If you run B2B campaigns and want more than just guesses about what's working, this guide is for you. Tracking user engagement in your push, email, or in-app campaigns isn't about vanity metrics or pleasing a boss—it's about knowing what actually moves the needle. We'll dig into how to use Airship for this. No fluff, no magic solutions—just the practical stuff you need to know.
Why User Engagement Metrics Actually Matter (and What Doesn't)
Let’s get this out of the way: not every metric is worth your time. You could drown in dashboards if you try to track everything. For B2B, the audience is smaller, the stakes are higher, and one engaged user might be more valuable than a hundred casual ones.
What matters: - Opens and clicks (but only as a starting point) - Meaningful actions (think: demo requests, signups, feature usage) - Churn signals (did they stop opening messages? That’s a warning sign) - Conversion events that align with business goals
What doesn’t: - Raw send counts (who cares how many emails were blasted out?) - Vanity “impressions” - Overly broad “engagement scores” that don’t tie to real business outcomes
If you're tracking engagement, it should tell you something actionable: Are your messages moving people to do what matters for your business?
Step 1: Get Your Airship Account (and Data) in Order
Before you can track anything, you need to make sure Airship is set up right. Don’t gloss over this—garbage in, garbage out.
Checklist: - Are you segmenting users? Group by role, company size, lifecycle stage—whatever matters most to your business. - Is your data clean? If your user IDs are inconsistent or you’ve got duplicates, your metrics will be off. - Have you integrated your app or site with Airship? If you’re just pushing out emails or notifications but not tracking events, you’re flying blind.
Pro tip: If you can’t answer “yes” to all of the above, pause here and get those basics sorted. No tool can fix messy data.
Step 2: Define What Engagement Means for Your B2B Campaign
Airship gives you a ton of data, but you need to decide what counts as “engagement” for your company. For B2B, this isn’t just about clicks.
Ask yourself: - What’s the real goal of this campaign? Booking a demo? Pushing product usage? - Which actions are strong indicators that a user is moving down the funnel?
Examples: - Signed up for a webinar - Clicked through to a product tour - Used a new feature in your app - Replied to a message
Ignore: - “Opened notification” (by itself, means little) - “Stayed on page for 2 seconds” (what did they actually do?)
Tip: Get specific. If your sales team cares about demo bookings, make that your north star.
Step 3: Set Up Event Tracking in Airship
Now, get those key engagement metrics into Airship. Out of the box, you get basic stuff—opens, clicks, deliveries. For real insight, set up custom events.
How to do it:
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Work with your dev team to instrument your app or site. You need to send Airship event data every time a user does something you care about (e.g., requests a demo, completes onboarding).
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Use Airship’s SDKs or API to send custom events. Here’s what’s worth tracking:
- Demo requests
- Feature usage (e.g., “exported report”)
- Trial-to-paid conversions
- Logins after a dormant period
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Double-check data consistency. If your event names or attributes change over time, reporting will get messy fast.
Pitfall to avoid: Don’t go event-happy. Track what matters, ignore the rest.
Step 4: Build Segments That Actually Tell You Something
Blanket campaigns rarely work in B2B. Use Airship’s segmentation to slice your audience by behavior, not just demographics.
Useful segments: - Users who haven’t engaged in 30 days (re-engagement target) - Accounts with multiple active users (potential upsell) - Users who clicked but didn’t convert (nudge them) - Power users (good for feedback, testimonials, or beta invites)
How to do it: - Use Airship’s segmentation builder to group users based on the custom events you set up. - Combine with company info if you’ve synced that (big accounts vs. small, etc.)
Don’t overcomplicate it: If you’re spending more time building segments than running campaigns, you’re doing it wrong.
Step 5: Analyze the Right Metrics in Airship
Airship’s reporting is decent, but it’s only as good as what you feed into it.
Must-track metrics: - Open Rate: Good for subject line testing, but don’t obsess over it. - Click Rate: Better, but still just a proxy. - Conversion Rate: The real deal—track the % of users who do the thing you actually care about. - Churn/Drop-off: Who’s stopped engaging? These are your at-risk users.
How to use Airship’s analytics: - Go to the Reports section to see campaign-level stats. - For custom events, use the Events dashboard or export data if you need to dig deeper. - If you use a BI tool, consider piping Airship data into it for more advanced analysis.
Warning: Don’t fall for “engagement scores” unless you know exactly how they’re calculated. These can hide more than they reveal.
Step 6: Iterate and Act on What You Learn
Metrics are only useful if you do something with them.
- If a message flops, don’t just tweak the subject line—ask if you’re targeting the right users or sending something they care about.
- If a segment is way more engaged, double down there. Don’t chase ghosts in the low-performing group.
- Regularly prune your events and segments. If you’re not using a metric, kill it.
Practical actions: - Set up alerts for sudden drops in engagement. - Run A/B tests on message timing, content, and channel. - Share real results with your team, not just "look how many we sent."
Honest Takes: Where Airship Shines (and Where It Doesn’t)
What works: - Solid segmentation: Airship makes it pretty easy to target users based on behavior. - Cross-channel support: Push, SMS, email, in-app—handy if you use more than one. - Custom events: Flexible enough for most B2B needs.
What doesn’t: - Reporting depth: For really granular analysis, you’ll probably want to export data to your own tools. - Setup complexity: If you haven’t got dev resources, getting custom tracking right is tough. - “Magic” engagement scores: Ignore these unless you’ve audited the formula.
What to ignore: - “Best send time” features—they’re often built for B2C at massive scale, not niche B2B. - Vanity leaderboards or “top campaign” dashboards—focus on your business goals, not what looks impressive.
Keep It Simple—And Keep Improving
Don’t get distracted by every shiny new metric or dashboard. Track what matters to your business, act on what you learn, and don’t be afraid to prune what isn’t working. Airship can be a solid part of your B2B stack if you use it with a clear purpose. Start small, measure honestly, and let the results guide you—not the hype.