AARRR Metrics: What It Is And How To Use It To Skyrocket Your Sales (50+ growth hacks)

The AARRR metrics framework, also called pirate metrics or the AARRR funnel, is a set of metrics used to track and influence critical user behavior that can lead to business growth. The acronym stands for acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue. 

What is AARRR metric? 

The AARRR metric—short for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue—is a growth marketing framework that tracks the entire customer journey, from how users discover a product to how they engage, return, refer others, and ultimately generate revenue. 

Introduced by Dave McClure, it helps businesses identify which stage of the funnel needs optimization, enabling data-driven decisions to boost user growth, engagement, and profitability. 

Who is the AARRR metrics framework for? 

The goal of using this metrics framework is to create a sustainable and scalable business by leaving all the vanity metrics behind and focusing on what makes a business grow. 

Therefore, it is not only for marketers but also for CEOs, entrepreneurs, product managers, and investors. 

How does AARRR metrics framework work? 

This framework is commonly known as a type of marketing funnel. This is because acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue are presented as sequential stages in a simplified buyer’s journey. 

Ideally, potential customers begin at the acquisition stage. Some proceed to activation by engaging with the product, and only a portion of those initial visitors will reach the revenue stage, converting them into paying customers. 

Like any marketing funnel, the goal is to guide prospects from the initial stage to the final one. These stages essentially outline the steps necessary to drive business growth. 

Why AARRR: Stats to justify 

AARRR is widely accepted as the five most important metrics for a startup to focus on. That is because these metrics effectively measure your company’s growth while at the same time being simple and actionable. Major companies have successfully leveraged these metrics to scale their businesses. Let’s look at some stats- 

• Amazon - 100 million prime customers worldwide 
• Grammarly - 20 million users  
• Netflix - 74 million paying subscribers 
• Dropbox - 15.48 million paying users 
• Canva - 55 million monthly active users  

How did these companies achieve such remarkable success? The answer is simple! They aced AARRR with the right mix of growth hacks, a strong product and marketing dollars. 

Let’s go through the exhaustive list of growth hacks to ace pirate metrics on the whole internet.  

Pengambilalihan 

Acquisition, or in other words, how to attract people to your business? How to make them find your message and visit your website or your app? 

Generally, the more people you attract in the acquisition stage, the more paying customers you will have in the last stage of this funnel. 

Dibentangkan di bawah adalah pelbagai saluran yang boleh anda perolehi pengguna dengan hacks pertumbuhan masing-masing. 

Blog 

Growth hack #1: Scalable content marketing to rank on Google 

Think of articles that can be templatized yet remain valuable. Templates that can be populated by thousands of companies or people or products. And in no time, you become an authority in the eyes of Google. 

Example: You search on Google for any company name along with the keyword ‘patents’. Say ‘Apple patents’. One of the top 3 results would always be from Justia. Here is the smart thing Justia has done. They have listed publicly available information about the patents of top companies, and they keep updating the lists as and when a new patent is issued. 

Emel 

Growth hack #2: A well-thought-out strategic cold email 

5 must-haves in a cold email that gets opened and read: 

• An inviting subject line -For example, “Inspired by your work …” 
• Talk about the recipient- Open the email conversation by talking about the recipient, not yourself. A well-deserved compliment works like a charm 
• Establish your credibility - you got to give recipients a reason to be interested in your offer 
• A low friction ‘ask’ - Just aim for breaking the ice with the recipient - like a short connect 
• Keep it crisp - Respect the receiver’s time. 

CRM Alat 

Growth hack #3: Use CRMs tools 

Utilize tools like Hubspot to automatically send a pre-created sequence of emails. To draft high-conversion emails, draw inspiration from email teardowns by EmailMastery. 

But why stop at emails alone? By integrating HubSpot with Xoxoday Plum, you can embed personalized rewards directly into your CRM journeys—automatically sending gift cards or incentives based on user actions like signups, purchases, or milestone completions.  

This powerful combo helps boost engagement, accelerate conversions 

Social media growth hacks  

Growth hack #4: Utilize social media 

Get Noticed with smart engagement 
Start by viewing 100 LinkedIn profiles a day—this boosts your visibility and profile views. Make sure your profile is sharp (use a professional picture and headline). 

Schedule & hashtag for reach 
Use tools like Buffer or TweetHunter to schedule posts when engagement is highest. Add trending hashtags like #growthhacking to expand your reach. 

Make shoutouts effortless 
Add “Share on Twitter” buttons via ClickToTweet to your website—pre-filled tweets make it super easy for users to shout you out, just like UpSkillIndia does. 

Join conversations that matter 
Don’t just post—participate. Commenting on trending threads or influencers’ posts, like Pranay Pathole did with Elon Musk, can build real traction. 

Product hunt 

Growth hack #5: Aim to be “Number one product of the day”  

To do this you need a lot of support from friends, family, colleagues, community members etc. You need them to upvote your product-on-product hunt within 24 hours of launch. The only catch here is to make sure these people are active Product Hunt users.‍ 

PR (Perhubungan Awam) 

Growth hack #6: Tap into communities, courses & conversations 
Join thriving communities like @indiehackers where members actively amplify each other’s work. Enroll in cohort-based courses to build genuine relationships—help others first, and visibility will follow.  

Also, land speaking spots or podcast guest invites (try MissionMatters or IAmCEO) to share your expertise and build credibility while reaching new audiences. 

Peraduan 

Growth hack #7: Conduct contests on social media to increase brand and product visibility. Rewards can act as a great catalyst to acquire more users. Do keep rewards a part of your user acquisition strategy. 

Rujukan 

Growth hack #8: Reward users to acquire users by referrals and social shares. Dropbox has nailed the viral referral strategy by rewarding users with extra storage for a bunch of actions that lead to acquiring more users for Dropbox. 

SlideShare presentations 

Growth hack #9: Create slideshares with helpful tips and tricks to help drive traffic to your website. 

Senarai 

Growth hack #10: Make sure to list your products in various directories on the internet. Capterra and G2 are great places to list software. As they spend a lot on advertisements as well as they reward your software users with $10 for writing reviews. They email users on their own to request reviews. 

Influencer marketing 

Growth hack #11: Create round-up posts featuring influencers to leverage the network of influencers. Roundup posts like this that feature quotes by influencers are a great way of providing valuable information as well as helping your content go viral. Do remember to personally email the influencers or directly message them on Twitter to request sharing of your content piece. 

Aplikasi 

Growth hack #12: Create or crowdsource helpful apps that can attract users to your product. Shopify App store by Shopify has nailed this hack like no one else. Shopify has facilitated tons of free and paid apps to solve various pain points of their target users like - logo designer, business name generator etc. 

Widget 

Growth hack #13: Create free online tools to attract more visitors to your website. HubSpot Website Grader by HubSpot is a great example. WhatToTweet by TweetHunter is another great example - this one is super low on effort and expense.‍ 

Iklan 

Growth hack #14: Use a combination of ads with and without rewards.   
Combine rewarded and non-rewarded ads to drive actions like app installs, registrations, or purchases. Rewarded ads are cost-effective, bring high-volume traffic, and boost organic visibility.  

Get strategic—target competitor keywords (like how Riverside targets “Zoom”) to capture high-intent users. Focus your ad copy on benefits, not specs, and always A/B test variations to identify what drives the most engagement and conversions.

Berikut adalah 3 faedah menggunakan iklan dengan ganjaran: 

• High volume: You can attract more people from your target audience towards your product in a shorter time. 
• Cost-effective: You are rewarding the user only completion of an action. Example: In case you are rewarding the user for installing your app, the cost per installation reduces significantly as users are motivated to install as allured by reward. 
• Organic oost: Rewarded traffic allows you to acquire users at a higher velocity, making your overall numbers more attractive. This in turn increases your visibility to more people. 

Here is an example by Amazon: 

Landing pages 

Growth hack #15: Optimize every landing with intent and social proof 
When running ads, don’t send users to your homepage—direct them to a targeted landing page focused on the specific solution you’re advertising. This improves relevance and reduces bounce rates.  

Strengthen that page with solid testimonials to build social proof and credibility, nudging visitors toward conversion. And don’t let your 404 page go to waste—turn it into a mini landing page with helpful links or CTAs, just like Netflix and Canva do, so even lost visitors stay engaged. 

Kempen 

Growth hack #16: Draw inspiration from campaigns happening across the world. Open your own t-shirt store online in just 10 minutes by Shopify is an exemplary viral campaign. The campaign managed to bring millions of visitors to Shopify’s website in a super short span of time. 

Sekutu 

Growth hack #17: Leverage influencer and user affiliates for scalable growth 
Turn influencers into affiliates by giving them a stake in promoting your product—especially those whose audiences closely align with your brand. For instance, grocery brands team up with food creators on Instagram, offering special discounts under the influencer’s name to drive conversions.  

Go a step further by rewarding everyday users to join your affiliate program, just like Grammarly does. Their well-incentivized affiliate model has become a major growth engine—proving that when both influencers and users are rewarded, word-of-mouth turns into a powerful acquisition channel. 

Educational and helpful videos 

Growth hack #18: Launch courses on Skillshare, Coursera, Lynda or various other websites offering online courses. HubSpot Academy - A library of tons of educational videos around sales and marketing is one of their prime channels for user acquisition. A scaled-down version of that is having educational courses on third-party websites. 

Podcast 

Growth hack #19: Interview-style podcasts are easiest to manage. Work on landing expert guests. Use dedicated software like Riverside to make editing and publishing as easy as a piece of cake. 

Google business page 

Growth hack #20: Create a Google business page. It helps target customers discover your product/service in your vicinity through the “Near Me” functionality of Google. 

Keseluruhan 

Growth hack #21: Use the following factors to evaluate various channels for user acquisition 

• Brings most traffic (High volume) 
• Brings most customers (Best performing) 
• Costs least to acquire a customer (Low cost) 

It’s not possible to use all the channels, shortlist a few and double down on what works the best for your business. To do so, you can use the bullseye framework, given by Peter Weinsberg, founder of DuckDuckGo. 

Bullseye framework (Simplified) 

The Bullseye Framework is a strategic method used during the Acquisition stage of the AARRR metrics to identify the most effective marketing channels. It revolves around three rings—what’s possible (brainstorming all potential channels like SEO, content marketing, PR), what’s probable (testing a few high-potential ones with small experiments), and what’s working (doubling down on the top-performing channels).  

This structured approach helps businesses focus their time and budget on acquisition strategies that deliver real traction, instead of spreading efforts too thin across ineffective tactics. 

Bullseye framework (Exhaustive) 

The outermost circle represents the possibility of using a variety of marketing channels. The middle circle tells the 5 channels that seem probable based on the target audience, product, type, marketing budget etc. The innermost circle shows the top 3 channels you can use for acquiring customers based on experimenting with the 5 from the middle circle. 

Growth hack #22: Track what works and create FOMO with time-limited freebies 
Use tools like Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, and HotJar to monitor your growth performance and identify which channels are delivering the best results—then double down on those.  

At the same time, create urgency by offering something valuable for free with limited availability. Robinhood nailed this by offering commission-free trading to its first 1 million users, triggering massive sign-ups through a sense of exclusivity and FOMO. Combine data-driven decisions with irresistible, time-sensitive offers to accelerate traction. 

Activation: Do users have a first great experience? 

Growth hack #23: Simplify sign-ups and reward new users 
Make your sign-up process frictionless by allowing logins via Google, Facebook, or Twitter—or offer magic link functionality so users don’t have to remember new passwords. Sweeten the deal by rewarding first-time users with instant credits, just like Uber and Grab did with their $10 sign-up bonuses. This combo reduces drop-offs and accelerates user acquisition. 

Growth hack #24: Offer a discount coupon for the first purchase - ‘10% off on your first order’. People have gotten so used to this first-time discount that you just can’t do without it. 

Growth hack #35: Give users a reason to stay for a longer time on your website. Engaging content, interlinking of articles within the article, content suggestions inside go a long way. 

Use exit-intent popups as an activation strategy. Neil Patel does pretty well with his website.

Growth hack #36: Lure users by telling them about your loyalty program. For example, if you add an item by a particular brand in your cart, it ends up showing you a trailer of their loyalty program.

Growth hack #37: Invite website visitors for more. Show something valuable, hide something even more valuable. Keep more valuable stuff gated behind sign up on the tool. Here is how Patentbots does it. They provide a good deal of information about patent examiners and keep some of it accessible only after login/signup. 

Growth hack #38: Let people taste the awesomeness of your product by making them experience a small functionality. Here is how Plum has nailed it. Plum makes it lucrative for you to reward your customers by providing software and a global catalogue of 21000+ items. As a trailer of their product users can try sending instant rewards from their online portal. 

Growth hack #39: Apply a hello bar to your site - it’s just like a thin banner on top of your website or blog page. The idea here is to drive traffic to the most important part of your website. Maybe you want them to engage in a particular offering as a part of your marketing campaign. 

Hello bars are simple yet effective conversion tricks. Hello bars automatically scroll with a user in order to ensure you are constantly providing users with a CTA. You may wish to explore a free hello bar code. 

Retention: Do users come back for more? 

Growth hack #40: Utilize festivals to offer specials. Better plan this in advance. I was at Starbucks on Halloween weekend. A 10-12 year old girl entered and ordered the Halloween special drink just by looking at the picture. 

Growth hack #41: Look for a way to stay in the user's sight and mind. Netflix nailed this by placing a “Netflix” labelled button on television remote controls. 

Walau bagaimanapun, Netflix mesti membayar banyak wang untuk tempat premium ini. Saya mempunyai Sony LED Tv. Alat kawalan jauhnya mempunyai butang "Netflix", agak ironinya ia tidak mempunyai butang untuk aplikasi "SonyLiv". 

Growth hack #42: Events are a great way to acquire users. Catalyze their engagement using rewards. Reward different actions of people participating in your events whether virtual or on the ground to increase engagement. 

Kajian kes 

Adsyndicate, sebuah agensi pengiklanan bebas secara automatik memberi ganjaran kepada peserta yang menghadiri acara maya mereka. Berikut adalah bagaimana mereka berjaya memberikan 100 anugerah unik kepada peserta untuk tindakan yang berbeza. 

Growth hack #43: Gamify your product experience with rewards to make your product almost addictive for users. To give you an example: There is a boom in the industry for online educational courses, thanks to the pandemic.  

Users not completing the courses and short user life cycles are some common pain points product managers face. Rewards come as a saviour for these product managers. Explore how you can turbocharge your learning program with incentives! 

Revenue: Do users buy from you? 

Growth hack #44: Use a well-planned email nurturing campaign to convert free users into paid users. Grammarly’s email tear down for converting free users into paid users is quite inspirational. 

Growth hack #45: Give customers a reason to buy from you again and again. Amazon does it quite well with its clean interface, intuitive user experience, fast deliveries, excellent service etc. You are sure to multiply your revenue. 

Growth hack #46: Automate shopping cart abandonment emails to close orders. Send an email as soon as someone bounces from your checkout page without purchasing. This is the moment to address any objections the potential customers might have had which prevented them from purchasing. Make sure to add a prompt for the customer to complete the order in the email. 

Growth hack #47: Encourage Subscription-Based Buying with Annual Deals 
Drive long-term revenue by nudging users toward subscription models—especially annual plans that offer better value. Highlight savings clearly, like Smule does with $7.99/month vs. $39.99/year, making the yearly deal hard to ignore.  

For physical goods, follow Amazon’s lead by offering discounted recurring subscriptions on essentials like toiletries and cleaning supplies—giving users both convenience and savings. 

Growth hack #48: Go out of your way to retain customers and make more sales. Many Amazon Fresh users prefer to order groceries from Amazon only. One very strong reason is an assurance of quality products and refunds without any questions if at all the product doesn’t meet your expectations. 

Growth hack #49: Create hype in virtual space to thrive in physical space.  
Before opening your physical location, spark anticipation on social media. Take a page from HeyTea’s playbook—before launching in Singapore, the Chinese milk tea brand invited local influencers to try their drinks and post about it online. The result? Long queues even before the doors opened. 

Amplify this with an Instagram-worthy twist—like personalized latte art or drinks topped with edible clouds—to fuel online sharing and generate real-world excitement. 

Growth hack #50: Create special experiences for your customers and give them a reason to buy more. Here is something smart that a renowned handbags and accessories brand called Charles & Keith did in Singapore - Tea and Threads. They conducted a special embroidery workshop with a designer of one of their collections.

Growth hack #51: Boost Conversions with smart pricing pages and loyalty programs 
Drive more sales by combining loyalty-building tactics with psychology-driven pricing. Start by offering memberships or reward-point programs—just like airlines, hotels, or e-commerce platforms—so customers keep coming back.  

Then, design your pricing page to guide decision-making using cognitive biases: use the decoy effect to make your desired plan stand out, the center-stage effect to highlight the best value in the middle, and the framing effect to position pricing in terms of gain or loss. Together, these strategies make your offerings more appealing—and more profitable. 

Growth hack #52: By default, keep your subscriptions in auto-renew mode. App Store by Apple, GoDaddy, and many other businesses do it. It removes friction for users to make repetitive payments. 

Growth hack #53: Have a Telegram channel to keep customers updated on your latest collections. Help them visualize your collections by collaborating with influencers. Charles & Keith do it quite well. Take a look! 

Growth hack #54: Keep a huge value gap in free and paid tiers to progress users into paying customers. 

Growth hack #55: Add a factor of urgency to your exclusive offers. For instance, check this one by PCloud. The sales offer is for Singles day 11:11, the offer popup has a timer running for deal expiry. A further smart move here is to keep the offer available in the hello bar in case the website visitor misses out on the popup. 

Growth hack #56: Pitch a sales offer at exit intent (When the visitor is about to leave your website). Something like this: 

Growth hack #57: Pitch a solution to the pain point to sell. For instance, take this anti-ant dish, their pitch clearly tells customers that they can be saved from the pain ants give if they are to keep something sweet in a dish. 

Growth hack #58: Facilitate virtual try-ons to help customers visualize products on themselves to increase sales. FarFetch is one such platform where many brands and designers have listed their products; these products are available for virtual try-ons. 

Source: Vogue 

Growth hack #59: Import a bigger platform’s user base. Just like Airbnb imported from Craigslist. Although AirBnB’s hack is an infamous one, there can be ways to do the same differently. 

Growth hack #60: Make thoughtful collaborations with non-competing brands to get more sales - a win-win for both. For instance, Lego and Adidas collaborated over a collection of Lego-inspired shoes in July 2021. 

Growth hack #61: Install vending machines at prime locations like malls and big offices to increase sales. Btw, heard of tech accessories vending machine at Facebook? Or observed PPE vending machines at airports? 

Referral: Do users recommend your product to others? 

Growth hack #62: Go out of your way to earn customer referrals. The other day I asked my friend for some restaurant recommendations. She suggested a few and recommended one very strongly for 2 reasons.  

One - she loved the food. Two - The restaurant team went the extra mile to make my friend feel special. They offered her a complimentary platter of sweets because of the big order size. 

Use cash payouts and digital rewarding to incentivize customers for referrals. Digital rewards shall help ensure genuine redemptions, ease of use for receivers, ease of budgeting etc. 

Growth hack #63: Use branding on freemium products to earn auto referrals. Example: Drift does it quite well. It just adds a sentence on the chatbot: “Chat by Drift” 

Growth hack #64: Give users a plethora of choices for rewards to earn referrals. Tie up with companies like Plum that provide global catalogues for gift vouchers (21000+). The best part is reward choices are global and well categorized. Categorization makes it easy to match the reward with the receiver’s persona. 

Growth hack #65: Host exclusive, invitation-only events. Invite a mix of clients and prospects. You shall observe your best clients doing the selling for you automatically. Also, request referrals in such events, people love the opportunity to get invitations for their friends and colleagues to an exclusive event. 

Membungkus 

Power Your AARRR Funnel with Rewards That Work 

Whether you're scaling a SaaS product, running an e-commerce platform, or building a consumer app, the AARRR funnel isn’t just a framework—it’s your growth engine. But for it to work, you need more than strategy. You need moments that move people to act, stay, return, refer, and buy. 

This is where smart, scalable reward systems give you a serious edge. 

With its plug-and-play reward infrastructure, Xoxoday Plum empowers you to layer meaningful incentives across your entire funnel: 

Acquisition: Offer digital rewards for sign-ups, referrals, or first interactions to increase top-of-the-funnel conversions. 

Activation: Reinforce aha moments—like completing onboarding or exploring core features—with personalized nudges or micro-incentives. 

Retention: Keep users coming back with milestone-based rewards, habit-building gamification, and loyalty perks. 

Referral: Turn happy users into advocates by making it easy (and rewarding) to spread the word with trackable referral bonuses. 

Revenue: Incentivize upgrades, renewals, and higher-value actions with goal-based rewards tied to real outcomes. 

What makes Plum a true growth partner? 

• A global catalog of 1M+ rewards (from digital gift cards to experiences and beyond). 
• Instant delivery in 100+ countries—no logistics issues. 
• Seamless automation with your existing CRM, referral, or engagement stack. 
• Real-time tracking to measure ROI across your growth funnel. 
• Easy personalization to match every user’s preferences. 

Looking to turn intent into action at every stage of your growth funnel? 
Book a free demo and explore how Plum can elevate your AARRR strategy.