How would you measure the success of Google Photos?
Metrics
C - Let me start with a summary of the app. Google Photos is a web and mobile application that allows users to upload, edit and share photos and videos - or as Google would say, ‘memories’. In addition to this, users can search by keywords for photos as well as organize them into albums. Google also makes creations with the user’s photos and videos - animations, videos and collages.
The USP of Google Photos is that data is not stored on the phone memory, but is backed up on the cloud. This ensures there’s no loss of data as well as provides easy access from any device.
Would you say I’ve covered the core aspects?
I - Yes, that is a good overview.
C - All right, so I’ll go through a typical user journey and list all metrics I think one should track for that part of the journey. I’ll then try to zero down to the North Star metric and the P2 metrics.
The funnel generally starts with Awareness and Acquisition, followed by Activation, then Engagement, Monetization, Retention and Referral.
I - Yes, let’s skip Awareness and Monetization for this exercise, because those two are likely not high on the list for Google.
C - Sure. Listing various metrics across the user journey funnel:
Acquisition
The primary metric I’ll track here is App installations on the App Store.
In android phones, the Google Photos app comes pre-installed, so it’s not an indication that users want to use the app - we could focus on App Store installations and try growing that metric.
Activation
On both iOS and Android operating systems, users would still need to ‘set up’ the account. This means signing up via my Google account, giving permissions to the app to access my photos, as well as enabling the backup and sync options.
Hence the core metrics I’ll track for this part of the funnel is %age of installations that complete set up.
Engagement
This is the most crucial part of the user’s journey, and one that we need to measure closely. Based on the user journey, I would track the following metrics:
Retention
Retention is closely linked to the engagement metrics, but I’ll also track churn via App uninstalls and Repeat users over a 7, 30 and 90 day period
Referral
Referral here would mean users sharing photos and albums via Google Photos, which helps discovery for new users. The metrics are the same as I shared above:
Number of photos or albums shared
%age of users who share photos
While all these metrics are useful to track, I would like to align them with Google’s mission to organize information and make it universally accessible. So to measure success of Google Photos, I would prioritize:
DAU / WAU / MAU - this is a good metric to demonstrate overall engagement. It is also synonymous to viewing photos and, IMO, both metrics would correlate
Number of photos uploaded a day / week / month - At the end of the day, photos and videos are the source of creations, and they form the base for all engagement. If the uploads grow, views / shares / edits would grow too. It would be important for Google to grow this metric
%age of users that share photos - this is a good overall indication of adoption, as well as brings in new users into the ecosystem