Which user metrics are worth paying attention to

The most frequently asked is the statistical indicators of some users, whether at the decision-making level or product department, so this article focuses on the user indicators of some content.

Suppose you want to use the most concise and effective data to understand a website or product user situation, you will ask which number of user data? In fact, a smart questioner will never ask the site's cumulative number of users, and even do not ask how much the site's UV, because these indicators can not really reflect the value of the site and the development of the situation.

To give a simple example-netqin, the cumulative number of users should not be tens of millions, but this number can really reflect the value of the Network Qin? In accordance with this mode of operation of the NetQin, the real active users how many, the proportion of how? After 3 15, the loss of users and how many, Is this wastage rate enough to make the Network Qin previously hard to cultivate the user base destroyed? So what is the future of the development of netqin? In fact, we can use some more persuasive user metrics to reflect these situations.

User segmentation

I do not recommend dividing users into many types, so far, the user has seen a breakdown of the categories are not a few, listed should have a large series: the current user, new and old users, active users, loss of users, retained users, return visit users, trespass users, dormant users, resident users, loyal users ... In fact, many definitions or meanings are similar and play a similar role in the analytic level. Therefore, it is not recommended to the user such chaos without a chapter into n categories, the user's breakdown is the key to a reasonable system of users into several categories, and each category can play its role in user analysis, there is no redundancy and confusion.

So here I would like to introduce a more reasonable way of user segmentation. I divided the user into the following categories: the current use of users, new users, active users, lost users, return visit users, the following simple explanation.

Current User: That is, we usually say that the UV, that is, the site's login or use the number of users. Used to reflect the current operating conditions of the site.

New users: first-time or just registered users; then those who are not the first visitors are the old users, so they also get the statistics of the old users. Used to analyze the promotion effect or growth space of the website.

Active Users: the definition of active users varies widely, and the user is generally defined as active when a key action or behavior meets a requirement; Each Web site should define active users according to their product-specific definition. Active users are used to analyze how many valuable users the site really holds.

Lost users: The site's active users and the loss of users have been defined and introduced, used to analyze the site's ability to retain users. We call those who have not lost the retention user, through the total use of the number of users minus the number of lost users calculated.

Visit users: Those who have previously lost, but then revisit your site. Used to analyze the site's ability to save lost users (often by those who haven't logged in for a long time to email you, let you go back to see, these measures are they are retaining those lost users). Unless the recent implementation of some of the means to retain the loss of users, the normal rate of return to the user should be relatively low, otherwise it is your definition of the loss of users is not accurate, should appropriately extend the definition of the loss of time interval.

So in fact, after we get some user statistic metrics, we also get some metrics, such as old users and retained users.

User metrics worthy of attention

As mentioned in the beginning of the article, if you want to know about a website or a product's user situation, try to catch the most critical user metrics. If I were to ask, I would only ask 3 indicators: Active users, new user ratios, and user churn rates.

Obviously, the number of active users directly reflects how many users the site or product really holds, not because some ads or links are delayed, but really interested in the site or product, intentionally to use or continue to focus on. The higher the number of active users, the higher the value of the website or product currently has. But there is one thing to be particularly aware of: active user definition, active users are not the same as new users, active users may produce a variety of definitions, the previous article--the use of indicators to measure user activity for how to define user activity has been introduced, the definition of active users are similar, There are various ways to do this. Relaxed definitions can make active users "more", such as as long as the number of visits to more than 2 pages or stay longer than 30 seconds, and rigorous definition may lead to active users "reduction", such as the microblogging site to define the average number of tweets per day more than 2 are active users. So, different definitions affect the number of active users, and when you ask active users, be sure to understand how they define active users. I prefer a rigorous definition, while this will "reduce" the number of active users (some executives may not be able to see the numbers, go back to the definition and make the data "pretty" ...), but the rigorous definition makes the data seem truer, It can be said that according to this definition of users are those who really create value for the site users.

The proportion of new users reflects the ability to promote the site or products, the laying of channels and the results. The new user ratio is not only a key index to evaluate the performance of the market sector, but also an important index to reflect the development of the website and product.

But looking at the new user ratio is not enough, it needs to be combined with the user churn rate to see. I have seen the loss rate of 98% of the site, also saw the loss rate of about 20% of products, the loss rate will be based on the product of the user stickiness is uneven. The user churn rate reflects the ability of the website or product to retain the user, that is, the proportion of new users reflects the user "come in" situation, the user turnover rate reflects the user "leave" the situation, combined with these two indicators will have the following 3 types of situation, representing 3 different stages of product development:

The proportion of new users is greater than the user turnover rate: products in the development stage;

The ratio of new users and user turnover is flat: The product is in a mature and stable stage;

The percentage of new users is below the user churn rate: The product is in a slump.

Here is a chart showing the number of active users, the percentage of new users, and the rate of user churn, what can you see from this picture, and if you are the CEO of the site, what is the next point of view you need to focus on to improve the operation of the site?

This article may not involve any data and analysis, here only want to understand the user segmentation and indicators, when this set of user segmentation and Index system standardized, can make user analysis become more comfortable.