New users signing up for FB are not returning after 30 days. How will you identify the problem? Discuss solutions to that.

Question

New users signing up for FB are not returning after 30 days. How will you identify the problem? Discuss solutions to that.

You are a Growth Marketing Analyst at FB and you have been tasked to identify reasons as to why users signing up from a country are not returning to FB after 30 days.

What will be your hypothesis?

What data/metrics will you look at prove or disapprove each of the hypothesis

How will you prioritize your problem to solve?

How will you measure success of your change?

Asked at Meta (Facebook) over a year ago

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PM Team · Answer 1 · 2020-01-29T22:51:38+0000

Understand the problem: a) Did the event happen recently ? (Interviewer/My assumption: Yes)

b) Is it a gradual decline over many 30-day periods or the first instance? (Interviewer/My assumption :Yes, first instance)

So, we are looking at 30-day retention - basically of the users who signed up, what % of them returned on 31st day and so on for each day.

Okay, so I'd like to start by drawing an issue tree. The # of new signups is basically acqusition. I would now get into the activation phase. Now the users who were acquired, how many of them completed their profile , (completion of profile could include logging events like 'Was a photo uploaded') , ' Were they able to find friends and add them measured by # of users who added a friend vs. # of numbers who didn't add a friend and benchmark it against past signups, total # of friend requests, join group requests, do they see content on their page measured by amt of time spent on the page. Then I will look at engagement metrics - such as number of likes, posts, comments, depth of visit in a session. All of these are broken down by geography, device type, channel of traffic. With this, we can see which segment is not doing well and then deep dive into the reasons.Additionally, I would look into localized external reasons such as some event in the region, some outages, server issues, etc in that month to see if that is affecting usage.

Assume : Ok, those who didn't complete their profile have lower return rates. (I am assuming a very small/minority edge case just as an example).

Solution: a) So, those who didn't complete their profile have a harder time being accepted by friends so, conversion of friend requests are low. Additionally, they are not receiving replies from friends. It could be a security issue among those who are not completing their profile. So, to drive completion, we can i) show stats about how completing their profile wiill increase response from other users b) let them know the privacy policies, etc.

Measure sucess: Measure the 30- day engagement metrics for the profile completors, total users as the mix of profile completeness changes over time.

PM Team · Answer 2 · 2019-05-19T22:21:57+0000

Comprehend the problem:

1. Look at the demographic data and understand which users are not returning after 30 days. Broadly, using demography user base can be divided into younger generation (<22) and older generation (>22).

2. What stage the product is in that country and why? Product could be initial, growth, mature, decline phase. And in each phase the problem would mean different things. E.g. new users in initial phase are early adopters and them not returning to FB could mean product-market figment issue. I am going to assume FB is in growth phase.

I am going to concentrate on 1 persona i.e. younger generation.

Why are younger generation user not returning to FB after 30 days?

Let’s understand why they joined FB, their need is to connect to their social network and wider network so that they can develop good relationships and share their life(photos and videos) and world view.

The Use cases they would engage with FB could be:

1. Create, share and discover content with their network. Metric: avg. no. Of weekly content created. And avg. no. Of likes or share per week.

2. Engage with broader content pushed by FB posts especially around their interests. Metric: weekly car and weekly share

3. Interactions with their network either through content or group activities. Metric: no. Of groups joined and weekly contribution

4. Adding new connections. Metric: weekly connection added.

I will compare data with users who stayed on FB to prioritise my effort. At this stage, I would assume that users who stay back find more value in FB bcos of their connections vs users who leave there is not enough stickiness for them to stay around. So, I would prioritise UC4. I would then look at UC1 and 2 to improve engagement.

How can we improve the no. Of connections? Feature suggestions:

For this we have to check the ctr for ‘people suggestions’ and ‘invite’ features.

If CTR for ‘people suggestions’ is low it could be

A. Not enough folks to recommend

B. Feature not visible

Therefore, improve ‘people suggestions’ to not only display people to add but to follow (e.g. influencers).

Second, Show people suggestions at the top of my wall

Third, display as suggestions new connections added by anyone in my circle.

If invites sent out by the user is less, then improve invite feature.

Integrate with phone contact and allow users to send out invite using sms or whatsapp.

Improve the invite message by showcasing what FB has to offer.

For anyone joining using invite link add them to invitee network.

The above feature improvements should be tested using A/B testing and then rolled out widely to arrest the problem of users leaving FB by increasing their network.

praveeny2k · Answer 3 · 2018-12-31T16:12:31+0000

Understand the bell curve for product growth.

Whether the product is in initial, growth, saturation, stagnation(decline) phase in that country.

Assumption #1: Assuming the product is in growth phase.

Analyse whether the user is signing up for facebook or for using some other applicatons (using sign up with facebook).

Assumption #2: Assuming the user is using facebook app.

Analyse which of the user engagement metrics is declining : fb chat, fb groups, fb pages, user posts or quiz/fb apps based posts.

Analyse the last activity that the user spends time upon before leaving the page.

Solving the problem:

If the fb posts feature is getting less engaging: Engage the users more by showing the posts by dividing into several groups and applying A/B tests: Posts by direct friends, posts by mutual friends, trending posts etc.
If fb pages or fb groups are getting less engaging: Encourage more group posts in the main feed of the users who're the top commentors/ medium commentors/ less commentors.
If quiz/ fb-app posts are less engaging : Suggest(Incentivise) the app developers to create more new /innovative/ trending apps.

Measuring the Success:

Analyse the results of the hypothesis over a month and apply the appropriate changes over the next months and observe the user engagement/ the rate of users coming back within 30 days.

ruchi.aggarwal82 · Answer 4 · 2018-12-28T23:59:05+0000

Answering any Facebook problem solving question like this starts with asking clarifying questions. Here are two:

Clarifying questions

is this a new country for FB?
if not, has this started happening recently? how long has it been happening?

Assumption: FB has been in this country for a long time. This started happening recently 3-4 months

[repeat question now] Ok, so the change is recent and the new users who are signing up are not returning after 30 days

Let me think about what a new user needs on FB
- New user is looking to socialize with their friends and engage with meaningful content on the platform

>> Hypothesis #1: they may not be finding enough friends to connect and thus the platform may not be engaging to them

>> Hypothesis #2: New user is looking for content to engage with and there not finding enough engaging content

Data that I will look for:

# of connections made per new user per month in that country:
1. I will compare it within the country before this drop started occuring and also to other similar countries
2. I will also look at % of times People You may know (PYMK) feature was shown to the user in their newsfeed and % of connections user made from the feature. This will help me verify if FB showed enough friends and whther the firends were relevant or not. Based on % times this feature was shown, I can devise an A/B test to show this feature more and validate further if it helps improve
% of non-friend content shown to new user in the newsfeed:
1. I will again compare it within the country before this drop started occuring and also to other similar countries
2. I will like to conduct an A/B test by showing relevant pages or groups to them in the newsfeed (based on their demographic, FB can gues their interest; since they are new users FB may not have enough info about their interests) and by showing the pages, we can guide them to find new content. We see if the test group stays with FB compared to control to validate the hypothesis.

I will measure the success of the tests in terms of improvement in 30 day retention. Since this is metric we were concerend about, we will measure the improvement in the metric

Anshuman Panwar · Answer 5 · 2022-08-07T17:36:39+0000

Clarification and Assumptions:

Happening in an existing country where FB is present since a long time
Gradually happening for last 3 months
No sessions after 30 days of sign up for say 60% of users
Happening on all mediums

Check for Internal factors:

Change in signup (more profile info)?
Change in notifications or email notifications?
Change in news feed recommendation engine?
System slowness?

Check for External Factors

Competitor grabbing major market share?
Other products like instagram cannibalizing?
Any natural disaster/pandemic?
Bad PR or a ban?

Goals for new user:

I will start with analysing the goals of a new user or what they look for when they join FB

To find new friends
To engage with relevant content

Hypothesis

I will base my hypothesis on the users goals not fulfiled

New users finding it difficult to find new friends (Can be because FB isnt making good suggestions or some surfaces are removed). I will look at the following metrics for last 3 months and compare it to the corresponding values for more than 3 months back.
- Compare new friends added within a month of signup and compare it to 3 months back
- # of times friends suggestions notifications generated (compare to earlier)
- # of times user checked the friends suggestions
- # of friends added from suggestions
- % new user that provided access to their phone contacts or gmail contacts (privacy issues)

If the users arent getting enough notification then perhaps we should improve the frequency and quality of notification or increase surfacesIf the issue is around the quality of friend suggestions then we should work to improve suggestion specifically for new usersIf there are privacy concerns and users aren't providing access to their contacts then we should think of innovative ways to find potential friends for users

Users are not able to find relevant content. I would look into the following metrics for new sign ups and compare it to the values more than 3 months back
- Daily time spent on FB within first month of signup
- # daily sessions within first month of signup
- Avg length of each session
- Content viewed per day
- Contact interacted with each day (like/comment/share)
- Content generated during the first month

If we see a drop in any or some of the above metrics then the issue can be that FB isnt able to show engaging content to new user. Solution can be to improve the news feed recommendation engine for new users, when we have limited information about them. Intelligent proxy information can be used to make such improvement

Segment:I will also try to segment the new users and see if we can build another hypothesis. New users can be the young users who recently started using social media but possibly tried other platforms before FB. SO we can divide users into 2 segments

Young users (15-20) first time on FB but have used other social media
Older users

HypothesisYoung users are pretty active on instagram and tiktok but dont find FB enticing and not many of their age group are active on FB so they sign up but dont come back

Segment new users by age group and see which segment has the drop and how big each segment is and if accounts for the total drop
Segment new users into active users of instagram/whatsapp vs not so active users and check which segment has the drop. Its possible that such users find more relevant content on other platforms and one solution is to not target them as they are using Metas other platforms

Leonardo Fernandes · Answer 6 · 2022-01-01T17:42:13+0000

1) Describe the Product

Ok, so we are talking about the whole Facebook App, where users can post on their newsfeed, react to others' posts, comment, share, and message. Moreover, they can buy and sell stuff on MarketPlace, watch videos on Watch, dating, etc.

2) Clarification

So, what do you mean by not returning? Is it a drop in log-ins or sudden stop?
Is it specific to a particular geographic region?
Have we noticed a particular type of user by age, gender, or something like it?

Ok, thank you for the answers. Well, this problem might happen for a lot of reasons. So, I would like to approach it differently here. I would like to expose some metrics of user behavior and then discuss some hypotheses. How does it sound?

3) Explore Reasons

User behavior understanding
- Level of engagement of these accounts
  - Friends requests
  - Profile completed (picture mainly)
  - Comments and shares
  - Reactions
  - Posts
  - Stories Creation
  - Groups participation and creation]
  - Messages
- Avg session time
  - Where do these accounts spend the most time?
    - Newsfeed
    - Stories
    - Messenger App
    - Dating
    - Marketplace
    - Watch

4) Hypotheses

Depending on the data we would find looking at those metrics, we could have the following hypotheses:

These new accounts may be not finding any relevant content to engage in the platform
- Those metrics above would help us understand the users interactions with the platform during the first 30 days.
- Do you scroll a lot? It may be an indicator of not finding relevant content.
- Are they watching the entire video, for instance?
- Have they clicked on Ads?
These accounts that are not returning could be second accounts from existing users or new users looking to use the app/features for the first time.
- Cross-check name/picture/email with existing accounts
- These accounts may be focused on Dating
  - Look for changes in profile marital status
  - Understand metrics on Dating (messages, matches, likes, etc)
- These accounts may be focused on Marketplace
  - Are they selling or buying?
  - Are they succeeding?
  - Messages between buyers and sellers
- These accounts may be focused on watching specific Events
  - Look for special broadcast events recently, for example Sports.
  - Look for the metrics at Face Watch.
These accounts might be fake ones.
- Look if these accounts are requesting specific targeted-age people (such as children)
- Look for increasing number of posts regarding "fake accounts"
- Understand if we have changed any security rule recently or data has been shared illegally

5) Prioritization

We have basically 3 hypotheses: not engaging content; second accounts to test other features; fake accounts.

First of all, I would focus on making sure that these accounts are not fake, because if they were, we would waste time on new initiatives. I am assuming that Facebook has quick, secure, and accurate ways to check for fake accounts. Therefore, I think this item is paramount and low-cost.

After proving that they are not fake, I would check if they belong to existing customers, which I also believe should be low-cost. Let's suppose the majority of the accounts belong to existing users. Therefore, I would do the following actions, for instance:

Marketplace: assuming that the pain of these users using the same profile is sharing their posts etc with unknown people, I would change settings on users profile related to Marketplace use, where they could choose to "close" their profile to Marketplace interactions.
The idea for Dating and Watch would be similar to Marketplace, I can dive into them if you want me too.

Finally, if the accounts are not fake and not secondary from existing users, these new users might not be engaged enough with the content. Depending on what the metrics tell us about their initial behavior, we could offer more of a mix of experience, increasing the chance of finding new contents. We could also direct posts, stories, etc, from its current location through notifications and news feed.

PMSunny · Answer 7 · 2019-04-11T01:54:38+0000

Assumption: users use FB mainly for socializing with their friends.

This is an on-going existing problem, which was not caused by specific events or incident.

Hypothesis 1: The new user has not formed a specific habit of using the app or she forgot to use the app.

Hypothesis 2： After the user registered, she does not feel the need of going back to the app

Hypothesis 3: the user is simply not a target user. The user kept going back to the competitor app such as snapchat for social networking.

Data to be collected:

(1) demographics data about these group of users to understand if they fit into FB's majority user profile. For example, age is an important factor. Teenagers tend to use snapchat. Younger age implies that the users are simply not the target users for FB. Therefore, the solution should be more at the strategic level - whether or not FB should study the competitor's features and customers and enter new territory by developing new features/products/buying other apps

(2) Study those users' friends' usage of FB and separate them into different buckets. If the user has a group of highly actively friends on FB, the user might just forget to use the app or need a little bit more influence from their friends. A reminder email to the user or even remind the user's friend on FB to say hi or interact with the user on FB might help solve the problem.

If the user's friends are not active on FB, then, in general, the user might find FB is not necessary for her to socialize with her friend. Therefore, FB might want to target other than socializing features such as pushing random news or random interesting content to get the user's attention on FB's other functions.

Measure:

Post launch of the solutions, tracking user's login behavior, CTR of reminder emails, content they tended to consume, features they use most, interactions with their FB friends, growth of FB friends etc.

New users signing up for FB are not returning after 30 days. How will you identify the problem? Discuss solutions to that.

Happening in an existing country where FB is present since a long time

Gradually happening for last 3 months

No sessions after 30 days of sign up for say 60% of users

Happening on all mediums

Change in signup (more profile info)?

Change in notifications or email notifications?

Change in news feed recommendation engine?

System slowness?

Competitor grabbing major market share?

Other products like instagram cannibalizing?

Any natural disaster/pandemic?

Bad PR or a ban?

I will start with analysing the goals of a new user or what they look for when they join FB

To find new friends

To engage with relevant content