Big List of DevRel Metrics  ## Metadata - Author: [[Lovely DevEd by Kamran Ayub]] - Full Title: Big List of DevRel Metrics - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #devrel - #metrics - #developerrelations Author: Lovely DevEd by Kamran Ayub Source: Article/Website Reference: https://kamranayub.com/metrics/ date created: 2025-08-22 00:00 --- # Title: Big List of DevRel Metrics ## Table of Contents: - [📚 References](#-references) - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [📖 References](#-references-1) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - Ayub, K. “Big List of DevRel Metrics.” https://kamranayub.com/metrics/ - Related concepts: Net Promoter Score (NPS), Earned Advocacy Score (EAS), Earned Growth Rate. ## 📝 Summary: The article catalogs nearly 50 Developer Relations metrics across four areas—Developer Marketing, Developer Education, Developer Community, and Qualitative measures—plus five “bonus” business-aligned metrics. It emphasizes aligning metrics to business objectives and warns against tracking vanity metrics without demonstrating impact. It also references helpful visual frameworks (e.g., metrics hierarchy, conversions between DevRel objectives) to understand how awareness, education, and community activities ladder up to outcomes. ## 📖 Main Content: The piece is a practical checklist of metrics to consider when measuring a DevRel program. It organizes metrics by function: - Developer Marketing: audience growth and reach (SEO ranking, subscribers), engagement (views, watch time, likes/comments), campaign performance (impressions, clicks, signups), and event reach. - Developer Education: consumption and completion metrics across newsletters, quick starts, use cases, demos, certifications, courses, and learning sessions. - Developer Community: retention and value comparisons, community-generated support, GitHub/Stack Overflow footprint, referrals, and user content. - Qualitative: awareness surveys, developer satisfaction, NPS (company, program, product), EAS, TAM penetration. - Bonus: Net Developer Retention, North Star Metric, Earned Advocacy Score, Earned Growth Rate, and a “Big List of Business Benefits.” Core idea: pick a small set of metrics that align to business outcomes and model conversion between DevRel objectives (e.g., marketing awareness -> education engagement -> product adoption -> advocacy). Avoid tracking isolated vanity numbers that you can’t connect to impact. ### 🗒️ Notes - Developer Marketing - Visibility: search engine ranking; unique visitors/IPs. - Audience: social followers, YouTube subscribers; newsletter opens and clicks. - Engagement: page/video views; average watch time over 0:30; likes, comments, replies. - Paid media: impressions, clicks, signups; ad analytics. - Events: number attended, developers reached; sponsored events and attendance. - Developer Education - Content coverage: count and performance of quick starts, use cases, demo videos. - Learning signals: course completions, certification completions, sessions started. - Email overlap: newsletters opened/clicked (as an education vehicle). - Developer Community - Retention/value: churn rates of members vs. non-members; LTV of active community members vs. active users. - Ecosystem signals: Stack Overflow questions and answer rates; GitHub stars, forks; competitor comparisons. - Community help: forum questions answered by community; UGC volume; referrals from active members. - Qualitative - Perception: product reviews; awareness via surveys; developer satisfaction score. - Advocacy: NPS (company, program, product); Earned Advocacy Score (EAS). - Market: tool usage; TAM penetration. - Bonus (beyond DevRel only) - Net Developer Retention. - North Star Metric (one guiding outcome). - EAS (earned, not incentivized advocacy). - Earned Growth Rate (NPS 3.0). - Big List of Business Benefits (mapping DevRel to business value). - Guidance - “Remember that these are general metrics… you may not want to track [vanity] if you cannot tie them to overall business objectives.” - Visual frameworks mentioned: metrics hierarchy; aligned DevRel program metrics; conversion tracking between DevRel objectives; conversion rate assessment. ## 📖 References: - Article: Kamran Ayub, Big List of DevRel Metrics — https://kamranayub.com/metrics/ - Concepts for further reading: - Net Promoter Score (NPS): see Bain & Company’s explanation. - Earned Growth Rate / NPS 3.0: Bain’s “Earned Growth” overview. - Earned Advocacy Score (EAS): vendor frameworks discussing organic advocacy measurement. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original gist: The list includes many general and potential vanity metrics—don’t track them unless you can link to business goals. - Paraphrase: This catalog spans broad measures, some of which are merely surface-level. Only monitor them when you can show a clear line to business outcomes. 2) Original gist: Visual frameworks map objectives and conversions between DevRel activities. - Paraphrase: The included diagrams outline how different DevRel goals connect and convert—helping teams visualize the funnel from awareness to advocacy and quantify the transitions at each step. ## 📰 Newsletter: This week in Web Dev: we’re sharpening our DevRel toolkits! If you’ve ever wondered which metrics actually matter, Kamran Ayub’s “Big List of DevRel Metrics” compiles nearly 50 data points across marketing, education, community, and qualitative impact—plus business-savvy bonuses like Net Developer Retention and Earned Growth Rate. It’s a handy scorecard for aligning content, docs, and community initiatives with real outcomes (not just vanity numbers). Also on our radar: fresh learning pathways for JS/PHP newcomers, new plugin releases improving performance and editor UX, and community shout-outs to contributors who shipped docs, translations, and accessibility fixes. Keep your dashboards honest: tie watch time, completions, and forum answers to activation and retention. Pro tip—pick a North Star Metric and work backward to content and community levers that move it. Further reading: - Big List of DevRel Metrics by Kamran Ayub: https://kamranayub.com/metrics/ - Primer on NPS and Earned Growth for product-led teams. Got a plugin or tutorial worth featuring? Reply with a link and a one-liner! ## ✅ Action Items: Prompt tailored to your role (GoDaddy, WordPress, OSPO-aspiring): “Analyze how this article advances open-source advocacy, contributor engagement, and education within the WordPress ecosystem: - Alignment to Advocacy: Identify which metrics (e.g., EAS, referrals, community-answered questions, GitHub/Trac/Forums activity, TAM penetration) best evidence sustainable, community-driven growth and responsible funding narratives. - Contributor Onboarding & Retention: Map metrics to onboarding funnels (docs views -> quick start completions -> first issue/PR -> repeat contributions). Include Net Developer Retention, LTV of active community members, and churn comparisons of contributors vs. casual users. - Education Impact: Connect learning assets (quick starts, use cases, demos, courses, certifications) to activation and long-term contributor health. Propose a North Star Metric for contributor education (e.g., ‘first-PR-to-merged within 30 days’ or ‘new contributor 90-day retention’). - Transparency & Inclusivity: Recommend qualitative instruments (developer satisfaction, awareness surveys, NPS by cohort, DEIB segmentation) and publish a public dashboard for accountability. - OSPO Readiness: Translate DevRel metrics into OSPO KPIs (policy compliance, license hygiene, project health, bus factor, issue SLAs, contributor diversity). Outline conversion tracking between program objectives (awareness -> education -> contribution - - Summary: This article provides a comprehensive list of nearly 50 metrics and measurements for measuring developer programs in the field of Developer Relations (DevRel). These metrics cover various aspects of a developer program, including developer product metrics, developer marketing metrics, developer education metrics, developer experience metrics, developer success metrics, developer community metrics, and qualitative metrics. The list includes both quantitative and qualitative measurements that can be used to assess the effectiveness and impact of a developer program. Additionally, the article includes bonus metrics that go beyond DevRel, such as Net Developer Retention and North Star Metric. - URL: https://kamranayub.com/metrics/ So you want to measure your developer program? Here's a list of almost 50 DevRel metrics and measurements to bookmark and important diagrams from the [Developer Relations book](https://geni.us/devrel-book?ref=kamranayub.com).     👉 Remember that these are general metrics, including many "vanity" metrics that you may not **want** to track if you cannot tie them to overall business objectives. ##### Developer Product * Registered developers, accounts * Monthly active users (telemetry or API analytics) * Time to 'Hello World' * Product usage (e.g. amount of cloud resources) * Direct revenue ##### Developer Marketing * Search Engine Ranking * Social media followers, YouTube subscribers * Number of page or video views * Average % watched over 0:30 * Number of 'likes', comments, or replies * Paid advertising performance (e.g. impressions, clicks, signups), ad analytics * Number of newsletters opened and links clicked * Number of blogs written and links clicked * Number of events attended, and developers reached * Number of sponsored events / attendance * Unique visitors or IP addresses ##### Developer Education * Number of newsletters opened and links clicked * Number of quick start guides written and their performance * Number of use cases written and their performance * Number of demo videos produced and viewed * Certification completions * Course completions * Learning sessions started ##### Developer Experience * Time to 'Hello World' * Number of code samples available * SDK downloads * GitHub activity ##### Developer Success * Number of case studies written * Product improvement suggestions captured ##### Developer Community * Churn rates of community members vs. non-community members * Lifetime value of active community members vs. active users * The number of questions/mentions on Stack Overflow The percentage of answered/unanswered questions on Stack Overflow * The number of GitHub project stars * The number of forks for company-hosted GitHub projects or projects that use a product library as a dependency * The number of community-answered questions in your Forum * The number of Stack Overflow or GitHub activities vs. your competitors’ stats * The number of content pieces written by a community member * Referrals by active community members ##### Qualitative * Product reviews * Awareness (via surveys) * Developer satisfaction score * Company, program, and product Net Promoter Score (NPS) * Product Earned Advocacy Score (EAS) * Tool usage, Target Addressable Market (TAM) penetration #### Bonus Metrics and Measurements Below are **five bonuses** that go a bit beyond DevRel only**:** * Net Developer Retention * North Star Metric * Earned Advocacy Score * Earned Growth Rate (Net Promoter 3.0) * Big List of Business Benefits ###### Continue reading this with a free subscription, Big List of DevRel Metrics, Lovely DevEd by Kamran Ayub, 01h4k7jcx2qpx4j4kbv7b59cq8.