8 Product Management KPIs & How To Track Them
As a project manager juggling multiple products, tracking your product’s successes or failures can be extremely difficult. Each product needs specific metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to differentiate between products and make informed decisions.
Creating KPIs for each product will provide reliable data so you can manage every process step for your product’s lifecycle from launch to after-market performance. However, not all products will have the same business trajectory, and to be as successful as possible, each product should have its specific KPIs and ways to track them.
With all these potentially intersecting products, creating a robust product management pipeline and KPIs to track them can be a full-time job. But with the right tools and intentional planning, you can utilize product management KPIs to gauge the effectiveness of your strategies at any point of the product lifecycle and make necessary adjustments to reach your desired outcomes.
Examples of Product Management KPIs
The KPIs for product management are metrics you must use to evaluate your product or a product portfolio of successes or failures. With your products, you should choose tracking indicators that will provide you with an unbiased view of your product’s progress so you can make data-driven decisions quickly, saving valuable time and money.
Here are some of the most common product management KPIs:
- Product Revenue
- Product Profitability
- Product Sales
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
- Market Share
- Customer Satisfaction
- Time to Market
1. Product Revenue
This is the total revenue a product or product line generates. It is an important KPI because it measures a product’s financial trajectory or success.
2. Product Profitability
Measures how much profit a product or product line generates. This KPI determines whether a product is profitable or not. While product revenue is essential for measuring the size and scale of a company’s sales, product profitability provides a more accurate picture of how much money the company makes from selling a specific product.
3. Product Sales
Measures the specific number of units sold for a product or product line. This KPI determines the popularity of a product based on its sales. It contributed to revenue and profitability, but each product can be pulled out and accounted for at the product level. This analysis aids in revenue projection by providing insights into the performance and demand of each product.
4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Measures acquiring a new customer for a product or product line. CAC determines whether the cost of acquiring a new customer is worth the revenue generated from that same customer.
5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Measures the total value that a customer will bring to a company over their lifetime. Businesses use CLV to determine the value of acquiring a new customer.
6. Market Share
Measures the percentage of the total market that a product or product line has captured. The Market Share KPI is instrumental for businesses to understand how much or how little a market their product is in.
7. Customer Satisfaction
Measures any customer satisfaction with a product or product line. A customer satisfaction KPI moves the quality needle of a product and is used to identify if customers will continue to purchase a product or not.
8. Time to Market
This KPI measures how long it takes to bring a new product to market. Understanding the launch of a specific product will help the team understand their internal processes, if a product is being developed efficiently and if it will be competitive in the market.
Using Data to Track Product Management KPIs
Of the eight specific KPIs mentioned above, there is only one way to be successful with tracking their success or failures: by using data. Data is central to the success of product management KPI tracking; without data, your products will suffer.
By obtaining and analyzing accurate and up-to-date information on the KPIs you are trying to track — whether they include customer satisfaction, markets, trends, or competitors — product managers can gain valuable insights that can inform their decisions as they shape the future of their products and services.
Using data to drive communication
When you lean on data for your products, you can eliminate miscommunication or guesswork, as the data offers explicit directions and communication. Presenting clean-cut data about products empowers product managers with the information they need to make and give any KPIs to stakeholders or beyond.
Using data increase decision making
With such data in hand, product managers are equipped to make better decisions faster than ever; this includes setting realistic goals for improving or growing their products. With the right data in place, product managers can identify areas for improvement faster and more accurately – leading to smarter decision-making throughout their organization. Ultimately, data serves as an essential tool for optimal performance regarding KPI tracking for product management.
Tracking your KPIs
Tracking the progress of your KPIs is a must for any product to succeed. One way to do this is by using a project management platform like Hive, which offers a range of tools and features designed to help you monitor and track your KPIs over time.
After you identify the goals or KPIs you want to track, you must set them up in your project management system. With Hive’s built-in Goals application, you can set up your KPIs as personal or shared goals. From the Goals dashboard, you can continue to check in and monitor progress against your team’s benchmarks and projected goals.
Hive allows you to create custom dashboards that display real-time data on your KPIs, so you can easily see your product performance at any moment.
Tracking your KPIs in Hive also enables you to monitor competitor performance and product industry trends, making it easy to identify improvement areas or growth opportunities. Using this data allows product managers to make informed decisions with an eye toward what is best for their business.
Set Up Your KPIs and Start Tracking Now
If you have not already, you must establish clear communication and alignment around product management and performance goals to ensure everyone is working towards the same objectives and understands what success looks like.
Remember that tracking product management KPIs isn’t a one-time thing; it should be a continuous effort that requires dedication and attention to achieve desired results. By staying organized, aligning stakeholders around shared business goals, and using comprehensive tracking tools and dashboards to keep up, product managers can take their products to the next level of success.
