Benchmarks for Interactive Demos (What to expect 7, 30, and 90 days after launch)

Benchmarks for interactive demos (What to expect 7, 30, and 90 days after launch)

In this year’s State of the Interactive Product Demo report, we shared benchmarks for the top 1% of interactive demos — and they are impressive.

Over 84% of users get past step 1, a nearly 38% jump in engagement from last year. 54% of users click on a CTA to an external link, a notable increase from 2024 (+69%).

A contributing factor here may be the 3.75x increase in demo center usage we’ve seen over the past year. When prospects can pick and choose which demos to go through, they’re more likely to continue following along.

While these metrics are great, they can be intimidating if you’re just starting out.

What’s a normal engagement rate for the first week post-launch? When should you make some tweaks?

To give you a sense of whether you’re on the right track, we’re sharing 7, 30, and 90-day benchmarks and recommendations for adjusting your demo to hit them.

Before diving into benchmarks by timeframe, let’s quickly review the results of our State of the Interactive Product Demo report.

Since we already covered some of the top 1% highlights, let’s take a deeper dive into metrics for the top 10% of demos:

• 70.6% of users got past step 1.
• 43.5% continued on to complete the full demo.
• 28.4% clicked on a call to action to an external link (e.g., to schedule a sales call).
• In total, most users spent close to 2 minutes on the demo.

More complex products seem to get the most engagement — and it’s easy to see why.

In these categories, it’s difficult to show the product’s value without running through setup and integrations. Interactive demos help marketers show how streamlined and easy the process is, leading to more conversions.

Fivetran, for example, featured one of their most used connectors in an interactive demo and embedded it into a landing page.

Users who viewed that page were almost 4x more likely to convert compared to those who didn’t.

But it wasn’t just because of the content in the demo.

Fivetran’s growth marketing manager, Keena Desai, explains, “By adding primary and secondary CTAs as the final step of our demo, we hit a 58% click-through rate.”

To calculate more granular benchmarks, we examined the top interactive demo examples from our customer showcase:

1. To reduce the chances of counting internal testers, we established “Go Live” as the date a demo had 50 unique visitors.
2. Then, we calculated average 7, 30, and 90-day metrics.
3. CTR, engagement Rate, and completion rate didn’t vary much across the three time periods, so we did not break them up by time period.

Note: Average viewers depend entirely on use case and audience. The numbers that follow are for standard website use cases or feature pages.

Interactive demo benchmark summary

Click through rate

What: The percent of engaged visitors who click a CTA during your demo.

Range: 20 - 30%

Engagement rate

What: The total number of sessions with a completed step 1 / the total number of sessions.

Range: 35 - 45%

Completion rate

What: The total number of completed demo sessions / the total number of started demo sessions.

Range: 40 - 50%

Engaged visitors

What: The number of unique visitors who advance one or more steps in your demo.

Range:

• 1 week after go live: 100 - 150 visitors
• 1 month after go live: 300 - 500 visitors
• 1 quarter after go live: 700 - 1000 visitors

Interactive demo benchmarks after 1 week

You should expect to see between 100 to 150 engaged visitors one week post-interactive demo launch.

Keep in mind that you may have a lot of internal testing during the first week of launch, which can inflate your visitor numbers and deflate your CTR.

Use the preview link to prevent internal testing from changing your metrics.

If you’re above these metrics:

Consider sharing your demo to other channels to capitalize on that traffic.

Quick wins could be:

• Linking to it in your LinkedIn job description
• Putting it in your email signature
• Showing it during a webinar
• Embedding it in a blog post
• Using it as a chatbot response
• Making it a Google Ads Sitelink

You can also make it easy for your team to prioritize and follow up with leads by setting up custom Playbooks — a combination of integration operations based on preconfigured Audiences.

If you’re below these metrics:

Consider re-evaluating the medium and placement of these demos.

Maybe you’ll get more traffic if you post it on social media. Or maybe you just need to move your demo higher up on a landing page.

Our research shows that demos above the fold have 3.5 times the engagement rate of those below the fold.

You could also try to show off your new interactive demo at a conference.

Syxsense (acquired by Absolute Security), did just that at a huge cybersecurity trade show called Black Hat.

“Navattic demos turned out to be a great way to reel in potential customers, tease our product, and get people interested enough to book one of those longer tailored demos with our sales reps,” explains Kristen Graves Hoppe, Marketing Director at Syxsense.

Compared to the previous year, their booth attracted 63% more visitors, resulting in a strong first-week engagement boost.

“Interactive demos can equip a single attendee to become a champion for our solution. Plus, they can bring others into the conversation post-show.”

Need some tips? Read How to Create a Conference Interactive Demo

Interactive demo benchmarks after 30 days

30 days after launch, you should expect 300 to 500 visitors.

If you’re above these metrics:

Now that you’ve validated that your demo is successful, try expanding to other interactive demo use cases, such as:

• Embedding demos on your website or product-specific landing pages
• Including demos in your help documentation or customer training
• Using interactive demos in feature launch announcements (newsletters, LinkedIn posts, emails, release notes, academies, Product Hunt pages, etc.)
• Adding interactive demos to your app for onboarding or upsell features
• Adding demos to your review site profiles on G2 or TrustRadius

If you have multiple successful interactive demos, try turning them into one larger demo center. That way, prospects can easily find demos that are most relevant to their industry or workflow.

According to our data, going this route is becoming more and more popular — there was a 375% increase in demo center usage this year.

Klue, a competitive intelligence platform, is a prime example.

By building a multi-use case demo center, they could better address the varied needs of buyers in their ICP.

Doing so led to $1M in new pipeline. By the end of the quarter, $100,000 of it was closed-won.

Eric Holland at Klue shares:

“One demo is not enough, especially if you've got a complicated product with a lot of different jobs to be done within it. When you think about all the different stakeholders involved in the buying process, it's not just your power user or your champion.”

For more on how to build your own demo center, check out: What is a Demo Center? [Plus 6 High Quality Examples]

If you’re below these metrics:

At this point, your CTR should be pretty accurate. If it’s below 20 - 30%, check your analytics and drop-off charts for obvious drop-offs:

• Go through the demo yourself to figure out what’s happening at those points. Maybe the “Next” button is cut off, or it’s not obvious how to progress in the demo.
• Test your demo on different computer widths to make sure there are no friction points.
• Try reordering your content or removing “how to”-focused steps altogether. Doing so will capture your demo viewers’ attention and get them to “wow” moments faster.
• Move your CTAs up so they get seen sooner. Or add more CTAs throughout the demo to encourage clicks.

Interactive demo benchmarks after 90 days

90 days in, you should expect to see between 700 and 1,000 visitors engaging with your demo.

If you’re above these metrics:

Consider expanding interactive demos to a new department like sales or customer success.

That way, if an end user wants to see a particular function or wants more details on a specific process, your sales or CS team can whip up a Navattic demo rather than scheduling a call or recording a long Loom.

The team at Dropbox, for instance, uses Navattic demos to streamline the sales process and user onboarding.

“We use interactive demo content across the organization from the sales-led process to onboarding.

Recognizing that everyone learns differently, we leverage Navattic to create targeted demos. Instead of lengthy videos, we can focus on specific functions or processes, allowing users to explore in a more digestible, chunked manner,” says Wayne Dakin, Senior Solutions Consultant at Dropbox.

Kevin Corelli, Director of Marketing at megadata, says his sales teams use Navattic demos as a cold outreach engagement tool.

“It’s a lower ask than booking a demo, and the team likes it as a trackable alternative to a high-ask Calendly link. By attaching the demos to our CRM, we can see which leads are interacting with the demos and increase their lead score, which can help them convert from a lead to an MQL.”

So far, his team has seen 20% more MQL conversions from emails that include product demos.

If you’re below these metrics:

Take a minute to evaluate the features you show off in your demo. Are there other aha moments you could add or swap out to keep the demo more up-to-date?

Review your demo copy as well. What’s the story you’re telling with your demo?

Generally, the copy that tends to convert addresses users directly and offers guidance — without being too long or hard to read.

Here are 5 quick tips from B2B SaaS marketing experts Anna Furmanov and Erin Balsa to make your demos compelling and memorable:

1. Deliver on your promise. If you say you’re going to show them a specific thing in your interactive demo, that’s what they should be seeing in your interactive demo.
2. Focus on benefits, not features. Explaining how your product increases productivity, saves time, or enables specific functions instantly conveys ROI.
3. Be concise. Top-performing demos use ~15 steps and keep dialogue in each box to 30 words, max.
4. Use friendly language. Speak directly to the user with words like “you,” “your,” “let’s,” and “we.”
5. Carry your brand voice. If you’re trying to be a relatable, fun brand, that voice should make it into your demos.

For more copy inspiration, check out a few of our favorite narrative-focused demos, including:

• Lyra Health
• Soda.io
• Dooly

If you’re still stuck, request to meet with your CSM or book a demo review call with our team so we can give you some pointers.

Or, if you’re looking for more interactive demo tips, check out our customer interview series, where we interview real marketers from brands like Klue, Fivetran, and Dropbox.