Before you start
You’re ready to turn your product into a growth channel. You believe you can drive customer growth by engaging your customers while they’re inside of your product. Now, you need a platform that will help you harness product behavior to target and optimize messages, guides, and surveys.
You also need a system that can help you share customer insights more broadly and activate teams across the business to build customer momentum and help you reach your revenue goals.
What is Appcues?
Appcues helps companies act on customer insights faster by providing a robust customer intelligence layer along with a suite of tools and a team of agents. The Appcues intelligence layer consists of product behavior data, survey responses, and agent conversation records.
Your team, or the team of Appcues agents, then uses this data to build, analyze, and optimize targeted experiences for your users and coordinate other actions across the business. Appcues can also feed this rich customer context into your apps, systems of record, and the AI harnesses you use to accelerate the insights-to-action loop for your organization.
What to buy: digital adoption platform, customer engagement platform, or product analytics suite?
In the agentic era, software categories have consolidated and often provide overlapping feature sets. This means that Appcues can fall into a few product categories.
Digital adoption platforms
Help walk new or stalled users through a linear experience using tooltips, checklists, and callouts, but often lack data and analytics power.
Customer engagement software
Helps you manage, personalize, and coordinate customer communications across multiple channels, but often relies on another system to inform segmentation.
Product analytics suites
Typically built to help you understand behavior, but rarely help you act on the insights gained.
Appcues isn’t a perfect fit for any one of these categories. It allows you to get the best of all three by combining rich data with coordinated, personalized experiences and targeted communications. Still, the category framing can provide a useful anchor as you evaluate your options and have conversations across your business, particularly as you tap into analyst guides (Forrester, Gartner) and review sites (G2, TrustPilot).
Preparing for a buying cycle
Regardless of what you call them, Appcues and platforms like it are cross-functional tools with usage, ownership, and governance that vary based on team size and goals. The process of buying software that gives your company more data and a new way of working is complicated. It always involves more people, data mapping, and steps than you expected.
Successfully implementing cross-functional software requires a partner who understands your business, your data, and where your product is headed. Many vendors focus the conversation more on feature evaluation than on understanding what needs to be connected and who needs to be involved for you to achieve your intended outcomes. We hope you find that Appcues is the latter.
Short on time? Let AI help.
Give this guide to Claude, ChatGPT, or whichever assistant you use, and ask it to build a buying plan and timeline for your team. Then, keep feeding it your call notes as you go! Example prompt: “I’m evaluating software that will help me drive product adoption and customer growth. Here’s a guide to buying Appcues. Ask me questions one at a time to fill out the prep checklist and buying committee information, then build me a week-by-week evaluation timeline. We’re looking at [vendors].”
Understand your timeline
Most evaluations run out of time before they run out of options. Before you start booking a single demo, work backward from two dates: when you need this project live and (if you’re replacing a tool) when your current contract renews.
Know which track you’re currently on
Net new
You don’t have anything doing this job today, or what you have was never really adopted. Your deadline comes from a business goal, like a launch, an activation target, or a cohort at risk of churning. Work backward from when you need your first experience live.
Replacement
You have a system people actually use, even if it’s falling short. Your deadline comes from your contract, and renewal dates move faster than evaluations.
If you’re replacing a tool, find two dates now
When your current contract renews, and how much notice it requires to cancel or change it. Most teams only start looking when the renewal notice arrives, about 30 days out. That’s rarely enough time to evaluate, buy, and install a replacement. Start at least 3 months before your renewal date.
Start the slowest parts first
Security reviews and contract paperwork (MSA, DPA, SLA) are among the most common causes of delay. They don’t depend on which vendor you pick, so kick them off early and let them run in parallel with your evaluation. If your company has a standard security questionnaire, have it ready to send after the first call.
Put it on a calendar
Sketch a rough timeline with four dates: when you’ll finish discovery calls, when your trial starts, when you’ll decide, and when you need to be live. You’ll refine it as you go. Having it written down keeps the evaluation from drifting.
Get clear on your product and customer goals
The right partner will want to understand your business before showing you features, so have answers ready. Bring this context to your first call. The conversation will start with your problem instead of background, and you’ll notice which vendors actually ask for it.
Know your product’s shape today, tomorrow, and a year from now
Many products are still traditional point-and-click. Customers click through a UI, and any AI lives in a sidebar or on the roadmap. But more and more, customers are becoming a mix. Some are working directly in agentic experiences or through MCP, but most keep clicking. A growing number are fully agentic, where customers and their agents rarely open the UI at all (aka Zero UI).
Where does your product fall on this spectrum, and where do you expect to be in 12–18 months? Many of the guides and pop-ups that work for a click-based product lose their footing as signals move into agentic conversations. The partner you pick has to fit both who you are now and who you’re becoming.
Write down your goals, constraints, and must-haves
Goals
What outcomes are you on the hook for (e.g., activation rate, feature adoption, expansion, retention)?
Constraints
Budget range, timeline, engineering availability, security requirements.
Must-haves
What is the one thing your existing software or process relies on? Who relies on it? And what needs to be optimized or revisited?
Decide whether to start small or go big
Go big
When it fits: you have an executive sponsor, real pain today, and budget that’s been discussed. What it looks like: roll out across several stages at once, e.g., onboarding for new users plus adoption for existing ones. Why: you’re already working with a mandate, so a partial rollout only delays value.
Start small
When it fits: you’re still building internal confidence, procurement is heavy, or your incumbent tool is hard to remove. What it looks like: prove one contained goal first, e.g., one launch, one onboarding experience, or one segment. Why: a clear win here builds the internal case better than any pitch deck.
Map the data you’ll connect
An engagement platform is only as specific as the data behind it. The more it knows (what people do in your product, what’s in your CRM, what they tell you in surveys and conversations), the more precisely you can target and the more clearly you can measure what worked. Start with two sources: your CRM and your product event tracking.
Prep checklist
Your product in a sentence
What it does and who uses it.
Your product’s shape
Traditional, a mix, or agentic today, and where it’s headed.
Platforms and surfaces your product works on
Web app, mobile app (iOS/Android), in-product AI chat or agent, MCP.
Monthly active users (MAUs)
Roughly how many people use your product each month.
Key actions
The 3–5 things a customer must do to get value (e.g., invite a teammate, connect an integration, create a first report).
Business goals
The account and pipeline outcomes this needs to move (e.g., expansion, renewal, referrals).
Where people get stuck today
Known drop-off points or support hot spots.
How you capture behavior today
Clickstream/event tracking, surveys, agent conversation data.
Your stack
CRM, marketing automation, analytics, data warehouse, and current in-app tools.
Brand guidelines
Voice, visual standards, anything an AI should know before it drafts on your behalf.
Get a buying committee together
When it comes to buying, skip the org chart. List out the jobs that need to be done, then put a name next to each, sometimes the same person or different. Most delays come from a job nobody owned until late, and a partner can only build context with who’s in the room.
Approve the purchase
Owns the budget and the final yes. Brings in security, legal, and procurement sign-off. Joins: discovery, technical review (for security), decision.
Drive the outcomes
Owns the goals and launches and improves experiences to hit them. Joins: every call, plus the trial.
Act on the insights
Uses results to make decisions in product, marketing, or customer success. Joins: demo, trial check-ins.
Provide brand guidance and context for AI
Briefs the platform on your brand, voice, product, goals, and audience so what it drafts and recommends fits your business. Joins: demo, trial kickoff.
Own the connectors
Engineering and RevOps. Sets up the CRM connection and event tracking that make targeting and analysis work. Joins: technical review and install planning, trial kickoff.
Give one person the final say
This platform touches marketing, product, and customer success. That works best when one person sets the standards and approves what goes live, and everyone else plugs in. Settle it before three teams build conflicting experiences for the same customers.
Bring people in early
It might take a few rounds, but every concern needs to be addressed anyway, and earlier is easier. Bringing the right people to the right call means you won’t have to repeat it later.
First time through procurement?
Find someone internally who’s done it before (ops, finance, or another team) and ask them to be an informal guide. They’ll know where your company’s process tends to get stuck.
Research and score your options
Use an AI assistant to build your shortlist, then score each vendor against the same criteria so your decision doesn’t only come down to which demo was better.
Research prompts to try
“I’m a [role] at a [company type] with [X] monthly active users. We want to [goal]. Which customer engagement platforms should I consider, and what are the trade-offs?”
“Compare [Vendor A] and [Vendor B] on in-product behavioral data, targeting, AI capabilities, and pricing model. Cite your sources.”
“What do customers commonly complain about with [Vendor]? Look at review sites and community forums.”
“Here’s our prep checklist [paste]. What questions should we ask each vendor on a first call?”
Score what you see, not what you’re told
Rate each vendor from one to three on each question. Ask vendors to show you the answer in the demo instead of describing it. A good demo shows how the vendor’s people, technology, and offer will help you hit your goals instead of a tour of features.
How they’ll work with you
- Did they ask about your goals, data, and product before showing features?
- How will the platform learn your brand, product, goals, and audience, and does it keep using that context over time?
- Can they support your product’s shape today and where it’s going (traditional, mix, agentic)?
- Can they map an install plan to your data before you commit?
- Who will you work with after you sign, and what will they do to help you hit your goals?
What the platform can do for you
- Growth analyticsCan you see behavior and act on it in the same place?
- Campaign orientationCan you run goal-based campaigns across the lifecycle, not just one-off tours?
- Advanced targetingCan you target on real behavior, including agent conversations, plus account and CRM data?
- Pipeline and advocacyDoes it connect both ways to your CRM, marketing automation, and review/advocacy tools?
- Personalized and embedded contentCan you personalize per user and embed natively, not only as overlays?
- AI that builds and recommendsWill they build a real experience live from a plain-language goal, and show a real recommendation with its reasoning?
- PricingWhat drives cost, and what happens as you grow?
Make the most of a proof of concept
A trial is the closest you’ll get to working with a vendor before you sign. Done well, it ends with a clear answer and shows you what the partnership will actually feel like. Done loosely, it turns into another round of internal debate. The difference is almost always decided before the trial starts.
Make three decisions before you begin
Narrow down to two finalists, tops
Trialing three or four spreads your team too thin to evaluate any of them well.
Write down your success criteria
Tie them to the goals you wrote down in chapter 03. Pick what you’ll measure, like time to first experience live, a lift on one goal, or how reliably your data flows in, and agree on what “good” looks like.
Set a concrete timeline
Put a start date, check-ins, and a decision date on the calendar. A typical trial runs 2–4 weeks.
What a good trial looks like
Technical review and install planning
Confirm integrations, data flow, and security. Map the install to your data. Agree on success criteria. Who’s there: Own the connectors, Drive the outcomes, Approve the purchase (for security).
Trial kickoff
Get installed, connect your data, and launch your first experience. Who’s there: Drive the outcomes, Own the connectors, Provide brand guidance and context for AI.
Check-ins
Review progress against your success criteria, and adjust. Who’s there: Drive the outcomes, Act on the insights.
Decision
Compare results against what “good” looked like. Who’s there: Approve the purchase, Drive the outcomes.
Connect your data in week one
Installing the code usually takes a few hours of development time. Connecting your CRM and event data is what decides whether targeting and reporting work, so do it at the start of the trial, not halfway through.
Ask what they’ll put behind it
A partner invests in your success before you sign. Ask each finalist what people and product resources they’ll commit to the trial, how often you’ll check in, and who you’ll work with. Compare that against how they’ll show up once you’re a customer.
Sign and set up for success
The first few weeks after signing decide whether a new platform becomes part of how your team works or just another login. If you started security and contracts early (chapter 02), signing should mostly be signatures. What you do next depends on your track.
Net new: set the pattern from day one
Confirm ownership
One person sets standards, approves what goes live, and answers for results.
Connect your data before you scale
Make sure product usage data, customer records, and your other key systems flow in cleanly. You can launch without that, but you won’t be able to target or report with confidence. The more connected the platform is, the more useful it becomes.
Start with the goal you trialed
Build on the win from your proof of concept before you expand to new teams or stages.
Replacement: treat it as an upgrade!
Audit what’s live
Keep the experiences that drive results and cut the rest. Not everything has to move on day one. A few well-done experiences beat a straight copy of everything you had.
Export content while you still have access
Access often ends sooner than you’d think. Export what you can early (PDFs, spreadsheets) and send over your brand guidelines separately, since exports rarely capture styling.
Ask what help the vendor provides
Find out whether they’ll rebuild your priority experiences and set up your data, or just hand you a login.
Buying from Appcues: what to expect
If Appcues is on your list, here’s what to know about how we work with buyers.
A clear path from first call to decision
We start with discovery and a demo built around your goals. Next, one technical session covers compatibility and installation planning, and that’s where we agree on success criteria for your trial. From there, we hold a trial kickoff and meet with you throughout the trial to make sure you’re hitting those criteria. We’ll tell you who to bring to each conversation.
We put resources behind your trial
People and product resources from our side work toward your goals during the trial, not just after you sign.
People, not just a login
A Customer Experience Manager owns the relationship. Technical Success Managers help you deploy and configure. Both are real people who are ready and willing to hop on the phone and help.
Help with switching
If you’re replacing a tool, our Premium Services team can rebuild and migrate your priority experiences from your exports and brand guidelines, and make sure your data is set up on day one.
We’ll be straight with you
If we’re not the right fit for what you need, we’ll say so.
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