Diagnostic Overhaul for Activation: How We Turned Investment into Real Product Usage for an American SaaS

We performed a full diagnostic across acquisition and product data to uncover where value was leaking, built real-time visibility with a metrics dashboard, redefined ICP and USP, rebuilt the acquisition marketing strategy, and reshaped the early user journey from landing pages through onboarding to drive activation.

Context

An American B2B SaaS was investing in growth but facing a critical gap. Despite traffic and spend, users were not converting into meaningful product usage. The initiative started with user acquisition into a free self-serve experience. Early signals showed activation bottlenecks and unclear early journeys, so we shifted into a full funnel diagnosis to understand why investment was not producing activated and engaged users.

Challenge

Multiple growth levers were running ads, landing pages, product improvements, but there was no shared clarity on where users dropped off. Traffic volume did not equal activation, onboarding introduced friction, and the path to core value was too opaque. The immediate need was to diagnose why users failed to activate and then realign audience, messaging, journey, and visibility to fix those leaks.

Approach

The work began with a rigorous diagnostic and unfolded across strategic and execution layers:

• Deep analysis of all acquisition and product data to identify drop-off points, traffic quality issues, funnel conversion gaps, and in-product behavioral patterns
• Redefinition of Ideal Customer Profile and Unique Selling Propositions based on quantitative signals and qualitative inference to improve targeting and message-market fit
• Reconstruction of acquisition marketing to align channels, creatives, and segmentation with the refined ICP and USP
• Audit and redesign of the early user journey from landing pages through onboarding to reduce cognitive load and accelerate time to value
• Implementation of a centralized dashboard to monitor key acquisition, activation, and engagement metrics in real time, enabling transparent accountability and faster iteration
• Cross-functional synthesis to ensure marketing, product, and onboarding decisions reinforced each other instead of operating in silos

Key Actions Taken

• Isolated highest-leverage drop-off moments and prioritized fixes including messaging adjustments on landing pages and onboarding flow changes to surface core value faster
• Rewrote landing page copy and structure to reflect the new USP and better qualify traffic against the updated ICP
• Streamlined onboarding to reduce friction and improve early perception of value
• Aligned acquisition creatives with the refined ICP language to attract more relevant traffic
• Instituted a weekly review cadence using the dashboard to surface signals and rapidly prioritize experiments

Impact

Quantified outcomes:

• Unique visitors grew +148% in November and +271% in December, remaining elevated (~+204% vs baseline) in January, showing sustained scale
• Sign ups jumped +162% in November, +795% in December, and +631% in January compared to the original baseline
• Activation events increased +27% in November, +212% in December, and +271% in January, showing that traffic was translating into meaningful early engagement
• Acquisition efficiency improved as ICP/USP alignment reduced wasted reach and increased the share of traffic that entered the activation path
• Cross-functional teams shifted from opinion-driven to data-driven action using shared success definitions surfaced by the dashboard

What We Learned

1. Investment without diagnostic clarity creates compounding waste. The full funnel must be observable before effective optimization.
2. ICP and USP alignment upstream determines both the quality of incoming traffic and the speed of activation.
3. Early journey friction often looks like low intent; many high-fit users were dropping off because the promise was unclear or the path to value was too heavy.
4. Real-time visibility through dashboarding turns alignment into execution and accelerates experimentation.
5. Message relevance combined with rapid delivery of core value multiplies activation lift.

Who Led the Work

• UX Consultoria as strategic lead on diagnosis, journey design, and implementation
• Domenica Ferreira and Carolina Alzamora - Founders

Want to Replicate This?

If your acquisition investment is not producing activated users, the problem is likely misalignment across audience, message, journey, and visibility. Let us map your funnel, diagnose the leaks, and build a tailored activation system.