A successful product launch isn’t just about going live, it’s about measuring how your target audience interacts with your messaging, offers, and brand touchpoints across every channel. By tracking key engagement metrics like device type, scan location, customer feedback, and conversion rate, teams can uncover valuable insights into what resonates and what needs refining.
From landing pages to email marketing, each data point tells a story. Monitoring user behavior in real-time lets you prioritize what’s working, iterate quickly, and align future marketing campaigns for even greater retention and profitability. With the right key performance indicators (KPIs), you’ll boost product engagement, drive customer satisfaction, and ensure long-term success, making every product launch smarter than the last.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
What to track before, during, and after the launch
Launching a product is more than flipping a switch, it’s a dynamic journey with critical moments before, during, and after the big day. Whether you’re promoting on social media, rolling out a product launch landing page, or teasing a new feature, success lies in tracking how your audience engages at every touchpoint. Here’s what to focus on to maximize insights and drive long-term success.
Pre-launch: Track teaser content and early interest
Before the launch, it’s all about building anticipation. This is the time to track teaser campaigns, waitlist signups, and VIP early access offers for influencers and stakeholders—all goldmines of engagement signals.
Use Bitly short link tracking analytics and QR Codes to measure how people respond to early promotions. For example, if you’re promoting sneak peeks via Instagram Stories, track how many followers tap the Bitly link to view a gated product features preview. Running a VIP signup campaign? Create a QR Code for print ads or influencer shout-outs and monitor scan rates to see which channels perform best.
Don’t forget to add UTM links to your product launch strategy. Adding UTMs to your links helps your team track traffic sources, campaign names, and mediums right in Google Analytics or your CRM. It’s the easiest way to connect the dots between channels and clicks.
Launch day: Track real-time engagement across assets
Launch day is your moment of truth—high-traffic, high-stakes, and packed with marketing campaigns firing across multiple channels. That’s why real-time engagement tracking is critical.
Bitly makes it easy to track link clicks and QR Code scans in real time by channel, device, location (city/country), and more.
For instance, if your influencer campaign isn’t driving clicks, you’ll know instantly and can reach out to update their messaging. Seeing a spike in QR Code scans from in-store signage? Double down on that functionality. The right metrics can make all the difference.
Maximize your user experience by using Bitly Pages. These dynamic landing pages centralize your launch content and track all traffic in one place. Whether you use them to host a feature breakdown, video walkthrough, or call to action, you’ll get a unified view of total clicks and scans driving traffic, making it easy to analyze what’s landing and what needs work.
Post-launch: Track continued interest and retention
The story doesn’t end after your announcement; in many ways, it’s just the beginning. Post-launch engagement helps teams measure customer retention rate, gauge long-term interest, and even uncover gaps in messaging.
Bitly tracking data can spotlight which post-launch assets continue to drive interest. Are your email links still getting clicks? Is the “Getting Started” QR Code on your packaging generating scans? Tracking this information over time helps you optimize for user behavior and refine future product marketing.
Let’s say your post-launch email has links to product tutorials, FAQs, and customer testimonials. With Bitly, you’ll see which link types maintain engagement and which fall flat. These insights empower you to iterate, optimize, and drive higher customer satisfaction and retention rates.
Engagement signals and key metrics to look for in a product launch
When a product launch goes live, every interaction becomes a signal, helping your product teams understand what captured attention and what drove action. By focusing on the right engagement metrics, you can uncover where your marketing efforts are most effective and where there’s room to improve. Below are key moments and metrics to track.
High scan or click volume in a short window
One of the clearest signals of a successful product launch is a spike in activity right from the start. If you’re seeing a rush of QR Code scans or link clicks in the first few hours, your messaging hit home, and your timing was spot on.
Let’s say you drop a launch announcement across social, email, and a Bitly landing page. Within minutes, clicks pour in from Twitter while QR Codes on physical flyers start driving app traffic. This kind of real-time engagement not only builds momentum, it also proves that your value proposition resonated. With Bitly Analytics, you can instantly see the impact and dive deeper into the data.
Key metrics to track:
- Total scans and clicks within the first and second days after launch
- Clicks by device type to compare mobile vs desktop engagement
- Clicks by location to discover the cities and countries where your early adopters are concentrated
Drop-off in clicks between assets or stages
Tracking the conversion journey is just as important as watching that first spark. If your teaser email performs well, but your launch announcement falls flat, that’s a red flag.
By assigning unique Bitly Links or QR Codes to each asset—say, one for your “Coming Soon” teaser and another for your full product demo—you can see where momentum drops. Maybe social posts drive traffic, but your email sequence underperforms. These insights help you refine your content strategy as you go.
Using Bitly Campaign analytics, you can group links by channel and compare engagement data across different assets within each channel.
Key metrics to track:
- Scans or clicks per individual asset (such as teaser email vs. launch announcement)
- Click-through rate per channel, using separate links or QR Codes (requires additional tools like your email service provider or ad platform)
- General engagement performance by tag in the Bitly Analytics dashboard to group and evaluate campaigns holistically
Discrepancy between scans and downstream actions
Here’s a common post-launch issue: Your engagement rates look great, but no one’s converting. You’re seeing high scan volumes, but where are the sign-ups, form fills, or checkouts?
This often points to issues with your landing page, calls to action (CTAs), or even site speed. An excited user may click your Bitly Link, but a clunky experience stops them from taking action.
To get the full story, combine Bitly data with reports from Google Analytics (GA) or your CRM.
For example, if Bitly shows 500 scans, but GA shows only 50 conversions, it’s time to investigate the user journey.
Key metrics to track:
- Scan or click counts from Bitly
- Conversion rate or goal completions from Google Analytics
- Form fills, sign-ups, or purchases from your CRM or sales platform
Ways to boost engagement during your launch window
Your launch window is prime time to capture attention, spark interest, and drive action. But keeping momentum going takes more than just a good start—it requires creative thinking, real-time adjustments, and actionable insights. Whether you’re rolling out a new feature, unveiling a value proposition, or amplifying your product marketing push, here are smart ways to boost user engagement while your launch is live.
Add QR Codes to physical or experiential touchpoints
QR Codes are a powerful way to connect offline experiences to online action—whether you’re hosting a pop-up event, shipping a new product, or distributing printed invites.
Place Bitly QR Codes on signage at your product launch event, in product packaging, or on influencer gift boxes. For example, if you have multiple launch events in multiple cities, you could let attendees scan a code on each booth display to unlock a special VIP discount. Your analytics dashboard would track how many scans were coming from each launch location, and you could use that information to adjust stock levels and price points accordingly and fine-tune ongoing marketing efforts in different areas.
Depending on your plan, Bitly QR Codes can be fully customized with logos, frames, and brand colors, plus you can edit their destination links in real time. If your campaign messaging or landing page changes, you can change where your QR Codes point without reprinting anything.
Refresh CTA language mid-campaign
If your click-through rates start to slow down a few days into the campaign, don’t panic. This dip is a natural signal that it’s time for an update. One effective tactic? Refresh your CTA language or switch up visuals.
For example, let’s say your initial CTA was “Discover our new features.” By day four, swap it to something more urgent like “See why everyone’s talking.” A refreshed CTA paired with a new image or animation can reignite your social media engagement and get clicks moving again. The key is to stay agile. Launch data gives you real-time clues about what to optimize and when.
Segment follow-up by link engagement
Use Bitly’s scan and click data to identify your most interested users and retarget them with personalized messaging after launch day. For example, you discovered one segment engaged heavily with your email links, while another group scanned QR Codes at an event. Export this data and use it in platforms like Google Analytics, HubSpot, Meta Ads, or Mailchimp to send follow-ups tailored to how users interacted. For instance, high-engagement users could receive exclusive bonus content or a VIP discount.
Bitly’s campaign and tag data help you identify top-performing channels, tactics, or landing pages so you can focus your marketing efforts where they matter most. To automate the entire process, our Bitly + Zapier integration lets you trigger workflows in tools like your CRM, email platform, or even Slack the moment someone clicks a link or scans a QR Code.
Make every product launch more measurable with Bitly
Tracking engagement metrics is the key to understanding what captures your audience’s attention and what drives them to engage. For product marketing teams, these insights help eliminate guesswork and unlock smarter strategies for every phase, from teaser content to post-launch retention. By collecting the right data during initial customer onboarding, you can minimize churn rate and derive maximum lifetime value from all the new users you acquire.
With Bitly, you can create, organize, and track all your launch assets—links, QR Codes, and landing pages—in one streamlined platform. Whether you’re monitoring click-through rates, segmenting by user behavior, or updating destination URLs in real time, Bitly empowers you to launch confidently and optimize continuously.
Ready to turn data into action and boost your next product launch success? Sign up today.
