Your first 10 minutes

Sign up, see what an answer looks like, then connect your own site and measure something you shipped.

Your first 10 minutes in Needlr: sign up, see what an answer looks like, then connect your own site.

Like a cooking class

At a cooking class, the teacher first shows you a finished cake, so you know what you're aiming for. Then you bake your own.

In Needlr, the finished cake is the demo project: real screens with sample results. Your own cake is your website.

1. Create your account

1. 1On the sign-up page, fill in Work email, Password (at least 12 characters) and Company or team name.
2. 2Press Create account.
3. 3Open the email from Needlr and click the link to confirm your address. The link works for 24 hours.
4. 4Every account is on the Free plan: everything Needlr does, 25,000 measured visitors a month, and no card (plans). Needlr lets teams in a few at a time: if you're on the waiting list, you get an email when your account is ready. Then sign in.

2. The welcome window

The first time you sign in, a window asks Did your last release work? It has two buttons:

• Show me an answer opens a sample impact check from the demo project, with a short tour.
• Skip to connecting my site jumps straight to step 4.

Only owners and editors see this window. Viewers can look at everything, but they can't connect data.

3. Look around the demo project

The demo project is called Demo: Acme Analytics. Its impact checks show every kind of result Needlr can give: improved, got worse, no clear effect, too early, still collecting, a before vs after and an adoption check. Open any of them.

The tour on the sample impact check has three bubbles: This is the answer, How sure we are and The numbers behind it.

Then it asks about you: What did you ship? and When did it go live? Press Measure it, and Needlr uses your answer to fill in your first impact check. Or press Not now.

Nothing in the demo touches a real website or Tag Manager. When you don't need it any more, press Delete demo on its page.

4. Connect your site

1. 1No project yet? A window called Connect your site asks for Your website. Type it, like example.com, and press Continue. Needlr creates a project named after the domain (more).
2. 2You land on the project's Settings tab. Connect Google Tag Manager. That's how Needlr shows changes and counts your KPI (how).
3. 3Already released your change to everyone? Connect Google Analytics too. It reads the history you already have, so a past release can get an answer today.
4. 4Someone else looks after Tag Manager? Press Invite whoever manages it. They connect it, and you take it from there.

5. Start your first impact check

Once your data is connected, press Set it up in the tour, or Create your first impact check on the project page. If you answered the tour's question, the first step is already filled in (how an impact check is set up).

The checklist

Until your first real impact check starts, the project page shows Get to your first result, with four steps. The step you're on has a button.

• See a real answer: the sample impact check and its tour.
• Connect your data: Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager.
• Start your first check: pick something you shipped and the KPI it should move.
• Get your first read: the first numbers on your impact check, usually within a day of visitors arriving.

Getting started in the side menu shows how far you are, like 2 of 4. Click it to get back to the checklist.

Common mistakes

• Waiting for the demo to change. It never does. It shows what results look like. Connect your own site to get your own answers.
• Signing in to Google with the wrong account. Use the Google account that manages your site's Tag Manager.
• Checking the needle every day. Early numbers jump around, so the needle stays grey until there's enough data (why).