Now, if you’re rocking a product led approach, your churn should be low. After all, delivering consistent user value is supposed to be your thing!

3. Expansion MRR

Expansion MRR, also known as negative churn, is the extra revenue you rake in each month when customers decide to splurge on upgraded plans or additional goodies. 

Calculate expansion MRR by adding the revenue from additional purchases and customer upgrades in one month.

Expansion MRR is way cheaper than chasing after new customers (note CAC above), and it shows that your product is actually worth sticking around for. So, if your expansion revenue is climbing, it means your customers are loving what you offer - now that’s product led success! 

4. Customer Lifetime Value

So, customer lifetime value (CLV, CLTV, or LTV - pick your favourite acronym) is the cash a customer is expected to bring in over the long haul. 

To work this out, divide the monthly average revenue per account (ARPA) by your user churn rate (fancy talk for how quickly your customers bail on you). 

ARPA is simply your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) divided by the total number of customer accounts. 

CLV is like a crystal ball for product led teams, letting them predict just how much money customers will bring in over time. Unlike ARR (annual recurring revenue) and MRR, which only tell you how much money you’re raking in right now, CLV gives you the full picture. 

And let’s be real, product led CLV should be through the roof as you’re always working to keep users happy, reducing churn and boosting the overall cash flow. High CLV means that you’re doing a great job delivering constant value to users. 

5. Free Trial Conversion Rate

The free trial conversion rate assesses the percentage of people who try your product for free, who then hand over their cash to become paying customers. 

You work this out by taking the number of users who switch from the free trial to paid, then dividing this by the total number of free trial users within a specific period. 

Now, if you’re pursuing a product led growth strategy, you’re aiming to make your product delightfully user-friendly so people can’t help but see its value right away. This means that the free trial conversion rate for product led growth companies should be through the roof. 

After all, if users quickly grasp how your product can make their lives better, they’re more likely to stick around and pay up. 

6. Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score is a test for how much your customers love - or hate - your product. It measures customer satisfaction and loyalty, helping you work out if users are raving fans or if they wouldn’t recommend you to their worst enemy. 

To gather this info, you send out an NPS survey with some key questions, like:

• What’s the main reason for your score?

• How could we improve your user experience?

• What features did you like the most?

• What’s one thing we could do to make it better?

The responses will tell you how your product is doing. Customers who give you a score of 6 or less are Detractors - they’re not exactly going to sing your praises. Meanwhile, those who rate you 9 or 10 are known as Promoters - your ride-or-die fans who’ll tell everyone and their dog about how great you are. 

To get your NPS, just subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. Simple, right?

7. Time To Value

Time to Value (TTV) is the countdown from when a user signs up to when they first experience that ‘aha’ moment with your product. 

Ideally, TTV should be short - really short. If users can quickly see the value in what you’re offering, they’re more likely to stick around, upgrade, and maybe even spread the good word. 

Understanding your customers ‘Jobs To Be Done’ - what they’re actually trying to accomplish with your product - can help you speed up TTV. Streamline your onboarding process to make sure users hit that sweet spot as fast as possible. 

8. Product Qualified Leads (PQL)

Product Qualified Leads are those golden users who are on a free plan or trial, showing all the signs that they are ready to convert into paying customers. They fit your ideal customer profile, show purchase intent (like creeping around your pricing page), or hit a certain usage milestone. 

To nail down what makes a product-qualified lead for your product, look at your current paying customers and see what they have in common, as well as the steps they took before converting. 

Product-qualified leads are valuable to product led teams as they’re closer to conversion than sales and marketing-qualified leads. Instead of guessing their needs, look at how they interact with your product, using tools like session recordings to get the inside scoop. 

9. User Feedback Metrics

User feedback us abll about the info you gather straight from customers about their experience with your website, product, or service. 

Quantitative survey metrics are your friend here. Think:

• Customer Satisfaction Score: CSAT is simply whether users are happy with your product or not. 

• Customer Effort Score: How much effort it took users to complete a task, like signing up.

• Net Promoter Score: On a scale of 0-10, how likely are users to recommend your product to others?

For more in-depth insights, use open-ended surveys to collect qualitative data feedback, like:

• Retention survey: Why are customers downgrading?

• Point of conversion survey: What almost stopped people from converting?

• Live feedback: Lets users share their thoughts whenever they feel like it. 

Summary

Product led metrics aren’t here to overthrow your old-school success measures. They’re just a way to keep everyone - marketing, sales, customer support, and product teams - on the same page, working towards common goals. Harmonious, if you will.

Remember, the aim with product led metrics isn’t to boost numbers for numbers sake. It’s about using data to make smarter decisions and fuel growth by fine-tuning the user experience. Talking of a swwwweeeet user experience, learn how edtech app, Duolingo, uses product-led growth to keep users coming back.

Are you considering product led growth or confused about what metrics you should track? See how I can help you with my product led growth services.