Choosing success metrics for your digital product

When it comes to selecting success metrics, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The best metrics are the ones that fit your business, your goals, your product, and your team. 

That being said, there are common categories that give you a full picture on things that matter – from business performance to customer behavior and technical details. In this article, we’ll explore the key types of metrics and explain when and why to use each one.

Business performance metrics

Even if your product has the best user experience out there or brand new technology, you have to make it commercially viable. At the core of every product is its business model, and that’s where business performance metrics come in.

Business performance metrics will tell you, things like, how successful your product’s monetization strategy and its execution are – fundamentally, they’ll tell you whether you’re getting enough return on investment (ROI) for your digital business. 

When tracked long term, business performance metrics reveal important things about your product’s performance. Is your business model delivering? Is your growth coming from the desired sources? Do you need to adjust your commercial timeline? The list goes on. 

In the end, these metrics determine your digital product’s future.

Examples of business performance metrics:

• Revenue growth rate
• Revenue per user
• Customer lifetime value
• Return on investment (ROI)

Customer acquisition and onboarding metrics

You might have an amazing product that you invested lots of resources in – but if people can’t find or access it successfully, all efforts will be in vain. Acquisition metrics help you understand how new users or customers find you, and what they’re costing you. 

But getting users to find your app is only one part of the story. Onboarding metrics will tell you how many of those users reach a certain point, often called activation, where they intentionally engage with your product. 

If a large number of new users find your app but drop off before doing something meaningful – like setting up their profile, booking a service, or completing their first task – you’ve got a leaky funnel.

– Lari Tuominen, Group CEO, Qvik

That’s why activation metrics matter. They connect marketing investments with your product’s initial value proposition, and first impression – and help you close the gap between acquisition and activation.

Examples of acquisition and onboarding metrics:

• Conversion or drop-off rate
• Cost per customer acquisition
• Performance by marketing channel
• Activation rate
• Time to value

Customer behavior metrics

Once someone finally becomes a user, how they behave inside your product reveals whether your experience is delivering value.

Customer behavior metrics show you the health of your product engagement, i.e. how often, how deeply, and for how long people interact with your product. Referrals are part of this group of metrics, too, because if people are recommending your product to others, that’s a strong signal of satisfaction and loyalty.

These insights can guide both your product and communication strategies.

Examples of customer behavior metrics:

• Daily active users
• Monthly active users
• Feature adoption and usage rates
• Session duration
• Retention rate
• Churn rate
• Referrals

“Teams often overlook which features and functionalities are actually being used – especially in the feature-driven development. This can lead to ‘feature creep’, where the product becomes bloated with rarely used features that still require ongoing maintenance and development – hardly an ideal scenario.”

– Lari Tuominen, Group CEO, Qvik

Technical performance metrics

Behind every successful digital product is strong technical performance. If your app is slow, buggy, or constantly crashing, users will leave.

Although a lot of the work affecting your product’s technical performance happens “behind the scenes”, it significantly affects your product’s usability, user satisfaction, and scalability. 

“Technical performance is especially important with products where speed, trust or reliability are essential, like search, banking, real-time messaging, trading, or anything with high repetitiveness.”

– Lari Tuominen, Group CEO, Qvik

When it comes to measuring technical performance, you should have a clear overall view of how reliably and quickly your product responds and reacts. These metrics will also help you identify performance bottlenecks and prioritize fixes that directly improve customer satisfaction.

Examples of technical performance metrics:

• App start time
• Loading times
• API response times
• Memory use
• Uptime

Quality and experience metrics

While technical performance is one thing, quality is another. Quality metrics focus on the human side of your product’s performance: what the customer experiences when things go right – and when they go wrong – and how they respond. 

Experience indicators often reveal usability issues, frustrating edge cases, or unclear flows that don’t show up in analytics dashboards. A spike in support tickets, for instance, might signal a broken flow already before it shows up as a drop in conversions.

Reviews and ratings are also valuable to track. While not always precise, they give you (and potential new customers checking your app out on the app store) a public pulse. Combined with more structured data, these reviews and ratings help you spot early warning signs and be proactive in prioritizing fixes that protect your product’s reputation.

Examples of quality and experience metrics:

• Crash rates 
• Error frequency
• Customer reviews 
• App store ratings
• Support tickets

A balanced set for smarter decisions

When you’re choosing success metrics for your product, aiming for balance between the categories helps.

For example, only focusing on business KPIs without understanding user behavior behind the results can lead to short-term gains and long-term loss. Focusing too much on technical stats while ignoring customer acquisition could leave potential growth untapped.

“Successful product teams track a mix of performance, behavior, and quality metrics. Together, they tell a fuller story: how people find your product, how they experience it, how it performs – and how that experience translates into business results.”

– Lari Tuominen, Group CEO, Qvik

What’s next?

As we mentioned in our previous article on starting your journey with success metrics, your set of metrics will evolve. You’ll go deeper, ask better questions, and become more data-driven in your decision-making. 

For any of your metrics, you’ll keep setting new goals as you move the needle. 

But in the beginning, the goal is clarity – not complexity. Pick a few metrics that really matter, and aim for balance. Understand what your numbers are trying to tell you, and use them to drive conversations, decisions, and continuous improvement.

This article wraps up our three-part series on working with success metrics. If you’ve read all three pieces, you now know:

→ Why success metrics matter – for focus, culture, and continuous progress
→ How to start working with them – in a way that’s simple and sustainable
→ What to measure – and how to choose the right metrics for your product

Let your metrics become a tool for building successful digital products – and if you feel like you could use some help, you know where to find us.