LinkedIn’s approach to product testing and growth, with VP of Product Management Ora Levit

When you think of subscription apps, the professional social networking platform LinkedIn might not be your first thought. But maybe it should be! With over a billion active users and several billions of dollars in annual revenue, LinkedIn is one of the most successful subscription app businesses in the world.

This week on the Sub Club podcast, we sat down with Ora Levit, Vice President of Product Management at LinkedIn. We asked Ora about the product development and testing strategies that have helped her team grow LinkedIn into such a success and what other subscription app businesses can learn from it.

Value add

Much of LinkedIn’s success can be attributed to the team’s focus on value-driven growth: a steadfast commitment to consistently adding valuable features to the app. It may sound obvious, but continually evolving an app to provide fresh value is one of the best ways to acquire and retain users and build long-term growth.

This philosophy, along with LinkedIn’s mission to help job seekers and business owners achieve their goals, plays a central role in how Ora and her team approach product development. “First and foremost, LinkedIn’s mission is to provide an economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce …  so we prioritize our free experiences first,” Ora said. This means that LinkedIn is generally free to use but certain nice-to-have features — like marking a job as your top choice — are only available to Premium subscribers. Members also have access to bundled benefits (such as access to Duolingo and Notion) that make a paid membership even more valuable.

Put it to the test

Testing is a key part of any subscription business, and LinkedIn has it down to a science. LinkedIn runs an astonishing 1000+ A/B tests per year, which helps Ora and her team stay in step with what users want. “I don’t believe in sitting in the office by ourselves and figuring out what it should be because we have millions of members — they know better what works for them,” she said. “The more we can minimize time [spent discussing] internally and maximize the time where we learn and go to market and get that signal, the better we are at serving our customers.”

This focus on testing helps the LinkedIn team iterate faster: quickly determining which features are resonating with users and which aren’t — without guesswork.

Retain and regain

While LinkedIn has impressive user acquisition and retention stats, some amount of churn is inevitable. But Ora and her team understand that churn isn’t always the end of the story. When a former customer’s needs change (for example, they start a new business or re-enter the job market), they may become interested in signing up for LinkedIn Premium again.

One way that LinkedIn wins back former subscribers is by offering multiple free trials. Most apps offer a single free trial and once a user has taken advantage, that’s it. But according to Ora, “Our offering changes over time, and as I mentioned, we believe in value-driven growth. We add a lot of value. And so the Premium that you’ve seen if you subscribed two years ago is not the Premium of today. It’s a very different product, and I want you to try it out.” By allowing users to experience the value of the new and improved premium tier, LinkedIn encourages former customers to “boomerang” back into paid subscribers.

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These are just a few of the topics we covered in our conversation with Ora. To hear more of LinkedIn’s story and what you can learn from it, check out this week’s episode of the Sub Club podcast.