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Data Science & Analytics vocabulary · Metrics and KPIs

North star metric

Meaning in data science & analytics, with examples

nounCommon term

In data science & analytics, north star metric means: The single metric that a company believes best captures the core value its product gives customers, used to align teams around one long-term goal.

In Turkish: kuzey yıldızı metriği, ana metrik

How it is used

Popular in product and growth teams. Examples are weekly active users for a social app or nights booked for a travel site. You choose, define or move your north star metric, and other metrics are treated as inputs to it.

Example sentences

  1. Our north star metric is the number of lessons completed per week.

  2. Every team should be able to explain how its work moves the north star metric.

Common collocations

  • define a north star metric
  • move the north star
  • input metrics
  • company north star
  • metricA number that measures something specific about a product, business or process, such as daily sign-ups, average order value or page load time.
  • KPIShort for key performance indicator: one of a small number of metrics that a company or team has chosen to measure progress towards its main goals.
  • daily active usersThe number of unique users who use a product at least once on a given day; one of the standard measures of how engaged an audience is.
  • retentionThe ability to keep customers or users coming back over time; also the percentage of them who are still active after a set period, such as 30 days.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Metrics and KPIs

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