SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2025

Meeting intensity KPI challenge : Sometimes AI efficiencies can reduce a company’s core metrics (like Calendly’s “meeting intensity”), requiring leadership to make conscientious decisions about value tradeoffs. Building separate AI interfaces can create unnecessary tech debt and learning curves.

AI 202

AI Scale Education User Experience 202

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

The Hidden Costs of UBP While UBP offers many advantages, it does come with tradeoffs: Complicates churn measurement : If a customer uses your product intermittently (every third month, for example), standard monthly churn calculations will show the account churning and reactivating, skewing your metrics. What should my unit of pricing be?

SaaS Payments 276

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 276

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2025

Celebrations are shifting from contract signatures to consumption metrics – Their team is evolving beyond celebrating closed deals to automated alerts for customer usage milestones, fundamentally changing what success looks like. Today, with an established brand and product, other characteristics have become more predictive of success.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 202

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

“Marketing is fluffy and unmeasurable” – Unlike sales, which has clear metrics like quota attainment, founders often believe marketing can’t be measured. Instead, focus on two key metrics: Pipeline coverage – Do we have a chance to hit our numbers? These “five-five” CMOs barely exist.

Sales Hiring 202

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 202

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 28, 2025

If you, as a software company, got to a certain scale and brand awareness, it was really hard for others to catch you. It simply took too much time to start a competitor, build a product, build a brand, and compete. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. So what was the implication?

AI 184

AI Cloud Scale Scaling 184

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

This practical, observable metric drove more decision-making than sophisticated dashboards or forecasting models. Colin observed that “everyone’s calendar was full of customer calls,” providing an immediate, tangible signal of product-market fit.

Scale 185

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 185

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 24, 2023

What are your key Startup Metrics ? Where do you stand on your brand? Do you have a name, a logo, and have you thought about brand positioning? What are some examples of similar brands? Analytics/Metrics What key startup metrics will you need to track? How will you be taking this to market? Administer users?

Innovation 780

Innovation Development CTO Hire Technical Review 780

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2024

” Mistake #3: Setting the Wrong Metrics and Goals Ryan at Okta made the wrong choice on short-term metrics and led his team in the wrong direction as CMO. And for his marketing team, it didn’t just apply to marketing, demand gen, or brand, or PR. They didn’t hire a big branding agency or hire a research firm.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Leadership 306

Buffer Resources

OCTOBER 2, 2024

It should ideally contain everything from organic traffic to PPC competitor research to engagement metrics to help you do a wholesome analysis. You can filter for views per hour (VPH), publishing date, views, and performance metrics. Does this tool feel easy to use? Starts at start at $19.90/competitor/month Starts at $139.95/month

Social Media 115

Social Media AI Search Benchmarks Software Review 115

SaaStr

JULY 22, 2021

From brand. And make it a top metric for the company. Double-down on your “mini-brand” as soon as it emerges. But Your Mini-Brand Will Come to Your Rescue. The more you concentrate on what’s working, and not searching for that shiny penny, the faster referrals and your mini-brand will work.

Sales Hiring 358

Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success Branding 358

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

” And that’s also why AARRR metrics are called pirate metrics. Short for acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue, these metrics help you measure and drive product growth. In this article, we’ll dig deeper into the AARRR framework and the relevant metrics associated with each stage.

Metrics 105

Metrics Customer Lifetime Value Acquisition Software Review 105

Buffer Resources

APRIL 18, 2024

Some influence web design, some make their way onto packaging, and others become a staple for social media branding. In order to stay ahead of the curve, savvy business owners are constantly on the lookout for ways to keep their social media branding fresh, engaging, and relevant. One powerful strategy?

Social Media 126

Social Media Branding Trends Innovation 126

Buffer Resources

AUGUST 7, 2024

Influencers have become powerful voices in shaping consumer behavior and brand perception. In a report by CreatorIQ , 55 percent of TikTok users state that they trust a brand more when it's shared by a creator – and we can assume the same rings true for other platforms.

Social Media 109

Social Media Compensation Technical Review Branding 109

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

So avoid obsessing too much about absolute metrics inside your funnel, especially the metrics between lead and close. But sometimes, as your brand grows and you get better at marketing, you’ll attract more general passers by. And thus a lot of your conversion metrics will actually fall as you scale.

Startup 284

Startup Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 284

User Pilot

OCTOBER 19, 2024

For a broader measure of satisfaction, you’ll need to consider other customer success metrics. They include metrics like the Net Promoter Score , Customer Effort Score , Customer Churn/Retention Rates , etc. Enhances your brand reputation As of this year, over 70% of people in the US use social media. Userpilot review on G2.

Business 111

Business Underperforming Technical Team Customer Lifetime Value Systems Review 111

Buffer Resources

JULY 24, 2024

Social media analytics tools automate collecting all the metrics related to your performance data so you don’t have to do the math yourself. But gathering those metrics like a layman? But you’d get a notification for every brand mention, so why bother with automating this task? Delegate that to a software.

Social Media 114

Social Media Outsourcing Services Strategy ChatGPT 114

SaaStr

APRIL 11, 2020

Happy users, even free users, are your brand ambassadors. Grow brand. You can grow some metric in your pipeline or at least your pre-pipeline 2x right now. And set say 3 different goals for 3 different customer segments based on macro impacts to their industries (Green, Yellow and Red impacts on end-customers’ business).

Revenue 358

Revenue Healthcare B2B Branding 358

User Pilot

JULY 16, 2024

In this article, we’ll explore the types of product differentiation strategies and go over cases of real-world brands that have used these strategies to drive product growth. This process grants you a competitive advantage and fosters brand loyalty. Apple differentiates itself through brand image and reputation.

Branding 111

Branding Market Segmentation AI Search Education 111

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

Expectations and Performance Metrics For every functional area, employees should show improvement within one sales cycle or they likely never will. Building a Brand Building a brand is essential for long-term success. Brand marketing helps sustain word-of-mouth growth, which is a key driver of customer acquisition.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 301

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2021

But once you have a brand, one way or another, the leads come. They all have brands, yes. Because what happens is, just as you finally go from Mini-Brand to Real Brand , you start to get into every deal. Make measured customer happiness one of your very core metrics at the company. Sometimes it is, yes.

SaaS 363

SaaS Venture Capital Churn Branding 363

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2021

SaaS companies thrive on partnerships to share leads, mutually champion brands and collaborate on customer success efforts. Types of partnerships include agencies, SaaS apps, CSMs, or brand evangelists. . Once you’ve established healthy partnerships, your customers act like CSMs and brand evangelists. Close rate.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Funnel Consulting 273

User Pilot

JULY 4, 2024

But how can you effectively measure product metrics that can help you reach your goals and increase revenue growth? In this article, we’ll explore some key metrics, analysis techniques, as well as actionable strategies to track and enhance your product performance. What metrics you track will heavily depend on your goals.

Metrics 111

Metrics Systems Review Retention Customer Lifetime Value 111

SaaStr

APRIL 21, 2021

And then, everyone goes on to calculate some a metric telling you how much to spend on Sales and Marketing. They build your brand. Everyone in SaaS talks about CLTV (or LTV, same thing). The lifetime value of your customer. You can see a great detailed analysis of how to calculate it here. Because the second-order effects compound.

Revenue 350

Revenue Enterprise Customer Success Churn 350

Buffer Resources

JULY 25, 2024

This makes it easier for potential followers and connections to discover your profile and content, inevitably growing your personal brand on LinkedIn. For your newsletter logo and headers, use high-quality visuals that align with your personal or business brand identity and the theme of your newsletter.

Social Media 118

Social Media Engagement Metrics Strategy 118

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2021

The “Magic Number” is one of those metrics in SaaS that has always sort of vexxed me. But there are issues with the metric: To even hit 1.0, Still, it’s a core metric. And a lot of them get a no-to-low cost boost from brand, viral, etc. is often seen as perhaps too capital efficient. Magic Number.

Scale 293

Scale SaaS Acquisition Benchmarks 293

Buffer Resources

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

  Thankfully for folks like me, there are many brilliant tools to help you keep on top of your content marketing metrics (little to no math required). Then, to add a little nuance to the discussion, we’ll deep dive into the metrics that matter the most to several top content marketing teams (including Buffer’s).

Content Marketing 134

Content Marketing Metrics Social Media Marketing 134

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2022

June seems to show no signs of slowing down but we’re monitoring demand metrics like a hawk to see when or if we’ll experience a slow down. Yes, some segments have been hit hard as we move into a post-Covid world, like Zoom and DocuSign, despite being iconic brands and products. Ended May $1.7M ahead of plan and growing ARR @ 53%.

B2B 354

B2B SaaS Branding Metrics 354

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 3, 2020

Internal Comms: often forgotten, but important because every employee sells the business and contributes to the brand. What is the sophistication of metrics to measure success? Content: the capability to produce content. Social: social media. How effective is the team at enabling each employee to sell the company successfully?

Underperforming Technical Team 340

Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Scale Social Media 340

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Funnels simplify metrics. I’ve been preparing my session for the NY Enterprise Tech Meetup later this week on the Essential Guide to SaaS Metrics. Startups should manage, cultivate, and foster their employees, and this will drive the cycle again with referrals, better employee brand, and greater success with future candidates.

Startup 279

Startup Onboarding Enterprise Metrics 279

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you might be getting excited about the wrong marketing metrics. Vanity metrics. From the article, you will learn what vanity metrics are, how to identify them, and how to choose more actionable alternatives to drive product growth. Choose metrics that directly correlate with these objectives.

Product Marketing 105

Product Marketing Metrics Customer Lifetime Value Marketing 105

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2023

Brand: Representation of your offerings and business. Be clear on your north star metrics Both small and large companies face the tension of being pulled in all directions. For instance, for Docusign, their north star metric is the number of signatures generated. Be really clear about the north star metric from the start.

Sales Hiring 241

Sales Hiring Scale Strategy Metrics 241

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

An NPS of 50+, a CSAT of 90–100, whatever metrics you use, find out if your customers are really happy. It won’t feel like it, but you’ll look back at this stage (~$10m ARR) and see it’s where everything came together from a brand, community, retention, etc. The faster you grow, the longer it takes to show up in the numbers.

Scaling 293

Scaling SaaS Churn Metrics 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

While it is appropriate that marketing focuses on MQLs and lead generation, they also have a much larger remit to focus on general brand awareness and carrying that through to lots of different areas. But the thing that we really need to ensure is that our sales and marketing teams are aligned on the core metrics.”

Enterprise 284

Enterprise Marketing Sales SaaS 284

Buffer Resources

JULY 18, 2024

It tells you exactly how fast it takes to load the site according to different metrics and suggests areas for improvement. If you have access to a paid Ahrefs account, you’ll also be able to see important keyword metrics like search volume, CPC, and keyword difficulty within the SERPs.

Technical Review 119

Technical Review Software Review Mobile Engineering 119

Buffer Resources

AUGUST 14, 2024

If you’re interested in tracking mentions of and sentiment towards your company or brand, Hootsuite has some powerful options.  You’ll get comprehensive metrics for Facebook Pages, Instagram Business and Creator accounts, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn Pages.  Which tool is right for you?

Social Media 111

Social Media Management AI Pricing 111

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

At least, not until you have a brand. What you need until $20m ARR at least is more qualified leads, not brand strategy. Make NPS a top company metric. More here. Know 100% for sure what your “Zero Cash Date” is — when you run out of money. Too many founders don’t keep up with the burn rate and get this wrong. At their peril.

Sales Hiring 313

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 313

User Pilot

JULY 19, 2024

Not sure what metrics you should use? Here are metrics you can use, along with their averages for Martech companies from Userpilot’s SaaS Product Success Metrics Report 2024 : Average customer activation rate : 24%. If you’d like to learn how to track these metrics (and optimize them) with Userpilot, book the demo!

Benchmarks 105

Benchmarks Metrics Scale Customer Lifetime Value 105