Product launch objectives: Ways to measure success

Are you launching a new product and want to ensure its success? If so, you should start by creating product launch objectives.

Product launch objectives are specific goals that a company aims to achieve when introducing a new product to the market.

Having clear and well-thought-out objectives ensures that the launch aligns with broader business strategies, provides a means for teams to track progress and make data-driven decisions, facilitates better planning, and builds a culture of accountability.

Common product launch objectives are:

Brand awareness: How well potential customers, partners, and influencers know about the company or new product.
Lead generation: How many inquiries and prospects are interested in the product.
Sales and product adoption: How well and quickly new clients purchase and adopt the new product.
Market share: What percentage of the total addressable market (TAM) is being met by the new product.

In this blog, we provide ideas on metrics or KPIs to measure effectiveness in each of the above areas.

Difference between a KPI and a metric

When building your product launch objectives, you should differentiate between a key performance indicator (KPI) and a metric.

KPIs and metrics serve different purposes in business performance evaluation and decision-making and the table provides a distinction between the two:

	KPI	Metric
Purpose	Specific, measurable value that tracks progress towards a strategic goal.	General quantifiable measure of performance or activity.
Focus	Outcome-focused and aligned with critical business objectives.	Broad, data-focused, measures various business activities.
Use Case	A subset of metrics to gauge performance against specific targets and strategic goals.	Used for monitoring day-to-day activities and operational performance.
Accountability	KPIs are actionable and triggers a response or adjustment in strategy.	Metrics are informative but only sometimes actionable, as they provide general information.
Examples	Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) or Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)	Impressions, page view, email open rate

Your product launch objectives should have KPIs and metrics as they work hand-in-hand. KPIs offer a high-level view of success, while metrics provide the detailed information needed to achieve and improve those key goals.

Measuring brand awareness

Product brand awareness focuses on defining how you reach your audience through appropriate marketing channels. You’ll have to quantify the amount of exposure, impressions, or “opportunities to see” (OTS). Here are potential KPIs and metrics to measure brand awareness for a new product launch:

Impressions: The number of times your brand content (content, banners, advertisements, Google AdWords, social media posts, videos, etc.) is displayed.
Content views: Number of views for promotional videos, articles, or other content related to your product.
Reach: The number of unique users who have seen your brand or product content.
Website traffic: Increases in visits to your product or brand’s website (solutions pages, landing pages, announcements, etc.).
Social media engagement: Likes, shares, comments, and follows on social media platforms that can be attributed to the content of your new product.
Search volume: Increases in search engine queries related to your brand or product.
Brand mentions: The number of times your brand (i.e. company or product) is mentioned across social media, blogs, and news articles.
Surveys and polls: Direct feedback from potential customers about their awareness of your brand.
Email open rates: Percentage of recipients who open emails about your new product.
Referral traffic: Number of visitors from other websites or social media channels.

Using leadgen to measure product launch objectives

Lead generation metrics examine the number of companies or individuals interested in purchasing your new product.

Before delving into the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts, it’s crucial to grasp the size of the market, the competitive landscape (including the number, maturity, and size of competitors), the percentage of the market that your new product addresses, and your customers’ purchasing habits. This will allow you to assess your lead-generation strategies effectively.

KPIs and metrics to measure the effectiveness of lead generation activities include:

Lead volume: Number of leads generated over a specific period.
Lead conversion rate: Percentage of leads that convert into prospects, qualified opportunities and paying customers.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): Number of leads with high lead quality and qualify to be moved to the sales team.

Source of leads: Where leads come from (e.g., social media, email campaigns, organic search, referrals).
Time to conversion: Average time for a lead to become a paying customer.
Cost per lead (CPL): Total marketing spend per generated lead.
Return on Investment (ROI): Revenue generated from leads against the cost of generating those leads.

Sales and product adoption measures

When using sales and product launch objectives as a measure of product launch objectives, you are looking for how many customers convert to sales, the length of time it takes to reach the sale, and how long it takes for the customer to start using the product to its fullest.

Here are potential ways to measure sales and product adoption progress:

Sales measures

Customer conversion rate: The percentage of qualified leads who become paying customers.
Revenue generated from conversions: Actual revenue produced by converting leads into sales.
Newsletter subscriber conversion rate: How effectively newsletter subscribers convert to paying customers, particularly those offered exclusive discounts.
Average time to conversion: The average time an SQL becomes a paying customer.
Sales cycle reduction rate: How effectively is the sales process being shortened over time.
Customer nurturing time: The period a customer spends in the nurturing phase before making a purchase decision.

Product adoption measures

Adoption rate: Percentage of new users who start using your product after being introduced.
Time to first action: Time it takes for a user to take the first significant action within the product after onboarding (e.g., setting up an account, making a purchase).
Activation rate: Percentage of users who complete the key actions that define product adoption or activation.
Daily/Monthly active users (DAU/MAU): Number of unique users engaged with the product daily or monthly.
Adoption time: Average time for a customer to fully adopt the product and become a regular user.
Feature adoption rate: Percentage of users who use specific features of your product.
Retention rate: Percentage of users who continue using the product after a certain period (e.g., one month, three months).
Churn rate: Percentage of users who stop using the product after initial adoption.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) or Net Promoter Score (NPS): How satisfied customers are with the product after adopting it and whether they would recommend it to others.
Expansion rate: Percentage of users who expand their product use by purchasing more features, upgrading plans, or increasing usage.
Cost of adoption: Costs associated with getting a customer to adopt the product.

Market share metrics to measure product adoption

Measuring market share provides insights into how a company’s product is doing within its industry and growth opportunities and potential threats.

Tracking market share also allows companies to see whether the industry is expanding or contracting and whether additional product or service development investments should be made.

Here are some metrics that can help a company measure market share:

Percentage of total market share: Sales as a percentage of the total sales in the industry. You may need to rely on industry reports or third-party market research firms for precise market data.
Revenue growth relative to industry growth: Revenue growth relative to the overall market growth.
Sales volume relative to competitors: Unit sales in comparison to competitors.
Market penetration rate: Proportion of potential customers within a target market that are actual customers of the company.
Market share over time: Compare the company’s market share over time to see if it is increasing or decreasing.

Evolve your product launch objectives

The benchmark metrics and data at launch will differ from those in the months after your product is released to the market.

With more concrete consumer behaviour, you should take the time to reassess the effectiveness of their go-to-market plan and how you measure success. This will allow you to adjust your sales, marketing, and product adoption strategies, help guide your product roadmap, and show you how much you should invest in product development.

So don’t skip this step!

Let’s look at your product launch objectives!

Are you looking to launch a new product and want some assistance on structuring your go-to-market strategy, product launch campaigns or messaging? Give us a shout!