Insights / Strategy
Measuring Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is key to guiding your audience through every stage of the lifecycle. The question is: how do you keep customers moving forward? The answer lies in measuring velocity — the speed at which customers progress through different stages of the journey.
Key Takeaways
Velocity tracking — how fast customers progress through lifecycle stages — is more actionable than most businesses realise.
The Leap, Step, Stall, Fall model gives you a simple lens for diagnosing where customers are thriving and where they need attention.
Engagement is not just email opens. A mature CRM strategy tracks across web, social, service, and revenue metrics.
The Velocity Model
Leap, Step, Stall, Fall
At the core of our approach is the Leap, Step, Stall, Fall model — a framework for assessing how customers navigate their journey. By understanding where customers are accelerating, progressing normally, slowing, or disengaging, you can take targeted action at each point.
Leap
Customers who successfully complete a stage and leap forward, often skipping steps. These customers are eager and ready to engage at a quicker pace.
Tip: Allow flexibility in your process for customers to leap ahead when appropriate.
Step
These customers follow your process as planned, representing the majority. Your customer journey mapping should cater primarily to this group, as they align closely with your ideal progression model.
Stall
These customers slow down and require extra attention. Monitor stalls by setting time limits on processes. Capture 'lost reason' codes to understand why they're hesitating and continue nurturing them until they're ready to move forward.
Fall
Customers who have firmly said no to your offering. Respect their decision by excluding them from active marketing and sales processes, but consider adding them to a long-term nurturing campaign for future re-engagement.
This is only the beginning.
Adopting the Leap, Step, Stall, Fall model sets a foundation for further refinement. As your business grows and your data maturity increases, additional engagement metrics provide deeper insight into how customers interact with your brand at every touchpoint.
Metrics Framework
Comprehensive Measures of Engagement
As your CRM strategy matures, tracking a wider variety of engagement metrics ensures every phase of development drives toward long-term goals. Identifying these up front prevents major rework later.
Website Engagement
- Page Views
- Time on Site
- Bounce Rate
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Conversion Rate
Email Engagement
- Open Rate
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Bounce Rate
- Unsubscribe Rate
- Reply Rate
Social Media
- Likes and Shares
- Comments
- Followers / Subscribers Growth
- Mentions
- Engagement Rate
Customer Support & Service
- Response Time
- Resolution Time
- CSAT
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
Sales & Revenue
- Repeat Purchase Rate
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
- Average Order Value (AOV)
- Churn Rate
User / Product Engagement
- Active Users
- Session Frequency
- Feature Usage
Feedback & Reviews
- Customer Reviews
- Surveys & Feedback Forms
Community Engagement
- Forum Participation
- Event Participation
“Identifying your engagement metrics up front prevents the need for major rework later — and ensures you're consistently moving toward your desired outcomes.”
Email Benchmarks
Email-Specific Insights
Email remains one of the most direct engagement channels. Subject lines, sender name, timing, segmentation, and preheader text all play a role. Use A/B testing, send at optimal times, and personalise content to move these metrics in the right direction.
Open Rate Benchmarks
Unsubscribe Rate Benchmarks
To reduce unsubscribes: segment your audience, send personalised content, and monitor email frequency carefully.
Going Further
Key Gaps and Optimisations
Once the foundations are in place, these areas will elevate your engagement strategy from reactive to genuinely proactive.
Lifecycle Segmentation
Customers at different stages — awareness, consideration, purchase, post-purchase — require tailored engagement strategies. Build segmentation logic into your CRM from the start.
Customer Engagement Heatmaps
Heatmaps track and visualise website engagement, revealing high and low-engagement areas that inform page layout and content decisions.
Engagement Scoring
Assign scores to different engagement actions — email opens, social interactions, product usage — to create a holistic picture of individual customer engagement.
Predictive Analytics
Use past engagement data to forecast customer behaviour, allowing your business to take proactive steps to retain or upsell before the signal is lost.
Qualitative Feedback
Gather qualitative insights on reasons behind churn or falling engagement through one-on-one interviews or in-depth surveys to complement your quantitative data.
Final Thoughts
Effective customer engagement measurement goes beyond surface-level metrics. By combining velocity tracking, comprehensive engagement data, and personalised communications, businesses can ensure they are not only moving customers through the lifecycle — but doing so in a way that strengthens relationships, improves satisfaction, and drives long-term business success.
Measure what moves customers, not just what is easy to count.
Velocity, breadth, and qualitative insight together tell the full story.