What KPIs do you think Gmail monitors?

Question

What KPIs do you think Gmail monitors?

CONTEXT: Electronic mailing service, Gmail, has been around for a long time. Recently, there has been a flurry of activity in the email industry with many newcomers like Superhuman, Hey, and a few others entering the field. Most of these newer companies claim that their USP is offering a "faster", "cleaner", or "more user-centric" email experience.

2 PART QUESTION:

Which metrics do you think are measured by email companies like Gmail?
The newer entrants claim to offer a better experience than the leader, Gmail. Considering that it might lose its place on the top, which metrics should Gmail monitor and improve themselves upon?

Asked at Google over a year ago

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Ram Krishna · Answer 1 · 2020-06-12T13:45:23+0000

Goal of Gmail
Provide a simple and easy mechanism to communicate and interact

Clarifying question
Based on my knowledge Gmail has two clientele - Regular users who use this for free and part of Gsuite targeted towards SMBs and enterprises. Is any particular customer group we are focusing here - Will focus on Enterprise users (although I expect the user journey to be the same)
I don't have enough background on superhuman and Hey. But based on the details you shared, looks like they claim to be better

User journey
1] Already logged in (most often) if not logs in
2] Reads new email (say on average 25-30 a day)
3] Composes new email or responds -adds members, attachment (15 a day)
4] Tag, groups basically organizes emails
5] Searches for a specific email

Given I am focusing on enterprise users, the metrics to track based on the user journey
1] Number of new Gsuite Gmail client per month - see if there has been a drop from the past
2] Churn rate/retention per month, number of existing users who are no longer with GSuite
3] Number of emails received to Gsuite Gmail users where the email provider is superhuman or hey - privacy concern and technology
4] Number of users who used other auxiliary Gsuite products along with Gmail - Based on the description superhuman or hey does not offer this. This is one of the differentiators and increases stickiness for GSuite where the user has everything in one place / one login, etc.

I would prioritize [1] [2] [4] as those are in direct control within Gsuite / Gmail while I explore the possibility of [3]. Based on the results, there are more additional metrics to be collected (5 whys). For example, if churn rate/ retention, was it because of UX or technical issues like page load time, etc.

KN · Answer 2 · 2020-06-12T11:25:11+0000

Gmail is an email service by Google.

The goal of Google is to organise the world's information and make it more accessible. Gmail helps in the accessibility part and helps people and companies communicate with each other.

So, lets see the steps a user follows in his journey of using Gmail and see what KPIs Gmail must be monitoring at each step.

1. Signup

A new user signs up to the service.

Metrics at this stage would be No. of New Sign ups per day, week and month

2. Activation/Login

User login to their gmail account.

Metrics at this stage would be No. of Logins per day, week, month( DAU, WAU, MAU)

Also, another metric would be No. of New Users logging in for the second time( assuming they login immediately after creating their account) and the time it took for them to login for second time after creating their account( this has to be minimised).

3. Read Emails

Users read emails. A read operation will be defined as clicking on that email.

Metric would be No. of emails read per user per session, day, week and month.

Another metric would be No. of emails scrolled per session per user.

4. Reply

Users reply to read mails.

Metric would be No. of replies per user per session, day, week

5. Compose Mail

Metric would be No. of emails composed per user per session, day, week, month

6. Report Spam

Users report spam to unwanted mails.

Metric would be No. of emails reported spam per user per day, week, month

7. Promotions/Social/Spam folder

These are non Primary folders. Users accessing these folders means Gmail has done good job at identifying and filtering of emails.

Metric would be No. of emails in Non Primary folders read per user per session, day, week, month ; No. of emails in Non primary folders Replied per user per session, day, week, month.

Also, No. of emails marked as Not Spam or moved to Primary folders( this should be ideally low or zero).

Also, at a company level, Google would be monitoring the below merics:

1.New Sign ups

2. DAU, WAU, MAU Logins

3. No. of emails sent

4. Greater than 30 days in active account

5. No. of Remote/New device logins

6. No. of Spams reported

7. No. of Blocks

8. No. of attachments by type

9. Cohort of Users by % of Used Gdrive space

10. No. of Premium Accounts

11. No. of SSO logins/signups per user

12. No. of users with unchanged passwords for more than 90 days

13. Avg Page load time

14. Logins by device type

As far as prioritisation is concerned, the order would be as follows:

Logins>New Users> Read> Compose> Reply>Mark Spam>Non Primary folders

And for company metrics, the order would be No, 2,1,3,13,14, 8, 10,11,4,6,7,9,12,5

To respond to new entrants responding to a faster, cleaner and more user centric experience, following metrics must be monitored:

Avg Page load time

Non Primary folder views, actions , movement to primary folder

No. of Spam and Not spam reported

Attachments and type of attachments

No. of Meets/hangouts from gmail per user per day, week, month

The way Google should take on new competitors should be to provide a holistic experience and product suite making complete use of different Google products for an improved UX.