Activation, Adoption & Engagement : How they drive product growth?

A clear understanding of the key steps in the product funnel is essential to recognize shifts in customer behavior and the evolution of engagement patterns.

Photo by Tolga Ulkan on Unsplash

Before we dive on our topic here, let’s start by understanding the main idea of product-led growth.

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a strategy where a product’s value, usability, and features play a central role in driving customer acquisition, retention, and business growth. PLG emphasizes creating a product that users can easily try, adopt, and find value in on their own, leading to organic growth through user satisfaction and advocacy.

Instead of just telling people to use the product, PLG makes a product that’s so nice that people want to use it by themselves. This makes the business grow naturally as happy users tell their friends and use the product more.

And this scale of user happiness drive the virality factor that’s essential for the exponential growth of the product. Think of Slack. Think of Dropbox. Think of Wordle.

Congratulations, you are able to get a bazillion people to use your product. But what after the initial hype?

How can your product keep getting the users interested? How can it make them keep using it? How can it keep them excited and happy while using it? How can it turn them into fans who tell others about it?

Well, that’s where our product-led “sustained” growth comes in.

So, now that you have your bunch of users, the key is to make sure you actually deliver what you promised. You want them to keep coming back for more, right? You want them to stick around, enjoy what you offer, and really like what they’re getting from your products. That’s how you build up their trust and loyalty.

And thus, we welcome the three of the important players: Activation, Adoption, and Engagement.

Why are these stages so important, you ask?