8 activation metrics: how to know that the user will stay with you for a long time

Activation is a rather conventional concept, which can have several meanings (by the way, the same thing with the concept of conversion, which everyone thinks differently and everyone is right at the same time). We decided to figure out what activation is and tell you about its main elements.

What is activation?
Activation is called a rather conditional moment when a light bulb seems to light up in a visitor: “I understood what the feature of this service is and how it can be useful to me”. Such a visitor is considered activated (like coal) and can be called a user. From this point on, he begins to really use the service, and not just understand it.
This moment is sometimes called an aha-moment - the user said: “Aha, I get it!”; in the time of the ancient Greeks, the aha-moment was called “Eureka”.
At the same time, activation is often called not the moment itself, but the process leading to it: the welcome script, the tutorial, the first levels, and so on — it all depends on your project.
It turns out that activation is the process during which the user understands the product, and its result.

How long can activation take as a process?
Often activation is called the first session of the user, but this is not quite true. In different projects, the user may take different times to figure out. Do you know the great game EVE Online?
')


It is called almost the most difficult game of all times and peoples - spaceships, long journeys, the struggle for resources and an open economy. Personally, it took me about a week just to go through the tutorial, but this was not yet an activation — it took another week to go into outer space and try out the gameplay directly. So the activation took two weeks; however, I didn’t become an active user of EVE Online, I abandoned the game a few months later, but that’s another story.

How to find the moment of activation in the project?
This problem can be solved purely analytically. See how it was decided in Twoodo.
In short:

• we integrate custom events in the first session of the user;
• we find those who are already accurately activated, that is, it pays a lot and / or often comes in;
• watching their first session, good, modern analytical systems, such as devtodev, allow us to do this;
• we compare those who have not activated with the first session;
• we find at which points the decision is made.
• Subsequently, by the way, these points can be made mandatory and increase activation.

How to measure activation?
Here, too, there is no one solution. I just offer a few options, and you choose the most suitable:

• 1-day retention is the percentage of users who visited the project the day after the first visit;
• Rolling 1-day retention is the percentage of users who visited the project the day after the first visit or later. Rolling retention is a slightly more flexible and exponential metric, because it leaves the user a chance to visit the project later;
• N-day retention - as the example with EVE Online shows, activation is not always limited to one day, so choose the period that is required by the users of your project;
• N-day rolling retention - likewise;
• the percentage of users who completed the second session, even on the same day or in a month;
• The percentage of conversion to the first payment - yes, some believe that while the user has not paid, it is not activated;
• ARPU of the first month - the average income, which brings one active, even non-paying user, for the first month in the project;
• ARPPU - the average income per payer; in many respects, it is during the activation period that the user decides how valuable the project is for him and how much he is willing to pay.

And here's a problem for you: how to measure activation in a taxi call service? The answer is in the next section.

How to optimize activation?
First answer the question asked above. As a rule, activation in taxi services is measured as the percentage of users who completed the second session. If the user likes the first trip, he will make the second one. And, it is likely to remain a regular user - users rarely change taxi services.
How to optimize activation in this case? It is necessary to make so that the first session was ideal, and all other things being equal, new users should send cars to a newer and more pleasant driver. For example, Wheely does the service - it gives a discount of 500 rubles for the first trip. In most cases, this makes the first trip free, and the user is satisfied with the high level of service.

You can also develop the perfect welcome script for the user. Here I would advise to read the article and see the presentation from Ilya Kurylev, an activation specialist.
Another option is to split the tutorial into small steps and optimize it in stages; This is explained in detail in one of our previous articles .
If you are making a game, try to figure out what the novice player is facing during activation. Alexander Shtachenko told everything in detail about this case.
In any case, remember that it is the process of getting acquainted with the project that affects both the moment of activation and all subsequent metrics, including monetization.

And if you want to understand activation issues in more detail and see examples of its measurement and improvement, I invite you to the free webinar “Activation, or how not to let the user leave” , which we will conduct together with Alexander Shtachenko from Progamedev.net . In the first part, Alexander will expand the theory, and in the second part I will discuss the practical issues of activation and present the real cases of its optimization in various projects. The webinar will be held on February 24 from 6 pm to 7 pm Moscow time. Join now !