I first wrote about the A3R3 Funnel as an update to Pirate Metrics.
I now use the A3R3 funnel or the AAARRR funnel as a system of developing growth hacking and growth marketing experiments around the user’s journey for my startup, my agency clients, as well as in my courses.
What is the A3R3 Funnel or AAARRR Funnel?
The A3R3 Funnel stands for:
- Awareness – making people aware about your offering, usually by creating content
- Acquisition – getting your target audience to your offering, usually using an opt-in
- Activation – onboarding the users from this audience, usually by a demo or an onboarding process
- Revenue – getting the first paid signup or purchase, usually by converting the demos to paid users or by a sales process
- Retention – keeping the user on your product or service, usually by improving renewals by offering a great user experience and adding value
- Referral – this is when happy users refer other users to your product or service
The order in which Revenue and Retention appear in the funnel can be exchanged based on the user journey of your product or service.
I use this funnel to design growth experiments and assign the target metrics based on the stage of the AAARRR funnel.
AAAARRR Funnel Activities and Metrics
The following infographic shows the types of activities a growth marketer can do in each stage of the A3R3 funnel and what metrics can be measured.
