1. “Role-Play the User”
Purpose: Empathize with different types of users to discover valuable interactions to track.
How to do it:
- Create 2–3 fictional personas (e.g., “Busy Brenda,” “Curious Carl”).
- Give small teams a persona and a scenario:
“You’re trying to find pricing info, but you hate filling out forms.” - Ask: “What pages would you visit? What frustrates you? What would delight you?”
Prompt reflection:
➡ “What behaviors would show this user is engaged or blocked?”
➡ “What signals tell us they’re about to convert or drop off?”
Outcome: Fresh ideas for events, journey stages, and empathy-driven KPIs.
2. “Draw the Funnel”
Purpose: Visually map conversion paths and problem areas.
How to do it:
- Ask teams to draw a funnel for one goal (e.g., “Contact Form Submission”).
- Encourage creative visuals: use metaphors like obstacle courses, escape rooms, or mazes.
- Label what helps users progress and what gets in the way.
Prompt reflection:
➡ “Where do we lose people?”
➡ “What could we track to measure progress or struggle?”
Outcome: Insight into drop-off points, friction areas, and new KPIs.
3. “Anti-Metrics” (Reverse Thinking)
Purpose: Challenge assumptions and uncover hidden opportunities.
How to do it:
- Ask:
“If we wanted this website to fail miserably at its goals… what would we do?” - Let the team come up with destructive actions like slow load times, hiding CTAs, or misleading content.
- Flip it:
“How can we track to prevent or detect these issues?”
Outcome: Reveals negative signals worth tracking (e.g., high bounce rate, rage clicks, dead clicks).
4. “Website CSI”
Purpose: Treat your site like a crime scene to find evidence of user behavior.
How to do it:
- Pretend you’re an investigator solving the case of “Why users don’t convert.”
- Explore “crime scenes” (e.g., high-exit pages, abandoned carts).
- Use clues (session recordings, heatmaps, feedback forms).
Prompt reflection:
➡ “What digital footprints can we track?”
➡ “What are the ‘missing persons’ of our site (users who vanish)?”
Outcome: Inventive ideas for micro-conversions, funnel steps, and behavioral events.
5. “Build-a-User-Journey Mad Libs”
Purpose: Create unusual, scenario-based journeys that lead to tracking ideas.
How to do it:
- Use a fill-in-the-blank prompt:
“A [persona] arrives via [channel], visits [page], then [action], but they feel [emotion].” - Have teams fill in with surprising or exaggerated answers (e.g., “A frustrated dad arrives via TikTok…”).
- Discuss: “What would we track in this situation?”
Outcome: Generates outside-the-box journey ideas and tracking points.
6. “Metric Mix & Match”
Purpose: Spark ideas by combining odd metrics and goals.
How to do it:
- Write metrics (e.g., scroll depth, time on page) and goals (e.g., newsletter signup, watch demo video) on separate cards.
- Mix & randomly match.
- Ask: “Could this metric actually say something about that goal?”
Example Match:
- Metric: “Exit rate on FAQs”
- Goal: “Request a quote”
➡ Maybe people leaving the FAQ page means they’re confident — or confused?
Outcome: Unexpected connections between user actions and business outcomes.
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