Not to worry though, there’s a range of other PLG mechanisms you can layer into your product spanning try-before-you-buy, reward-based and cost-based. You also can’t just glue virality onto the side of an existing product and expect to see rocket-ship growth. If you’re to take away one thing, remember that PLG is not just a free trial. Their ad-based commercial model drives revenue without users having to pay/subscribe, meaning TikTok doesn’t need many other PLG mechanisms to succeed. These factors are included to make sure the system is optimized for performance, but they receive lower weight in the recommendation system relative to other data points we measure since users don’t actively express these as preferences.īecause of the scarily good recommendations, users become addicted, share content widely and come back often leading to viral acquisition loops and strong retention loops. Video information, which might include details like captions, sounds, and hashtags.ĭevice and account settings like your language preference, country setting, and device type. User interactions such as the videos you like or share, accounts you follow, comments you post, and content you create. TikTok explains that the recommendations are based on a range of factors: The main driver of its viral growth is the addictive for you page (FYP) with its distraction-free, full-screen content, the FYP is the default homepage and relies on the best-in-class recommendation engine. The app was launched internationally in 2017, and has since been downloaded over 3 billion times. What better example than TikTok.Ĭompared to the other examples I’ve listed, TikTok is in a different league all together. Lastly, comes the poster child of PLG: Virality. There’s also various B2B offers and deals that give access to meditation products, for instance for American Express cardholders used to get discounted Calm membership, and Headspace is included in some Vitality health insurance plans in the UK. You can even have two people on one subscription (sort of like a family / couple plan). 1) Blinkistīlinkist has layers of PLG motions: no need for users to create an account during onboarding (you can enter the app without registering), a 7-day free trial, a usage-based freemium model and benefits for referring friends (a longer trial). To debunk the ‘it’s just a free trial’ myth, let’s go into a few examples of the four types of PLG to see how broad you can go with consumer apps. This is something Hila Qu, Executive in Residence at Reforge and former Director of Growth at GitLab, talks about extensively in her Ultimate Guide to PLG episode of Lenny’s Podcast (it is an amazing listen, highly recommend).

These are essentially different variations of the same core principle: let people experience the product in order to grow it. Virality: The thing everyone wants, but no one has (unless you’ve built it into the core of your product).

Cost-based PLG: Segmenting monetisation tiers to cater to different users (allowing a broader audience to access different feature sets and generating revenue that you can reinvest back into your marketing budget).

Think referral programs, retention CRM etc.

Reward-based PLG: Rewarding users for engagement, retention or referrals (increasing acquisition or retention loops).Try-before-you-buy PLG: Lowering the barrier to entry via a free trial or freemium model (access certain features or a set amount of content/features).Whilst there’s overlap, I’ve grouped PLG mechanisms for into four core areas: 60% of consumer apps have a free trial according to RevenueCat, and viral apps inherently get airtime due to their hockey-stick growth over a short period of time.īut there’s so much more depth to product-led growth in B2C. It’s not surprising these two get so much attention. Most people think that PLG for consumer products is one of two things: Whilst Product-Led Growth (PLG for short) is a hot ’n’ trendy topic right now, especially in B2B SaaS, we’ve been doing PLG for years over here in B2C.

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