Has anyone figured out a good TTV metric?

Hello,

We're revamping the metrics we report on for the new year and I was wondering if anyone has figured out a good way of mapping time to value on the community? I'm thinking "time to first meaningful interaction" could be good to track but the problem is we have a lot of people who log on to view content but don't post themselves and I don't know if that really captures the value they get out of the space… We post a lot of informational content and I do think that the "lurkers" are getting value out of it, I'm just not sure how to reflect that. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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GrettaKraus

Following!

Kirstie Macfarlane

Hey Alex!

Thanks for your question

I'm sure a lot of your fellow community managers will have some insights here, but I wanted to start you off with a few thoughts.

A good way to think about time to value in community is to broaden “meaningful interaction” beyond posting. For many members, especially early on, value is realized through content consumption, not contribution.

A few ideas that tend to work well together:

Time to first content engagement
Track how long it takes a new user to view a discussion, article, or accepted answer. This captures value for “lurkers” who are learning without posting. Try using a "Most viewed Pages" chart with filters by rank to only look at new users for example.
Views on solved outcome
If you use accepted answers, measure how quickly questions are answered, and how quickly those answers are accepted. Additionally look at page views on questions with and without accepted answers. This ties time-to-value directly to problem resolution.
Consumption-based engagement signals
Metrics like return visits, pages per visit, and reactions are great proxies for value. Reaction analytics in particular help surface “silent engagement” from users who never post but still interact.
Business impact framing
Pair time-based engagement metrics with outcomes like ticket deflection or use our ROI Calculator to connect early content engagement to downstream savings or efficiency.

In practice, many communities report multiple time-to-value metrics: one for contributors (time to first post or reply) and one for consumers (time to first content engagement or solution view). That way, you’re recognizing value for both voices and "lurkers" without forcing everyone into the same definition of success.

Here are some other posts you may find helpful:

https://success.vanillaforums.com/discussion/4006/understanding-user-visits-content-engagement-in-your-vanilla-community

https://success.vanillaforums.com/discussion/2437/tiptuesday-simplifying-page-view-reporting

https://success.vanillaforums.com/discussion/1736/breaking-down-guest-views-to-find-bots

Tmetcalf

Hi Alex Dunne -
My community was migrated to Vanilla and relaunched after a few bad years: poor platform, poor customer experience, and a need for new strategy. My TTV may be a bit different than others, but I look at the following monthly and quarterly to prove engagement and value:

Visits
Page Views
Time on Site
Active Users (Lurkers)
Monthly Active Users (Participants)
Accepted Answers Viewed
Traffic from and traffic to our Knowledge Base

The last 2 bullets are important to me:

Accepted Answers Viewed show that Community is functioning as a trusted knowledge base
Traffic: if there is a consistent spike in traffic coming from my Knowledge Base, it shows that customers could not find help there and turned to Community.

There are many other metrics I collect, and these may not be what you are seeking, but I hope they help and provide insights into your community's value.

Cheers,
Toby