10 Essential Growth Hacking Metrics Every Startup Should Track

Here are the top 10 growth hacking metrics you should be focusing on:

1. Product-Market Fit Indicators

Help validate whether your product or service truly meets market needs.

Key metrics:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

• Product Usage Intensity

• Feature Adoption Rate

Action step: Survey your users regularly and track these scores over time. Aim for an NPS of 50 or higher.

2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

CAC measures how much it costs to acquire a new customer.

Calculation: Total marketing and sales costs / Number of new customers acquired

Action step: Break down your CAC by marketing channel to identify your most cost-effective acquisition strategies.

3. Lifetime Value (LTV)

LTV estimates the total revenue you can expect from a single customer throughout your relationship.

Calculation: (Average purchase value x Average purchase frequency x Average customer lifespan)

Action step: Aim for an LTV to CAC ratio of at least 3:1 to ensure profitability.

4. Conversion Rate

Tracks how effectively you're turning prospects into customers across your sales funnel.

Key areas to measure:

• Website visitors to leads

• Leads to qualified leads

• Qualified leads to customers

Action step: Identify the weakest points in your funnel and focus on optimizing them first.

5. Virality and Network Effects

These metrics measure how quickly and organically your product is spreading among users.

Key metrics:

• Viral Coefficient (K factor)

• Time to Virality

• Invite Acceptance Rate

Action step: Implement referral programs and track how many new users each existing user brings in.

6. User Engagement and Satisfaction

These indicators show how engaged and satisfied users are with your product.

Key metrics:

• Daily/Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)

• Session Length

• Feature Usage

• Customer Effort Score (CES)

Action step: Set up event tracking in your analytics tool to monitor user behavior closely.

7. Churn and Retention Metrics

Track how well you're keeping customers.

Key metrics:

• Customer Churn Rate

• Revenue Churn Rate

• Retention Rate

• Reactivation Rate

Action step: Implement a churn prediction model to proactively engage at-risk customers.

8. Adoption and Usage Metrics

These metrics track how quickly and effectively users are adopting and using your product.

Key metrics:

• Time to Value

• Onboarding Completion Rate

• Feature Adoption Rate

• Stickiness (DAU/MAU ratio)

Action step: Streamline your onboarding process to reduce time to value and increase feature adoption.

9. Experimentation and A/B Testing Results

Metrics from running successful experiments to optimize various aspects of your product or marketing.

Key metrics:

• Experiment Velocity

• Win Rate

• Impact per Experiment

Action step: Implement a culture of continuous experimentation, aiming to run at least one test per week.

10. Growth Rate

The overall rate at which your startup is growing.

Key areas to measure:

• User Growth Rate

• Revenue Growth Rate

• Market Share Growth

Action step: Set aggressive but achievable growth targets and track progress weekly.

Next steps:

1. Implement tracking for these metrics if you haven't already

2. Set up a dashboard to monitor them regularly

3. Establish targets for each metric

4. Create action plans to improve underperforming metrics

5. Review and adjust your strategies based on the data