Customer + Business metrics matrix for Digital Product Managers

4 min readSep 28, 2024

In order to grow your business, you need to measure how your products are performing.
In order to measure how your products are performing, you need to first define how you want to grow your business.

“How does this product benefit the business or the brand?”

If you’re asking yourself the question above, this matrix or cheat sheet is aimed at helping you answer this.

It is also meant to be a jumpstart for my future projects as there are heaps of measurement frameworks and clutter on how to measure success of a product but many focus primarily on Customer-focused metrics (which is great) when Product Managers (PMs) also need to evaluate the cost and value to the business both from a Revenue and Brand perspective.

The matrix is not meant to be an exhaustive list. It is meant to be an expansion of the Pirate metrics (AARRR) framework and help in speaking to different parts of the business and key stakeholders.

For example, when considering new product features, a PM may need to consider the cost of development and maintenance on top of projecting usage rate and whether it will reduce the overall Customer Effort Score or lower the Return on Investment. These metrics will help in convincing the business to adopt a new feature as it includes not only the benefits but the cost and risk to the business.

Pirate metrics updated for the age of falling attention and Headless CMSes

Dave McClure shared the AARRR framework in 2007 aimed at startups and it is is still highly relevant for most businesses. Other versions (AAARRR) include Awareness and switch Revenue to come before Retention which I strongly agree with.

I’ve only made the following changes because…

Added Attention — to encourage conversations on attention economics. When building a product, think of why a user should take even a minute out of their day-to-day to engage or use your product.
Added Adoption — to encourage thoughts on how new or existing features will detract or add to the overall Customer Effort Score and affect Accessibility.
Rephrase Revenue to Conversion — Not every product will be aimed at driving revenue for a business so a conversion or definition of a “customer” will look different for various individuals or businesses.
Split out metrics into Customer, Business Cost and Benefit — This helps various PMs ladder up to business objectives. ROI can look very different for a non-profit and it helps to think of various angles to measure return.

A table consisting of key metrics by Business Function, Customer Stage and Business Goals — A matrix / table consisting of key metrics by Business Function, Customer Stage and Business Goals

Questions & Answers

This is overwhelming.

This matrix is a template that is meant to be customised. You can adjust the content to your needs. Simplify it for your product / business. Adopt a One Metric that Matters (OMTM) approach for each Customer Stage or revise Customer Stage to Business Stage/Product roadmap if that helps but always, always tie it back to cost and benefit to the business.

Why does the matrix not have X or Y metric?

I designed this matrix based on common metric requests I get from various Product and Marketing Managers and from what I have seen in other measurement frameworks. I have purposefully designed it to be a maximum of 4 metrics except for one section as it encompasses 4 Customer Stages and Operational costs tend to require more justification.

My customer stages are different, how can I apply this to my specific need?

This matrix is a template that is meant to be customised. You can adjust the content to your needs.

Always, always share this with your team and have a discussion on to agree on metrics that are important to different individuals.

How can I measure ROI when there is no tangible return to my product?

Return to your product goals from a customer and business/brand perspective. How does a product solve for a need and how can the business/brand benefit from solving the need?

For example, how would a product like Microsoft Clarity (which is forever free) benefit from offering its data processing services? It “gain insights and improve machine learning models that power many of our products and services”. Therefore, the return may be in the accuracy of its machine learning models and application to other parts of Microsoft’s business. Microsoft would still have to measure the cost vs benefit of keeping the product free.

I need a definition for each of these metrics.

Coming right up! Watch this space.

I have ideas or feedback about this.

Awesome. Leave a comment or connect with me on LinkedIn about it.

Can you customise this for my business or organisation?

Sure, drop me an email rachelfkm@gmail.com. Let’s have a chat.