Finally dove deep into our behavioral data after months of surface-level metrics.
Found some weird stuff that completely changed how we think about user flow. Our biggest power users barely touch the main feature we built the whole onboarding around.
Anyone else had analytics completely flip their assumptions?
Power users find their own way to get value. They ignore your guided tour and discover what actually solves their problem. I’ve seen this kill apps when founders keep doubling down on the ‘hero’ feature instead of promoting what users actually engage with. Your retention will jump if you redesign onboarding around the behavior patterns, not your original product vision. Look at session recordings of your top users. Build the flow they’re already taking.
Same thing happened with our app. Turns out users loved a random side feature we barely mentioned.
Hit this exact scenario with a productivity app I was running ads for. Spent months optimizing campaigns around their task manager feature because that’s what they called their “core product.”
Turns out users were obsessed with the simple note-taking widget. Like spending 10x more time there than the main dashboard. Completely rewrote our ad creative to focus on quick notes instead of complex project management.
CPA dropped 40% within two weeks. The founder was skeptical at first but couldn’t argue with the numbers.
The tricky part is convincing stakeholders to pivot when the data conflicts with their vision. I learned to lead with retention metrics - show them how long users stick around when they discover their preferred features versus the guided path.
Behavioral data is brutal but honest. It’ll save you from burning budget on features nobody wants while missing the goldmine sitting in your analytics.
Data beats gut feeling every single time.
This happens more than people think. I track events for everything and found users skip steps I thought were crucial but spend tons of time on features I almost removed.
Now I build campaigns around what people actually use instead of what I think they should use. The conversion rates improved a lot once I stopped pushing the ‘main’ feature so hard.