7 Best Practices for SaaS User Onboarding 2024

1 - Make registration as easy as possible.

What is your user's first interaction with your product?

Hint: it's not when they first connect.

The first interaction is when your user signs up for try your product. Like most situations in life, first impressions matter a lot. Your signup process will inform potential users about the rest of the product experience. It sets the tone for what is to come.

The most successful SaaS businesses make enrollment as easy as possible.

They don't require you to fill out long forms or enter your credit card details.

Instead, they only ask for the information they need, the information they actually need, and give users immediate access to the product.

Take the example of Airbnb:

In the past, Airbnb required users to register before allowing them to use its product. Airbnb Product Managers have come to understand that this discourages potential users.

They now have changed the order of the onboarding flow and improved the user experience.

That means you start experiencing and discovering the value of the product as soon as possible.

If a step or field isn't required, consider removing that friction.

2 - Delivering value quickly

Another good practice ofOnboarding For users, it's about offering a quick win as soon as possible in the experience ofOnboarding.

The idea is to provide added value to your users as quickly as possible.

The more value your new users receive, the more likely they are to stick around and adopt your product. This leads to better user retention and, ultimately, more users using your product.

If you've known the SaaS world long enough, you've already heard of the WOW Moment. This is the time when your new users instantly understand the value of your product.

Buzzsumo is a good example:

As you can see, Buzzsumo allows site visitors to type in their search right away: they enter a URL or a subject, and start seeing results.

The user instantly receives value and experiences the WOW Moment: the user then realizes immediately how useful BuzzSumo can be.

You can use a few different techniques to push people to the WOW Moment during the commissioning process. One of these techniques is the use of contextual tooltips.

Learn how Feedly onboard new users using tooltips:

These tooltips show new Feedly users two key features: saving articles and adding favorites.

The user immediately understands the value of the product and tries it out more quickly.

You need to provide to your users have a WOW Moment as quickly as possible.

3 - Segment users for a personalized flow

Remember when businesses knew almost nothing about their customers?

Segmenting new users has become the norm for SaaS businesses: it's a great way to personalize the onboarding process. More complex SaaS products often have several different use cases.

If you offer a generic onboarding experience for each of your user personas, you're not improving the experience.

Canva example

Canva is a versatile design tool that can be used by many different jobs.

One of Canva's main selling points is offering customizable templates and creating your designs.

But Canva realized that it needed to present models that were relevant to each segment of its users.
If you present birthday card templates to a SaaS creator, they probably won't be interested (unless it reminds them that they forgot to send a card to their mother).

This is why it offers to define its choices to new users when they first connect.

You can choose your use case, and Canva will then show you the most relevant models. It's a smart way to adapt the upload flow to each user.

4 - Use contextual onboarding to stay relevant

Contextual onboarding goes hand in hand with personalization.

To explain how powerful it is, I'll first explain non-contextual user onboarding.

Many applications and products bombard new users with long and boring guided tours to show them the whole product. Often, new users have to scroll through multiple screens, each with a different feature.

How many users do you think will skip these product visits?

Most force users to interact with features that may not even be relevant to them.

Flows like this add friction to your users' onboarding and increase the time it takes for them to reach the WOW Moment. If there's also no way for users to skip them (imagine the frustrations), the user experience is even worse.

The worst part about these non-contextual product visits is that they don't really work: new users have no chance of remembering all of the information.

We can barely remember phone numbers these days!

Contextual means the right message

The right message is one that adds context or provides instructions relevant to what the user is trying to do and where they are in their journey.

If your user is figuring out how send an email using your marketing automation tool, a tooltip could point it in the right direction.

Contextual means the right user

The right onboarding means that each user's experience is tailored to the individual use case and user persona.

The aim of user onboarding is to offer relevant help to new users.

Contextual means the right time

The right time means you're sending a message when it makes sense.

In other words, the context is appropriate. To do this, you can replace product visits with interactive guided tours that are only triggered once the user is aware of the characteristics of your product and that guide them step-by-step in using the product.

Here is an example of successful onboarding from Duolingo, a foreign language learning application:

Duolingo also uses contextual onboarding very effectively:

As you can see from the screenshots, Duolingo starts by asking new users about their experience.

By understanding this, you can offer new users a personalized onboarding flow.

You are then asked to take a test that allows you to discover some key features. It also allows you to realize the value of the application.

Duolingo only shows tips and tricks to new users based on their experience and behavior in the app. This means that messages are displayed in a different order for different users, depending on the context.

Contextual user onboarding isone of the most crucial elements of the onboarding experience.

5 - Add gamification

Adding gamification to your application is incredibly effective.

It actually combines 2 psychological biases : social proof and gamification.

Social proof is about showing a user that other people are using (and liking) your product.

If we see that other people are doing something, and that it contributes to their success, we are more likely to imitate their behavior.

Humans are social beasts and we don't want to miss what others are doing. Social proof also adds an element of authenticity.

We are more likely to trust the judgment of others than the marketing elements of a product.

Turn certain features of your product into a game.

You can add badges that you unlock by taking actions in the app.

This makes the onboarding experience a bit more fun, and also taps into users' desire to win. Competition is essentially the crossroads between social proof and gamification.

The idea is to show new users how friends, colleagues, or even strangers use the app.

If a user sees that someone is making more progress or getting more value, he will want to use the product more.

The Duolingo “Clubs” feature is a great example of gamification:

New users can join a club for the language they are trying to learn.

Each new user will then see a ranking of the other users, encouraging them to use the app, learn more, and make progress. To move up the rankings, you need to use the app more, which is a win-win situation: the new user does their job and the engagement of the user and active users of your app increases.

6 - Send emails based on triggers to capture users' attention

Some of your users will log out of your product before they even go through the onboarding process.

Sorry, but it's true. Not all new users will engage in onboarding your product.

Perhaps they did not fully understand the value of your product? Or maybe a competitor caught their attention?

Whatever the reason, you should try to get them back.

While you may not be able to reach them through your product, there is another way to communicate with them: Theemail.

I assume you're already using email to reach your audience through a newsletter or to sell new features.

It turns out that email is also a great way to get the attention of your users.

When a new user hasn't logged in for a while, say a few days, you need to encourage them to come back.

• You can send them a trigger that reminds them of what they tried to accomplish and what value they can get if they log in again.
• You can also use emails to drive users to the “WOW Moment” of your product.

Take a look at this example from Disqus:

Disqus relies on the fact that the user must complete 2 tasks to reach the WOW moment:

• First, the user has to click a button to add Disqus to their site.
• Then, the user needs to register their new site.
• If a user completes the first task but not the second, they receive this email.
• It assumes that the main reason a user hasn't fully set up is simply that they don't know how to do it.

The email breaks down the setup into a few easy steps, turning what can be a complex process into something anyone can do.

It is also a simple reminder to the user that they left halfway and are invited to log in and pick up where they left off.

Maybe your users can turn away from your product, but they can't escape their inbox.

7 - Announce new versions with popups and tooltips

User onboarding is an ongoing process.

Les SaaS products are constantly evolving and innovating over time, and you need to make sure your users are always aware of what your product has to offer.

Every time you launch a new feature for your product, you need to announce it to your users. This announcement should include details about what the feature does, why it's beneficial for the user, and show them how to start using it.

For major releases, you should consider an approach that draws attention as an onboarding experience. For this, a full screen popup will be extremely effective in attracting user interest.

Here's an example from Drift:

When Drift launched its calendar feature, it announced it with a pop-up.

She explains what the new feature does, focusing on the benefits it provides to the user. Using a popup means that it's nearly impossible for users to miss it.

However, popups should always be used sparingly. For minor versions, tooltips are very useful so as not to overwhelm users.

In the example above, Heap announced a minor feature that allows users to generate a report with a custom date range.

It was probably not important enough to justify a popup: so they opted for a tooltip to put users on the right track.

In this way, you will improve the activation of new features and empower your users.

BONUS: 18 more things you can do to improve your onboarding!

Now that we've covered best practices, let's go over some bonus user onboarding tips that will help you improve.

1 - Sign up for your own product every week

If you're constantly changing your signup flow to make it as efficient as possible, you should also check that out.

Test your signup flow every week.
You'll see what works well, what doesn't, and where you can improve this part of onboarding your users.

Be honest with yourself. If you reach a point where you think your user will probably not continue: take into account to change it.

Subscribing to your product frequently is a sure way to learn more about what your users are going through and gives you the information you need to improve the onboarding experience.

2 - Focus on the steps step by step

Many SaaS creators end up focusing on optimizing their users' first experience.

While the first impression your users have of your product is important, the next two impressions make all the difference. Every time your users connect to your product, you need to wow them to keep coming back.

So, this first experience should provide an Aha! moment for your users. This first WOW Moment will encourage them to come back a second time.

When they come back for the second time, you have to start over. If you don't, they won't come back a third time.

Be sure to offer highlights throughout the onboarding process.

Aim to consistently provide value and repeated moments of reflection throughout the user journey. It's what keeps your users coming back.

3 - Show clues to stimulate actions

Sometimes, a subtle approach toOnboarding gives better results.

In some cases, you don't want to bombard users with information, but you still want to guide them.

Signals offer a fantastic approach toOnboarding. In general, these signals take the form of a small pulsating circle. This circle is located on a specific button or field.

It catches the user's eye, without taking up valuable screen space and without being too annoying.

You can use hints to give users a push in the right direction.

In the example below, ProfitWell places a red marker (also called a “hotspot”) on the function that it wants you to try. It gets your attention and makes you want to click.

4 - Use your signup page to promote new features

It's important to encourage the adoption of any new features you add to your product.

A good way to do this is to add an ad to your registration/login page.

Your users will access this page every time they use your product, so it serves as an effective display panel for any new features you want to offer.

You can even go a step further and contextualize the ad. If you know that a particular user will be interested in a certain feature, show it to them. The more relevant you make it, the better. Watch how Drift educates on their sign-up and login pages.

They present each new feature on their registration or login page.

5 - Focus only on key activation moments for new users

When people think of onboarding, they often think of presentations and tooltips.

These techniques work great when it comes to activating new users.

However, users can get frustrated if they have to see messages that are not relevant to them. Imagine that you've been using a product for a year and still getting messages asking you to try basic features.

Contextual onboarding means you can focus on activating keys for new users and then move on to activating more advanced features for older users.

6 - Don't add too many steps

Try not to get carried away with your onboarding.

You don't want to cram too much information. You would only further confuse your users.

A good rule of thumb is to have no more than two tooltips on a page. If you have more, you risk making your product seem too complex and driving users away.

Make your onboarding as clear and concise as possible:

• Use as few words as possible
• Use action words
• And make every tip count.

Treat onboarding as a guided experience and wait for users to take certain actions before showing and overwhelming them all.

For complex flows, consider breaking them down into smaller sequences and then onboarding them one sequence at a time.

7 - Focus on high value-added features that generate Wow Moments!

Each interaction your user has with the application during their first use should bring them closer to the “WOW Moment.”

This is when your user understands the value of your profile.

Generally, these WOW Moments are key features of your product. For a social media management platform, this may be the moment when your user connects to one of their social networks for the first time.

You can use onboarding elements, such as tooltips, to lead users to the features that are most interesting.

This will help them experience the WOW Moment as soon as possible.

8 - Reduce the “time-to-value” as much as possible

The time/value ratio is a very important measure when it comes to user activation.

The faster you bring value to your user, the more likely it is that he will activate and become a paid user.

This is similar to the previous point, in that your onboarding should focus on driving users to the features that will provide them with the most value.

Reduce friction as much as possible. That means you should remove unnecessary fields from forms and not force users to go through uninteresting steps.

If a user cannot derive any value from your product within 20 minutes of using it, they may not have the patience to continue.

9 - Analyze and do A/B tests

None of us ever really know what will work best.

Sure, we have ideas, but at the end of the day, they're always educated guesses.

The best way to know for sure is to test it. Les A/B testing are an easy way to see what elements work best. Show half of your users slideshows and the other half tooltips. See what works best.

You should also test every little aspect of your onboarding, including the text you use and the color of the buttons.

10 - Write a convincing text

It's easy to forget the words you use in your Onboarding flows when you're busy choosing which Onboarding elements to use.

But the text is actually incredibly important.

In fact, a text change for in Google's booking function for hotels has dramatically improved conversions. A simple switch from “Book a room” to “Check availability” resulted in an increase of 17%.

It should inform the user not only about what a particular function does, but also what benefits it provides.

Here's a quick tip: Whenever you're writing text for a feature, ask yourself why the user should try it. Then include your response in the text.

11 - Respect the attention of your users

Our attention span is limited. We can only focus on a few things at a time.

However, many products bombard new users with all sorts of display elements.

Instead, you should focus on one or two items at most. If you have a checklist in the sidebar and tooltips to guide the user, don't add slides that contain additional information.

Keep it simple, and respect the attention of your users. If you don't, you risk confusing your users and turning them away from your product.

12 - Allow users to continue their journey with permalinks

Permalinks are an underused tool when it comes to user onboarding, but they are extremely powerful when used properly.

Incorporating permalinks into your product allows you to return users to where they were when they left your product. If a user leaves halfway through creating their profile, you can send them a link to continue.

This makes it easier for your users to return to your app and more likely to sign in again and try again.

13 - Add “custom events” to accurately measure your Onboarding

There is no point in devoting all this work to improving the onboarding of your users if you cannot precisely measure the impact.

You can create custom events in your product, allowing you to measure metrics such as activation rates for each feature.

For example, you can define a custom event that is triggered when a user invites three team members into your application. Knowing when, where, and how this happened can help you improve future onboarding flows.

14 - Create segments to better analyze your users' activity

You are going to have users at different stages of the activation flow. While you may be tempted to simply divide users into non-activated and activated, it's more useful to go a step further.

You need to use 5 different segments:

• New users - Joined 7 or 14 days ago
• Active Users - Registered 30 days ago
• Partially activated users - They registered and participated in half of the key events.
• Fully activated users - They have registered and used all of the key events.
• Users who did X but not Y - For example, in Gmail, we all try to compose an email and send it but we haven't tried the repeat or send functions later.

Separating users into these distinct segments allows you to better understand how they use your product. It also helps you personalize your onboarding flow.

15 - Use Checklists to guide your users

Checklists are becoming a popular option for many SaaS products. They are ideal for showing key tasks to your users.

We recommend that you focus on 3 or 4 tasks, 5 at most. That way, you don't overwhelm your users with a long to-do list. Nobody likes that!

It's also great to include a progress bar. So your users can see what they have left to do.

READ MORE: Optimize the onboarding process

16 - Include psychological clues to give users a boost.

Understand how your users think, and what motivates them to act, and you'll be able to engage them as effectively as possible.

There are a number of psychological tricks you can use to nudge users in the right direction.

A good example is progression bias. It's the phenomenon that people are more likely to do something if progress has already been made.

In the Paypal example above, you can see an example of a checklist.

The first step, “Account created”, is checked as soon as you log in to the application. You feel like you're making immediate progress, and you're much more likely to keep going.

You can use this method with your own checklist.

Provide a checklist, but cross out the first item on the list. This item can be as simple as “Connect.” It doesn't matter. What matters is that your user thinks they have already made progress.

17 - Always be in the optimization

Your user onboarding is never complete. He is It is always possible to improve it.

That means you need to constantly analyze the impact of your onboarding and then improve the parts where users fall through the cracks.

You should really test and improve your Onboarding every week, or even every month if you don't have time. Think of it as an ongoing process, not just a job that you can finish.

Set goals with your Onboarding. If you had 15% activation this quarter, aim for 25% next quarter. Then, determine how you can improve your onboarding to reach that goal.

Onboarding examples

I've already included a few examples of user onboarding above, but if you're still looking for inspiration, take a look at these too:

1 - Todoist

A frictionless signup flow means removing all friction when creating an account.

That's why Todoist is first on our list of examples. It doesn't just ask users for their email address, it offers three alternatives to quickly create an account.

2 - Monday

There are numerous examples of welcome screens that not only welcome users into the application, but also collect relevant information that allows onboarding to be customized according to the needs of each user.

Monday's tool is an example that does this in a friendly and engaging way, without giving the impression of asking its users to fill out a long survey.

3 - Postfity

The great thing about Postfity's checklist is that it's short and focuses on onboarding the user focused on the value of their product - social media programming made easy.

Likewise, the addition of an incentive to complete the task list and the clear indication of the result make the Postfity onboarding checklist an excellent example.

What is user onboarding?

User onboarding is the process of continuously guiding your users through their journey, helping them derive repeated value from your product, and getting their work done in the easiest way possible.

Successful onboarding is about presenting your product's value proposition and helping users experience it, using in-app messages and user interface models that shorten the learning curve. If you're looking to improve the product experience, you need to start with that.

In-app messages are - exactly what they are - short messages sent in-app, while user interface templates are the means that make it easy to display these messages in front of the user. And there are no-code tools you can use to implement them.

Onboarding users is NOT the same as a product visit.

It is important to understand that onboarding users is not about presenting product features through a guided tour as soon as the user has signed up for a free trial.

It's more than that.

A product tour shows users the various tasks they can perform and useful features, but it forgets to put the user first.

Sure, it tells the user what the product solves, but in most cases, it's hard to build a product visit that focuses on the user's needs.

First-time users signing up for a free trial want to understand how your product is going to help them get the job done. Focus on creating onboarding experiences that meet specific user needs and stop confusing them with a lengthy product tour.

If the goal of onboarding is to help users feel value, guide them step-by-step through your product discovery during their free trial.

Why is user onboarding important?

User onboarding translates your product's value proposition into something real, giving users enough reasons to stay loyal to your product. Successful onboarding helps users understand and feel the value of your product. Without that, they would have no reason to continue using your product or even pay for it.

An onboarding process does not stop at the core functionality

Secondary user onboarding is as valuable as primary user onboarding because it ensures that the user experiences and engages with secondary features as well.

User integration is important to guide the user at every stage of the user journey, reiterating the value proposition of your product through important experiences.

Because your product is constantly evolving and improving, onboarding experiences across the customer lifecycle are critical if you want to ensure that users get repeated value from using your product.

Reduced unsubscriptions and increased retention

The implementation of an onboarding process that covers the entire customer life cycle and constantly reiterates the fundamental value of your product is the basis for a high user retention and a low churn rate.

Now that you understand why user onboarding is important for your SaaS product, let's take a look at some user onboarding tactics that you should implement in your onboarding process.

Summary

We've covered a lot of how to use Onboarding in this article.

There are a few key models and themes that we've identified while analyzing the onboarding product flows of successful SaaS businesses.

Add value and help users reach the WOW Moment as quickly as possible. The more value the user gets from the start, the more likely they are to use your application.

Personalization is becoming more and more common, and the users are starting to demand it. It is essential to adapt your onboarding flow to the user.

Contextual onboarding means that the right user sees the right message at the right time.

Psychological techniques, such as social proof, are useful ways to get users involved.

Adding a gamification element is also a great way to increase engagement.

If there is one thing that is clear, it is that onboarding is one of the most important aspects of a SaaS product.

For this reason, you MUST ensure that your onboarding flow is as perfect as possible.