Activation Is Not First Login
Pick the first moment of real value, then instrument that moment—not the auth success toast.
- activation
- product
Login completed is authentication, not activation. Look for the action that correlates with week-four retention in your own data, then name that event clearly.
Interview recently retained users. Ask what they finished in the first session that made the application feel useful. Translate those answers into discrete, testable events.
Protect activation from onboarding experiments. Keep one stable definition and track onboarding variants as properties, not as competing activation events.
Report activation as a rate among newly registered users inside a fixed window—often seven days—so growth and product share one denominator.