As funding becomes harder to secure and profitability expectations rise, digital products face greater pressure to show a return on investment. A conflict can emerge between understanding how a product generates revenue and designing with user needs in mind, but the two can reinforce one another. Combining them can show opportunities for products that are both more useful and commercially successful.
Across client engagements in different industries, I’ve seen three recurring problems when business goals and user needs become disconnected:
Revenue is the sole priority. The pressure to meet quarterly results can lead teams to focus on acquisition, engagement, and conversion at the same time, without a clear understanding of the value users need. The result may be a product that struggles to attract customers or relies on manipulative patterns that erode trust and drive people away.
Teams do not link user needs with revenue objectives since one department is concerned with solving customer problems, whereas another is responsible for commercial targets, with little mutual understanding between them. This is especially common in large organizations, where conflicting priorities create a fragmented experience that exposes divisions within the company.
Customer experience is created without any thought for the business model. Although a new product or redesign may start with clear intentions to serve users, revenue issues may go unresolved. Later, when commercial requirements are introduced, they can interfere with the design and make the experience hard to navigate.
Balancing revenue targets with user needs helps safeguard long-term trust and build a sustainable business; both customers and the company benefit when these priorities align.
In this article, we’ll explore:
How clear business objectives help teams identify the right user needs to address
How different revenue drivers influence product decisions
How to balance commercial goals with a strong user experience
How Clear Business Objectives Help You Prioritize the Right User Needs
Having clear business objectives enables teams to determine which user problems are most worth solving.
Take the example of TechCrunch. It might seem obvious for a company that relies on advertising to add more ads on each page to boost revenue. However, this could also annoy readers and cause them to leave the site. When TechCrunch redesigned its website, they focused on getting readers back to the top stories after they finished an article, making it easy to keep browsing. Because it helped users find more of the technology coverage that brought them there, the design also created more opportunities to display ads.
We had a client in the financial services sector who presented a clear problem: they wanted to boost digital engagement because customers who frequently used their digital services were more valuable to the company. This aim identified a particular customer need—making better use of credit card rewards. In response, we created proactive, context-aware widgets that highlighted rewards customers hadn't yet used. By helping individuals discover these benefits, they could get more value from their cards and had a good reason to visit again regularly.
Knowing how the various parts of your product contribute to revenue enables you to make design decisions that support your business objectives. When retention is your main concern, concentrate on features that provide continuous value. But if your aim is acquisition, use onboarding to help new users understand the benefits of the product and allow them to experience these benefits sooner.
How Revenue Drivers Influence Product Design
Business objectives shape product decisions through the activities that generate revenue or commercial value; each factor affects what the product focuses on and how people experience it.
Five common drivers for digital products are:
Sales refer to the act of earning income by selling products or services directly to customers, a practice which is typical in e-commerce and two-sided marketplaces.
Retention refers to keeping existing customers engaged and ensuring they return regularly; this is particularly important in the case of subscription services and free-to-play games.
Usage encourages specific behaviors that generate value, such as content views that lead to advertising revenue or other measurable, high-value interactions.
When a company is expanding its user base, it is more important to attract new customers than to increase engagement amongst its existing users. This situation is typical of businesses in the growth stage and of products that have a freemium model.
The process of collecting data involves obtaining information that gives the company insights that it would not otherwise have and that it would otherwise have to buy from a third party.
Revenue goal | Metrics | Design approaches |
|---|---|---|
Sales — Generate revenue by selling products or services. Examples: e-commerce and two-sided marketplaces. | Sales conversion rate Average order value | Simplify the purchasing process. Help customers choose with curated recommendations, such as “Gifts for her.” |
Retention — Keep existing customers engaged and returning. Examples: subscription services and free-to-play games. | Daily active users (DAU) Customer lifetime value (LTV) | Encourage repeat use. Release new features or content regularly. Reward customer loyalty. |
Usage — Encourage specific actions that create business value. Examples: article views on TechCrunch, nights booked on Airbnb, and messages sent on Slack. | Number of key actions completed | Identify the behaviors that generate the most value. Prioritize features that help users complete those actions. |
Customer acquisition — Attract new customers and encourage them to participate. Examples: growth-stage companies and freemium products. | Customer acquisition cost (CAC) Number of free versus paid users | Offer premium features that motivate users to sign up or upgrade. Improve landing pages and onboarding experiences. |
Data monetization — Gather insights that would otherwise be unavailable. Examples: DNA data from 23andMe and geospatial data from Foursquare. | Data quality and volume | Encourage users to contribute relevant information, such as completing a profile. Give users value in return through insights, personalization, and other useful features. |
This list is missing customer-experience metrics such as CSAT and NPS; monitor them alongside revenue drivers to determine whether your product meets users' needs. Since every revenue model relies on attracting and keeping customers, a strong product experience builds satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn support long-term success.
Balancing Revenue Goals with a Strong User Experience
A product's revenue sources depend on the overall business strategy, but they must match what the product is actually being developed to do. To begin with, we ask ourselves: what must customers do to reach our business goals? The answer could be general, for example, returning each month, or it could be specific, such as carrying out at least three runs. You can use detailed analytics to identify which behaviors matter most.
The way in which you encourage such behaviors is the point at which your business objectives and the needs of users can reinforce one another. First, learn what customers want to achieve, then design ways to help them succeed, which in turn supports the business.
Understanding the patterns linked with various revenue models enables you to spot the areas where customer value and commercial opportunity coincide. Such patterns can assist in making product decisions, and deliberate deviations from them can result in unique experiences.
The closer your revenue model comes to meeting user needs, the stronger the foundation for long-term success and a well-defined market position.
Dworkz is a UI/UX design and development firm based in San Francisco, focused on data-driven B2B SaaS companies. If you want to connect business opportunities with user needs in order to deliver impactful digital products, talk to us.
