What is a KPI?
The one number your change should move. Pick the one closest to the result your business cares about.
Every change you ship has a job. A KPI is the one number that tells you whether it did that job. In Needlr, it's the needle your change should move.
A KPI is the one number your change should move. In Needlr, it's what you want more people to do on your site.
Think of a lemonade stand
You paint a new sign for your lemonade stand. What is the sign for? To get more people to buy a cup.
So your KPI is “people who bought a cup”. Not “people who walked by”: the sign doesn't change the street. And not “money saved by the end of the year”: too many other things change that.
Pick the thing your change can really push, as close to the money as you can get.
How to pick a good KPI
- Close to the result. A sent demo form says more than a visit to the pricing page.
- Something your change can touch. A new button on the pricing page can change clicks on that button. It can't change last month's sales.
- It happens often enough. If only 2 people do it in a week, no impact check can tell a real change from luck.
- One per impact check. Each has one KPI. Want to know about two things? Run two impact checks.
How Needlr counts it
Needlr counts people, not clicks. A visitor who clicks “Book a demo” seven times counts once. So a KPI is a rate: out of all the visitors, how many did it.
Say 1,000 people visit and 31 of them book a demo. Your KPI is 3.1%. Your change wins if it makes that number go up for real.
Where you choose it
In a new impact check, step 2 is called Which needle should it move? That's where you pick a KPI you already have, or make a new one: a click, a page, a form, or an event (how). In an Adoption impact check, the same step is called What counts as using it?
Common mistakes
- Picking page views. People seeing a page doesn't mean they liked it. Count what they do next.
- Picking something far away. Revenue for the quarter moves for a hundred reasons. Your change gets lost in them.
- Picking after you look at the numbers. Choose the KPI before the impact check starts. Choosing the one that “won” afterwards is fooling yourself.
- A KPI that counts too much. A rule like “any button that starts with Book” may also count “Bookmarks”. Keep it exact.
- KPI
- Key performance indicator. The one number a change should move.
- Rate
- The share of visitors who did the KPI. 31 out of 1,000 is 3.1%.
- Today's KPI rate
- How often visitors do it now, before your change. Needlr measures it from your site when it can.
What the video says
Every change you ship has a job. A KPI is the one number that tells you whether it did that job. In Needlr, it's the needle your change should move.
Your dashboards show dozens of numbers: page views, clicks, time on page, signups, revenue. Most of them move every day on their own. You need one that matters.
Pick the KPI closest to the business result. A visit to pricing is a hint. A click on Book a demo is better. A sent demo form is closest to revenue.
Why not revenue itself? It sits too far from most changes and moves too slowly. Pick the last step your change can really touch, so a real effect shows up fast.
Needlr counts how many visitors did it, not how many clicks. So the KPI reads as a rate: 3% of visitors booked a demo. One eager clicker can't skew it.
So before you ship, name the number the change should move. If you can't name it, you're not ready to measure it. Pick one KPI per impact check, and let Needlr watch the needle.