{"id":74344,"date":"2024-08-06T18:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T18:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatfix.com\/blog\/?p=74344"},"modified":"2025-11-08T18:01:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T18:01:01","slug":"leading-vs-lagging-indicators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatfix.com\/blog\/leading-vs-lagging-indicators\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading vs. Lagging Indicators: 20 Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"

nderstanding different data points, their meaning, and how to utilize them can be confusing. How do product managers and data operations teams track the right product analytics<\/a> and business metrics to understand an organization’s health?<\/p>\n

One way to categorize product and business metrics is to examine whether they predict future outcomes (leading indicators) or measure past outcomes (lagging indicators). In this article, we\u2019ll explore leading and lagging indicators in-depth and learn how to use them to inform your product strategy, improve core business metrics, and build better products.<\/p>\n

What Is a Leading Indicator?<\/h2>\n

Leading indicators are user behavior data<\/a> that are used to predict future outcomes. They are data points that quantify patterns and behaviors to tell you what will likely happen next.<\/p>\n

Most of your key user behavior metrics that don\u2019t directly measure revenue and retention probably fall into this category, because they tell you which user behaviors are most highly correlated with business goals like revenue and retention.<\/p>\n

For example, you might be measuring average sessions per month. Suppose you see that users with more sessions per month on average are more likely to upgrade their accounts and have a higher lifetime value. In that case, you will use this leading indicator to guide developing new product initiatives that increase users’ sessions in a given month.<\/p>\n

What are the benefits of tracking leading indicators?<\/h3>\n

The primary value of tracking, and reacting to, leading indicators is that it allows product teams to connect user behavior to business success. If you know which behaviors within your platform are most likely to influence your lagging<\/i> indicators \u2013 usually your business goals, like revenue and retention \u2013 you can create a product roadmap that will positively impact your business goals.<\/p>\n

A good thought exercise to drive home the importance of leading indicators is to imagine a world without them. Imagine that every morning, you checked your data dashboard and all you saw were business results: how much money you\u2019re making and how long your users have been sticking around. You wouldn\u2019t know what users were doing on the platform, and which behaviors mainly were likely to result in better revenue and retention.<\/p>\n

In this reality, your product roadmap<\/a> would be a series of random, uninformed initiatives to increase your business success. Luckily, this is just a thought exercise, and your leading indicators are available in Whatfix Product Analytics so that your product initiatives can be data-informed.<\/p>\n

10 examples of leading indicators<\/h3>\n

While the leading indicators you measure depend on your specific platform, you can start with this list of common indicators often correlated with impacting your business KPIs.<\/p>\n