The product engagement score (PES) is a growth indicator that quantifies how actively users interact with your product and its features. Understanding your engagement score helps you make data-driven product improvements, deliver ongoing value, and drive customer retention.
What makes PES unique is that it combines three key metrics: product adoption, stickiness, and growth. The typical formula is PES = (Adoption + Stickiness + Growth) / 3.
This post will unpack all three metrics. For each, we’ll cover:
- What it means.
- How to calculate.
- Practical examples.
Beyond that, we’ll discuss what counts as a “good” product engagement score and strategies to boost your PES.
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3 Key dimensions of product engagement + questions to consider
A holistic snapshot of user engagement combines product/feature adoption, stickiness, and growth into a single metric.
Here’s how to calculate them and the right questions to help you uncover key insights.
1. Product adoption
Product adoption tracks the extent to which active users engage with your product features. Adoption is the main determinant of retention because users won’t stick around if they don’t use and consistently derive value from your product.
Formula: (New active users / Total signups) x 100.
How to measure: Use an analytics tool like Userpilot to tag your core features and track user interactions with them. Besides calculating your adoption rates, a solid analytics tool can also help you see the breadth and depth of key feature usage, which is useful for understanding user needs and optimizing your product for maximum engagement.
Questions to ask when measuring product adoption:
- Are customers using a wide range of features or just sticking to the basics?
- Which features are underutilized?
- What percentage of users are using our newest feature?
2. Product stickiness
Product stickiness measures how frequently users return to your product and how long they stay engaged during each session. It reflects the “habit-forming” nature of your product.
Formula: There isn’t one single formula for product stickiness, as it depends on your business goals and the timeframe you’re considering. Here are two common calculations:
- Daily Active Users (DAU) / Weekly Active Users (WAU): This ratio shows the percentage of weekly active users who return daily.
- Daily Active Users (DAU) / Monthly Active Users (MAU): This ratio gives a sense of how often users return monthly.
Which time frame is best for calculating the product engagement score? It depends on your software and how often you expect users to engage with it. If your product is designed for daily use, track weekly or daily stickiness. If your product is used less frequently, a monthly or even quarterly timeframe might be more appropriate.
How to measure: Use a product analytics tool to track user logins, session durations, and time between sessions.
Questions to ask when measuring product stickiness:
- How often do users come back to our product?
- When they return, are they spending enough time on our product to gain value?
- Are our efforts to improve onboarding and user experience impacting stickiness?
3. Growth
Growth measures the rate at which your user base is expanding and how well you retain existing users. One of the easiest ways to quantify this metric is to use the Quick Ratio.
Formula: Sum of new and recovered accounts or visitors / The number of dropped accounts or visitors.
How to measure: Monitor new user acquisition, user retention, account expansion, and churn over time. Again, an analytics tool comes in handy. For example, Userpilot lets you create custom analytics dashboards to track your most important metrics in one place.
Questions to ask when measuring growth:
- Are we consistently acquiring new users and keeping them engaged over time?
- How does our growth rate compare to our competitors?
- Are there any specific channels or campaigns that are driving the most growth?
Easily Measure Your PES Score with Userpilot
The formula to measure product engagement
Your product engagement score is the average of three key metrics: adoption rate, product stickiness, and growth.
Expressed mathematically, PES = (Adoption + Stickiness + Growth) / 3.
What’s a “good” product engagement score (PES)?
While the ideal PES can vary depending on your specific circumstances, a good product engagement rate generally falls between 70 and 80 (on a scale of 0 to 100).
This range indicates that your users are actively adopting your product’s features and returning frequently. It also means you’re on a path to steady revenue growth because loyal and engaged customers are 64% more likely to make repeat purchases than non-engaged customers.
However, don’t just focus on the overall product engagement score. As Rob Brazer, VP of Product at Fanatics Sportsbook, suggests:
“Make PES even more powerful by applying it to certain populations of individuals. You can say, hey, how are my promoters vs. my detractors vs. my passives doing as far as PES?… Or how are my enterprise accounts compared to my SMB or startup accounts?”
How can you improve your product engagement score?
No matter your current PES, there is always room to make it better. In this section, we’ll cover six actionable tips for boosting product engagement and building a loyal user base.
1. Optimize your first-time user experience (FTUX)
A user’s first experience with your product can make or break their journey toward becoming a loyal customer. For example, a poor FTUX often leads to increased churn, higher support costs, negative word-of-mouth, and lower customer lifetime value.
So, how do you deliver immediate value and create a positive first impression?
What has worked for us and our customers is to personalize the onboarding process from the get-go. Divide customers into groups based on their use cases and provide clear interactive tutorials on how to effectively use the features most relevant to their needs.
In addition, work with your customer success team to simplify in-app navigation and provide contextual support where necessary. Doing all these will reduce your time to value, help users reach the ‘Aha!’ moments as quickly as possible, and motivate them to move through the adoption journey map:
2. Evaluate your current product-market fit
Product-market fit means you’ve built a product that effectively solves a problem or fulfills a need for a well-defined target audience. Even the best user engagement strategies will struggle to deliver results if you don’t have this strong foundation.
Here are the three PMF stages and how to improve your engagement scores across each:
- Early stage: If you’re an early-stage company, your focus should be on validating your core value proposition and gathering feedback from early adopters. Use this feedback to iterate on your product and refine your target audience.
- Growth stage: After validating your core value proposition and establishing your target audience, it’s time to balance user acquisition with retention efforts. This ensures you don’t keep losing more customers than you’re gaining.
- Maturity stage: As your product matures, focus on sustaining growth by exploring new markets or expanding your capabilities to meet evolving user needs.
3. Educate and entertain with product-led content
Product-led content is a powerful way to engage users, drive product adoption, and build a thriving community around your product. This content approach works because it educates users while seamlessly showcasing the value of your product.
If done well, the target audience will leave your content thinking, “Great, I now know how to solve XYZ problem, and ABC tool is the perfect solution.”
When brainstorming your product-led content ideas, aim to mix different content formats and cater to varying learning styles.
Here are a few ideas worth considering:
- Interactive tutorials: Create interactive walkthroughs that guide users through key features and workflows.
- Engaging video content: Develop videos that showcase customer success stories and discuss best practices.
- Webinars and online events: Host webinars featuring industry experts or power users who share their insights.
Userpilot combines all these content formats. For example, you can find helpful discussions and tutorials on our YouTube channel:
4. Engage and re-engage users across channels
Why limit user engagement to your product when your customers are active across various online platforms?
Maximize brand visibility by broadening your online presence to allow users to engage with you on channels like social media, community forums, and email. This multichannel approach will help you stay top-of-mind and contribute to boosting your product engagement score.
For example, you could drive new feature adoption by creating social media posts to generate buzz before and after the launch. Similarly, email campaigns can re-engage inactive users with personalized messages and offers, while community forums create a sense of belonging that potentially results in higher customer loyalty.
If you need some inspiration for your social media account, check out Userpilot’s LinkedIn page:
5. Create different user segments to personalize the customer experience
Show users they matter by analyzing their in-app behaviors and triggering targeted messages accordingly.
Case in point: segment customers based on in-app activity, feature usage, or churn risk and send contextual prompts that address their immediate needs. This could involve welcoming new users with a personalized onboarding flow, guiding existing users towards key features they haven’t explored, or offering proactive support to users who seem to be struggling.
A tool like Userpilot makes this easy. For instance, you can use our platform to maintain user loyalty by segmenting your power users and appreciating them with exclusive offers.
6. Collect qualitative data to fully understand your users
Numbers are great, but they can’t tell the whole story. Supplement your product engagement metrics with qualitative data from in-app surveys and user interviews.
These additional data sources will help you understand the “why” behind user behavior and equip you with actionable insights to boost user engagement. For example, you might discover that users are abandoning a particular feature because they find it confusing or that they’re hesitant to upgrade their subscription due to a low perceived value.
Not sure if you have the bandwidth for this? Gathering qualitative data doesn’t have to be resource-intensive. Tools like Userpilot allow you to easily create in-app surveys and collect valuable customer feedback without writing any code.
From good to great with PES
The true power of PES lies in its ability to inform your product strategy and guide you in creating a truly engaging product that delights users and drives business success. So, don’t make this one of those metrics you measure and forget. Keep historical records, but more importantly, act on the insights to improve your user experience.
Ready to get started today? Userpilot can help you track your product engagement score, segment users based on their behavior, and deploy personalized in-app experiences that drive adoption and increase retention. Book a demo to learn more!
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