How to Increase User Activation Rates

When I was head of growth, our team reached 40% activation rates, and onboarded hundreds of thousands of new users. Without knowing it, we discovered a framework. Here are the 6 steps we followed. 1. Define value: Successful onboarding is typically judged by new user activation rates. But what is activation? The moment users receive value. Reaching it should lead to higher retention & conversion to paid plans. First define it. Then get new users there. 2. Deliver value, quickly Revisit your flow and make sure it gets users to the activation moment fast. Remove unnecessary steps, complexity, and distractions along the way. Not sure how to start? Try reducing time (or steps) to activate by 50%. 3. Motivate users to action: Don't settle for simple. Look for sticking points in the user experience you can solve with microcopy, empty states, tours, email flows, etc. Then remind users what to do next with on-demand checklists, progress bars, & milestone celebrations. 4. Customize the experience: Ditch the one-size fits all approach. Learn about your different use cases. Then, create different product "recipes" to help users achieve their specific goals. 5. Start in the middle: Solve for the biggest user pain points stopping users from starting. Lean on customizable templates and pre-made playbooks to help people go 0-1 faster. 6. Build momentum pre-signup: Create ways for website visitors to start interacting with the product - and building momentum, before they fill out any forms. This means that you'll deliver value sooner, and to more people. Keep it simple. Learn what's valuable to users. Then deliver value on their terms.

After analyzing 50+ onboarding flows, I discovered even well-funded companies make the same 5 mistakes. Here's what we found when we dissected a major payment platform's user experience: Melio helps businesses pay and get paid with ease. High trust product. High stakes onboarding. Yet they stumble where it matters most. Their initial screens impress. Multiple sign-in options. Clear value prop instead of generic "Create account" text. Even a whimsical mascot that waves at you. But then everything falls apart. The layout suddenly shifts from centered to split-screen for no reason. This cognitive disruption increases drop-off by 23% according to Baymard Institute research. Right after the welcome screen comes an aggressive pricing modal: "90% off your first 3 months!" I hadn't even seen the product yet. This triggers loss aversion before establishing value... Reducing trial-to-paid conversion. Melio requests payment before displaying any functionality. Empty dashboards. No sample data. No guided tour. Just "Add a vendor" on a blank screen. An empty dashboard might look clean, but it leaves users wondering, "Now what?" The kiss of death for product adoption. Here's what the data says works instead: • Show sample data • Guide users through the first action • Delay monetization until after the aha moment. Companies that show value before payment see 3x higher activation rates. Those with guided onboarding retain 2.5x more users after 30 days. The best flows share patterns some designers miss: Progressive disclosure beats comprehensive tours. Show one powerful feature perfectly rather than ten features poorly. The first 90 seconds determine the next 90 days. Front-load your most compelling value demonstration. Even major companies struggle because they focus on what they want users to do, not what users need to succeed. At Pixel One, we apply these principles to redesign product experiences for B2B SaaS companies. The difference shows in activation rates and long-term retention. If you're losing users between signup and activation... Let's transform your flow into a growth engine.

Activation rate: +30%. Conversion to paid: 2x. Time-to-value: down from 6 weeks to 2. Three months ago, we changed how we run demos. We thought it would just clarify June—instead, it drove 3 record-breaking months. Most startups treat demos as product walkthroughs. We certainly did 😅 But great demos don’t just explain the product. They reveal how your best customers use your product. They change the way people see their problems 🤯 The impact of updating our demos was huge: • Activation rate ↑ 30% • Paid conversions 2× higher • Time-to-value dropped from 6 weeks to 2 .. leading to 3 consecutive record-breaking months!! If you're looking for some inspiration on how to run better demos, here’s how we do it—in 30 minutes: 1️⃣ Start with questions (10-15 min) Before showing anything, we dig into their biggest pain point. What’s broken? What’s slowing them down? 2️⃣ Show how to send data to June (30 sec) Just quick reassurance that setup is simple. 3️⃣ Unpack the analytics backbone (2 min) Two years of development in one section: everything they can do with our analytics. It’s way more advanced than what they’re used to. 4️⃣ Company profiles (3 min) How users create company-level metrics, not just user-level ones. This is when they really see the power of June. We’d like to have this part sooner in our demos, but we found that explaining the analytics backbone first is more logical. 5️⃣ Computations (2 min) How they can turn raw data into meaningful signals: drop in usage, drop in active seats, % of active users vs total seats. Anything, really. 6️⃣ CSM workflows (2 min) Connecting it all to how CSMs work: organized lists based on key use cases, account ownership, CSM pulse. 7️⃣ Actions (2 min) How CS teams go from reactive to proactive: Slack alerts for accounts at risk, CRM sync to trigger tasks, etc. 8️⃣ Source of truth (1 min) How June integrates with Stripe, and more—giving them a complete, enriched customer view. 9️⃣ Wrap-up (3 min) Final moments to check if the demo resonated, talk pricing, and outline next steps (POC, onboarding). ________ Our demos have driven the most growth in the last three months. I’ll share more on what else has worked. But if you’re looking for an immediate win, take a hard look at your demos! They might be the most powerful lever you’re not using. Hope this helps 💜 Enzo

“Our biggest churn risk is poor seat utilization.” I heard this again from a CS leader last week. “We just need to get those seats activated.” That’s a classic financial lens on the problem. Yes, if more seats were activated, you’d likely see less downsell and less churn. But that’s not the real issue. Seats don’t activate because we wish them to. They activate because a use case becomes successful. The better questions are: What specific use cases did this customer purchase? What outcomes were promised in the original sale? Which roles are supposed to use each license? What workflows need to be implemented for those roles to actually win? Do they even have enough people to execute those use cases? Seat utilization is an output. Use case success is the input. At some point, someone justified the number of licenses based on a set of business outcomes. That number didn’t come from nowhere. It was tied to a vision of what success would look like. If you’re facing low activation or churn risk, here’s the play: 1️⃣ Go back to the original sale. What outcomes were promised? What use cases were sold? 2️⃣ Map licenses to roles. Who specifically should be using each seat and why? 3️⃣ Define the workflows. What has to be true operationally for this use case to actually stick? 4️⃣ Build a plan to launch each use case. Not “activate seats.” Launch use cases. Capture wins. Create proof. There is no magic bullet. Seat utilization increases when use cases are fully implemented and delivering value. And if you’re worried about full churn? Start by ensuring the activated licenses are wildly successful in their use case. That buys you time and credibility to drive adoption of the remaining ones. Seats don’t churn. Failed use cases do. Curious, how are you tying seat counts back to outcomes in your accounts?

Most companies do see churn coming. They just don’t take the signals seriously. Listen, customers aren’t magically embedding your tool into their business processes after onboarding. Momentum and friction are working against you. If you don’t deliberately drive activation, you’re leaving adoption to chance. And chance is a pretty solid churn strategy. A recent SaaStr post (link in the comments) is right on: if fewer than 90% of customers activate, you’ve already planted the seeds of churn. But activation isn’t just about usage. It’s also about customers experiencing the business outcome they expected when they bought. Where I’d add nuance is as follows: 👉 Activation as both metric and motion The metric is simple: how quickly on average do customers achieve that first value milestone? The motion is harder: you need a repeatable process that walks different customer types through the specific steps to get there. SMB vs. enterprise? They don’t just differ in contract size, they also differ in how much change management, executive alignment, and process adaptation it takes to truly activate. 👉 Operationalize activation That means building plays, roles, and accountabilities that don’t stop at onboarding. It means mapping the customer’s business processes and embedding your product, not just training on features. It means having clear success criteria and holding teams accountable for getting customers there, regardless of obstacles. 👉 Listen early Pair activation with health scoring. If usage drops and if goals aren’t being met, you have warning lights before churn hits your retention forecast. The biggest blind spot I see when advising CEOs is the assumption that “usage will come.” It doesn’t. Not without a designed and disciplined activation motion. Silent churn isn’t silent, and surprise churn isn’t surprising. You just have to stop ignoring the signals.

Push Notification Design: Secret weapons that doubled our engagement 🚀 During 2 months of testing with my team at FunCorp, we ran 42 different experiments on our million-user meme app. Here's what actually worked: Our tests revealed: - Adding images → 2x higher clicks - Custom sounds → doubled engagement - Emojis → 85% higher open rates (especially with Gen Z) Most surprising finding? Purple notifications crushed every other color on Android. But here's the catch: Your phone has 50+ apps fighting for attention. Standing out isn't enough - you need to stay relevant. 3 quick tips from our experiments: - Test with your most engaged 10% first - Use winning content for everyone else - Rotate your tactics to keep them fresh By the end of our experiments, we'd increased new user activation by 20% and doubled our push CTR. Real results, real data. Save this post if you're in product or growth 📌 What's the most effective push notification you've ever received? Share below! #ProductStrategy #MobileApps #GrowthMarketing

Your team makes a polished, creative YouTube video and then… only 5 of 2000 employees post or share about it. Activating your team to amplify and distribute assets is a skill, something I was abysmal at when I started at ActiveCampaign but learned a ton. Ultimately this has helped me rank a top 3% pod and dozens of videos page 1 on Google SERPs. So figured I would share here. First, you have to ask what actually leads to the most reach. Does an employee who never posts on LinkedIn or X sharing a video actually contribute to reach? Probably not. It would be better for these folks to watch and leave meaningful comments. But even here I messed up. I actually lost a 1,000 views on a video because I got a bunch of the team to basically click a link and like and then they left and the algo doesn’t count it as a view unless it’s over 60 seconds (and it might have detected lots of clicks, likes and bounces and removed as spam). So what’s ideal? Have a an excel document with a few (no more than 2-3) specific actions and encourage folks to leave a personal opinion or take on the video. But the next big learning was… what’s in it for them? Why is customer success or sales going to be taking these activation behaviors? I noticed that teams I had worked with closely and run workshops with and made introductions for to target accounts were way more likely to help. So part of me getting better at team activations was working with managers and team leaders and making sure I was adding value to these teams so they wanted to help. Another piece is the content and approach. Handing a bunch of people a video or blog article and telling them to just share it is very uninspiring. But handing the team a creative, unique asset and asking them to share opinions about it, however they want, is much more likely to garner interest. Think about a brand like Clay. Their team is eager to share the content that gets produced because it’s unique and attention grabbing. I guess to summarize it’s… 1. Have a structured way that is easy for folks to get involved. 2. Lead with value and build positive relationships with the teams before asking them to do things 3. Build content that folks actually want to share and then let them say whatever they want about it

A user journey is the sequence of steps a user takes within your product. Imagine a photo editing app where users explore the “Image Upscaler” before the “Shape Cropper,” leading to a 20% increase in conversion. The trick is identifying that particular user journey out of all the many permutations a user could follow in using your product. It’s hard to go over all of them, measuring the impact of each. Causal analysis is key to understanding what drives the KPI change and what to do next. Even though you might have identified some impactful user journeys, many companies struggle to translate these journeys into real actions. Let’s take a look at a few examples of what you can do next, drawn from a sample photo editing app: 1️⃣ The “Journey Reduce-Noise-Filter” → “Background Eraser” could increase Conversion by 20%. ✅ Amplify the impact of the journey: >> Highlight Reduce Noise Factor in your UI and marketing. >> Use in-app nudges to encourage and Background Eraser exploration. >>Incorporate this flow into a product Walkthrough, educational video or your onboarding process. 2️⃣ Users that complete “Clean Object” after “Cartoon Effect” are 22% more likely to convert if they complete “Clean Object” after “Glitch Video Effect.” ✅ When to promote a feature: >> Surface Glitch Video Effect earlier and provide guidance. >> Showcase success stories reinforcing this journey. 3️⃣ The Journey “Magic Eraser” followed by “Search“ increases Churn Within 2 Weeks by 15%. ✅ Reduce user churn following a journey: >> Is there a bug in the product or a gap in user expectations >> Was there something they searched for and could not find? 4️⃣ The Journey “Use Template” → “Cartoon” → “Glitch Video Effect” → “Clean Object” increases 30-Day Retention by 38%. ✅ Build winning Activation journeys: >> Guide users gradually through a user journey over the first 7 or 30 days. >> Sequentially promote these features in your onboarding process, in-app prompts, timed marketing campaigns etc. 5️⃣ The journey “Campaign= Fast Track” → “Viewed landing page = /FastTrack-US” increases conversion by 23%. ✅ Leverage the right combination of marketing campaigns and landing pages to maximize KPIs: >> Understand and promote the touchpoints that work >> Direct users through the journey with targeted campaigning, incentives, interactive guidance, and contextual nudges. 👉 Key Takeaway User journeys are gold mines of action-ready insights. 🥇 The real power lies in turning them into strategies and actions that optimize the user experience and drive growth. If you’re using Loops, you have likely uncovered high-impact sequences, both positive and negative, along with hidden user segments. I’d love to hear your story. What’s the most actionable insight you’ve gained through a user journey? 🚀 #CausalML #userjourney #productanalytics

The easiest way to boost clicks that almost nobody tests? 1st-person CTA buttons. What would you click first? ➡️ “Register” or “Save My Spot”? - here is the details for Consumer and Business marketers... Stop telling people what to do. Start letting them step into the action. When the CTA sounds like the user talking to themselves, friction drops and momentum goes up. (Click-Throughs increase by over 20% for both Business and Consumer when CTA's are written in first person) [Source: Worldata Research Performance Report 2026] This works because first-person CTAs trigger ownership + emotional commitment before the click even happens. Here are simple flips that consistently outperform generic buttons: Consumer examples (instead of “Buy Now”): • Yes, I Want 25% Off • Claim My Limited-Time Deal • Get My Exclusive Discount • Unlock My Special Offer • Redeem My Gift • Snag My Immediate Discount • Hurry, Claim My Discount • I Want to Save • Claim My Flash Offer • Secure My 30% Off B2B / business examples (instead of “Register” or “Download”): • Save My Spot • Start My Free Trial • Send Me the Guide • Give Me Access • Reserve My Seat • Count Me In • I Want In • Send Me the Sample • Give Me the Insights • Show Me the Deals • Send Me the Coupon • Let Me Start Saving Small wording change. Big psychological shift. You’re no longer giving instructions. You’re helping someone take a step they already want to take. If your conversion rates feel stuck, this is one of the fastest tests you can run across: landing pages email buttons paid social popups event registrations Most marketers overthink design and underthink button language. The button is the decision moment. Make it feel personal.

Jira Product Discovery scaled from 0 to 14,000 paying customers in 4 years using PLG. Here's the playbook: Exponential growth is rare. Especially as a new product in a big company. Yet JPD? • 8 months ago → 8,000 customers • 4 months ago → 10,000 customers • Today → 14,000 customers They're more than doubling every year. Here's how they mastered Product-Led Growth: — 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝟭: 𝗚𝗢-𝗧𝗢-𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗞𝗘𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗚𝗬 JPD does massive cross-selling to Atlassian’s existing customer base. They don't have a separate sales team; they leverage existing Jira sales reps. But they don't stop there. They have a full-fledged marketing engine that includes demand generation, performance marketing, SEO, and events. — 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝟮: 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘-𝗧𝗢-𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 JPD’s PLG model comes with a twist. They offer free access but with a strategic limitation: → Teams under 3 members (FREE) → Teams with more than 3 members ( Paid with a free trial) → Only key contributors (PMs, designers, stakeholders) are charged This ensures that teams get hooked before they hit the paywall. — 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝟯: 𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 JPD has three key activation paths, each tailored to different types of users: 1. Startup teams Start with basic roadmapping → Scale usage as they grow 2. Mid-market teams One PM adopts JPD → Product Ops teams onboard → Becomes core to their workflow 3. Enterprise organizations Larger teams adopt JPD strategically for complex product discovery They drive activation across all with: → Pre-built templates (Lower friction & guide users toward success) → Collaboration tools (Teams can share their work seamlessly) → Gradual feature expansion (Helps users get deeper into the product over time) — 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝟰: 𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 JPD’s customer satisfaction score is in the 80s and that's the sign of strong retention. Here’s why users keep coming back: 1. Solving real pain points → PM teams rely on it for critical workflows 2. User education → Teaching teams how to maximize JPD’s value 3. Strong onboarding experience → A “wow” moment early on — 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝟱: 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗧𝗜𝗭𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 JPD follows Atlassian’s proven playbook for monetization: • Freemium: With premium plans starting at just $25 • Self-serve: Users can sign up and start using JPD immediately • Built-in audience: JPD is an extension of Jira, making it a frictionless upsell For enterprise customers, they do have a sales team, ensuring they can land larger deals. — 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝟲: 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 JPD was built for PMs, but now they’re expanding: → Publishing product roadmaps Encouraging adoption across departments → Expanding beyond PMs Attracting designers, engineers, and other teams → Data-driven growth Using an “expansion coefficient” to predict how much they can scale inside a company — Get all the details - including screen-by-screen walkthroughs - in my deep dive: https://lnkd.in/ev98yG7u