When it comes to API products, there are no shortage of API metrics you could track, but how do you aligned to business outcomes. This presentation takes a deep dive on how to align these metrics to three key goals: Adoption, Engagement, and Retention. Then, we'll discuss changes you can make to your developer experience for improving these areas. This presentation targets API product managers.

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How to Align API Metrics
to Product Objectives

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Who am I?
● CEO of Moesif, the leading API
analytics and monetization
platform
● Helping API first businesses with
PLG and developing
usage-based pricing
● I love IPAs!
derric@moesif.com

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Manual tasks
Value Through UI
Monolithic SaaS
Automation/AI
Value Through APIs
Ecosystems
Move over SaaS
APIs are Products

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Today’s metrics focuses on infrastructure
health
Uptime
and SLA
Memory
Usage
Latency
Request
Per Minute
Errors
Per Minute
1 2 3 4 5

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SMS volume
Revenue/cost share
Data volume
Unique Users
Resource Based
Your Infrastructure Metrics != Customer Value

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Confidential and Proprietary. © 2023 Moesif, Inc. All Rights Reserved
6
Common API Product Objectives
Adoption Engagement Retention

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7
Common API Product Objectives
Adoption Engagement Retention

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2003
On-Prem
2013
SaaS
2023
API
Authority of developers
Cost of software
Buying Power Shifted to Individual Devs

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Developers need buy-in from many
stakeholders
Legal and
Security
Project
Priorities
Finance and
Procurement

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Self-service reduces initial friction
Legal and
Security
Project
Priorities
Finance and
Procurement
Click-through ToS Fast integration Manager’s Credit
Card

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Land lots of developers first
Get developers to realize value and pay a token amount
Large adoption
funnel
Fast time to
paying

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Measure the conversion rate to both
First Hello World and First Working App
Page
Visit
First Hello
World
Working
App
30%
6 hours
50%
2 hours
60%
10 mins
Sign Up

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Measure the activation journey across your
platform, not just signup
Page
Visit
First Hello
World
Working
App
30%
6 hours
50%
2 hours
60%
10 mins
Sign Up
Website Activity API Activity

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Your funnel criteria should match customer
value
First Hello
World
First Working
App
Sign Up

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Confidential and Proprietary. © 2023 Moesif, Inc. All Rights Reserved
15
Common API Product Objectives
Adoption Engagement Retention

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Metrics should measure customer value
eCommerce SaaS Data API Logistics API
Checkout conversion rate Usage of integrations and
extensions
Match rate/found in
database
Successful order
fulfillment

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Users on Self-Service
Enterprise
Requirements
Expanding
Usage
Adopt
Additional APIs
Measure breadth and depth of usage

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Aha Moment
Increasing Usage
Accelerated Usage
Self-Service User
Sales Engages
Identify New Use Cases (APIs)
PLG Sales
Flywheel
Sales drives usage-based expansion flywheel

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PQL Scoring: Red/Yellow/Green
How many different APIs
Volume of successful transactions
Right persona
Adding seats or integrations
1
3
4
2

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Not all traffic is good. Here, out of stock and
unavailable is higher than available

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21
Common API Product Objectives
Adoption Engagement Retention

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Grow long term customers
Good product retention curves flatten or look like a “smile”

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Scaling self-service is hard
Issues during
onboarding
Changing business
needs
Billing surprises and
issues

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Reduce support cost with a great self-service
experience
● Provide visibility and
reports on what's
consuming their quota
● Provide tools to
upgrade and manage
their account without
involving personal

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Avoid surprises by over communicating
● Automatically notify
customers when they
approach or breach
plan limits
● If Pay As You Go,
empower customers to
set their own usage
thresholds

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Confidential and Proprietary. © 2023 Moesif, Inc. All Rights Reserved
How to Monetize APIs With Moesif
Usage-based billing
API Product Analytics
Quota Enforcement
User Guidance

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API Analytics and Monetization
Derric Gilling
derric@moesif.com
https://www.moesif.com/casestudies