Appcues + Heap

Heap is an analytics platform that collects and organizes customer behavioral data to give teams insight into how to improve their products quickly. By leveraging the Heap and Appcues integration, you can identify engaged users and nurture them as they adopt and (hopefully) champion your product! 

This build guide will show you how to use Heap to:

• Understand Flow performance and measure impact
• Identify engaged users
• Target Appcues content to gather feedback, find beta testers, and identify product champions

What data is used here? What metrics does this impact?

• The Appcues<>Heap integration is bi-directional and updates in real time. 
• Appcues data ➡ Heap Understand Flow performance, identify important user actions, and measure impact. Events sent include flow events, form events, NPS events, checklist events, pin events, and custom events.
• Heap segments ➡ Appcues Target content based on past user behavior. Engage your users with relevant content, when it matters most.

How can you use Heap to identify engaged users?

We'll reference an onboarding journey for a file storage product. This flow kicks off with a welcome modal offering two onboarding paths, one for personal use and one for business use. In this example, the personal use case highlights recent files, favorited files, and how to upload files to the platform.

1.Define an event

Events allow you to specify which product or Appcues events you'd like to see in your analysis. To create a new event, select Definitions in the left-hand menu. Select Events, then ‘New Definition’. To view Appcues events, select Appcues in the Source dropdown. For our example use case, we've created an event that will capture the action we'd like users to take, uploading a file.

2.Create a funnel to identify engaged users

To create a funnel, select the user behavior you're interested in and select View Results. 

Our results show that 60% of users who start the onboarding flow go on to complete it and upload a file (our desired action). Now that we can see our engaged users, let's make a segment to target messaging to them!

3.Make a segment in Heap and target users in Appcues! 

Create a segment by selecting Definitions, Segment, then New Definition. Toggle the segment ‘on’ and it'll send to Appcues. Since we're focusing on engaged users, we're setting up the segment to include those that have completed the onboarding flow, log in 3 times per week, and upload 2 times per week. These customers are regularly in the product and find value, so their feedback is important!

4. Create and Target Appcues Content! 

User segments in Heap will appear as user properties in audience targeting. Select equals, and enter ‘true’. 

Now that we've identified who our engaged users are, here are some use cases to nurture your users and learn more about the functionality they'd like to have.

Ways to Nurture Engaged Users 

• Ask for feedback! Has a new product been released? Prompting users who are in your product regularly is a great way to learn what they like or what could use some adjusting. 
• Recruit users for beta testing. Engaged users who find value in your product are also users who are interested in updates. Nurture these customer relationships by asking them to be part of the journey. 
• Find your champions! Engaged users won't always be product champions, but when gathering feedback with the use cases above, you'll find users that not only love your product but share it with others!