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> Throwing away the idea of using ‘engagement’ as the sole or primary metric. What are some alternatives that are not a synonym for engagement?

inetknght 8y ago
Customer satisfaction, perhaps? I can be satisfied with products that I don't use at every moment of every day. I am usually more satisfied with my life when I am not being gamed to be addicted to something such as a "free" product.
- zokier 8y ago
  How do you quantify and measure satisfaction?
  - AaronFriel 8y ago
    Well tuned and calibrated surveys, coded free-form responses (takes care to implement), net promoter scores, heck, at scale it might make sense to hire polling agencies to do this.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    Review scores of it's an app is one way.
- diminoten 8y ago
  But what if I want to know why you're not using my product every moment of every day, and what I'd have to change to do that? If you're satisfied with my product, but you only buy it once a year, that's bad for me. If you're not very satisfied with my product, but you buy it 30 times a year, that's better. I'd rather have 30 sales than 1 sale, even if you badmouth my product and lose me 15 more sales down the line. TBH I may not give a crap how "happy" you are if you're still engaging. Satisfaction is trailing, engagement is leading.
  - sverige 8y ago
    If someone badmouths the product, they aren't satisfied. And even if they're engaged with it, odds are high they're looking for something better. Besides, the only reason engagement became a thing is because the way people are paid is based on ad revenue instead of actual payment by the person using the product. Satisfaction is king when the user and the customer are the same person. Just ask any insurance company (for example).
  - groby_b 8y ago
    And that's all that's wrong with engagement in a nutshell. You prioritize your needs over the user's needs. It's not about trailing or leading indicators, it's about not burning down the rest of the world just to benefit yourself. "I may not give a crap how 'happy' you are if you're still engaging" - you've really put it succinctly. That's the mentality of a drug pusher.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      You're missing one critical point -- lack of engagement means you can't iterate with the customer. No engagement means you can't improve, and you can't make your customer happier. Nothing happens without engagement. You can survive an unhappy customer as long as they're still around, even if they're only providing feedback and aren't likely to buy again. You can't survive nobody coming into your shop in the first place.
      - inetknght 8y ago
        > You're missing one critical point -- lack of engagement means you can't iterate with the customer. No engagement means you can't improve, and you can't make your customer happier. You can iterate with the customer without being abusive or invasive about it. Show exactly what's being tracked and provide mechanisms for the person to decline its use. Recognize that the customer is valuable; compensate them for their time if you're tracking what they do or answering questions about their experiences. > You can't survive nobody coming into your shop in the first place. Even untracked customers can continue on to purchase goods and services. If you can't build a business site which is capable of basic business operation then perhaps you should hire competent web developers and/or a good marketing team; or perhaps your business wasn't so needed after all.
lmkg 8y ago
That's a little bit of a Catch-22. "Engagement" is not a well-defined metric, and in practice when people try to measure it, they end up justifying the use of any number they happen to be able to measure at the moment. So almost any number can plausibly be called an "engagement score" or something similarly vague. Your goal should be for something more specific, and ideally at least a tad more concrete. Things like "product satisfaction," "positive impression of brand," and "purchase intent" could all be synonyms for "engagement" but they are not synonyms with each other because they are all more specific and narrowly-defined. And furthermore, they're better guidelines because particular features or activities could be well-suited for one and not another, so optimizing towards one of those actually provides some focus.

inetknght 8y ago

Customer satisfaction, perhaps? I can be satisfied with products that I don't use at every moment of every day. I am usually more satisfied with my life when I am not being gamed to be addicted to something such as a "free" product.

zokier 8y ago
How do you quantify and measure satisfaction?
- AaronFriel 8y ago
  Well tuned and calibrated surveys, coded free-form responses (takes care to implement), net promoter scores, heck, at scale it might make sense to hire polling agencies to do this.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Review scores of it's an app is one way.
diminoten 8y ago
But what if I want to know why you're not using my product every moment of every day, and what I'd have to change to do that? If you're satisfied with my product, but you only buy it once a year, that's bad for me. If you're not very satisfied with my product, but you buy it 30 times a year, that's better. I'd rather have 30 sales than 1 sale, even if you badmouth my product and lose me 15 more sales down the line. TBH I may not give a crap how "happy" you are if you're still engaging. Satisfaction is trailing, engagement is leading.
- sverige 8y ago
  If someone badmouths the product, they aren't satisfied. And even if they're engaged with it, odds are high they're looking for something better. Besides, the only reason engagement became a thing is because the way people are paid is based on ad revenue instead of actual payment by the person using the product. Satisfaction is king when the user and the customer are the same person. Just ask any insurance company (for example).
- groby_b 8y ago
  And that's all that's wrong with engagement in a nutshell. You prioritize your needs over the user's needs. It's not about trailing or leading indicators, it's about not burning down the rest of the world just to benefit yourself. "I may not give a crap how 'happy' you are if you're still engaging" - you've really put it succinctly. That's the mentality of a drug pusher.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    You're missing one critical point -- lack of engagement means you can't iterate with the customer. No engagement means you can't improve, and you can't make your customer happier. Nothing happens without engagement. You can survive an unhappy customer as long as they're still around, even if they're only providing feedback and aren't likely to buy again. You can't survive nobody coming into your shop in the first place.
    - inetknght 8y ago
      > You're missing one critical point -- lack of engagement means you can't iterate with the customer. No engagement means you can't improve, and you can't make your customer happier. You can iterate with the customer without being abusive or invasive about it. Show exactly what's being tracked and provide mechanisms for the person to decline its use. Recognize that the customer is valuable; compensate them for their time if you're tracking what they do or answering questions about their experiences. > You can't survive nobody coming into your shop in the first place. Even untracked customers can continue on to purchase goods and services. If you can't build a business site which is capable of basic business operation then perhaps you should hire competent web developers and/or a good marketing team; or perhaps your business wasn't so needed after all.

lmkg 8y ago

That's a little bit of a Catch-22. "Engagement" is not a well-defined metric, and in practice when people try to measure it, they end up justifying the use of any number they happen to be able to measure at the moment. So almost any number can plausibly be called an "engagement score" or something similarly vague. Your goal should be for something more specific, and ideally at least a tad more concrete. Things like "product satisfaction," "positive impression of brand," and "purchase intent" could all be synonyms for "engagement" but they are not synonyms with each other because they are all more specific and narrowly-defined. And furthermore, they're better guidelines because particular features or activities could be well-suited for one and not another, so optimizing towards one of those actually provides some focus.