Rolling out a new feature is one thing. Getting users to actually adopt it – and make it part of their daily workflow – is another challenge entirely. To uncover what really drives adoption, we asked B2B SaaS product leaders to share their best tactics.
In this article, you’ll find 30 proven approaches – from building momentum with early champions and surfacing features at the right moment, to co-creating with power users and turning feedback into your best growth lever.
If you’re looking for practical, real-world strategies to ensure your next release doesn’t just launch – but sticks, this article is packed with insights you can apply right away.
Aleks Sztemberg
CPO
Briced
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleks-sztemberg-aa615119
1. Start with one power user
Find one user who gets real value from your product and build your story around them. Then identify others with similar use cases, listen closely to their feedback, and turn their wins into public testimonials.
2. Launch early with a small group
Don’t wait for perfect. Launch new features as soon as they’re usable to a small, targeted group. This speeds up feedback and builds momentum with early champions.
3. Make first-use success inevitable
Focus on product-led growth by guiding users to value in their first minutes- through videos, tooltips, and smart onboarding. If they don’t get it right away, they won’t come back.
Anthony Roux
Founder
Apexio
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyrouxfr
1. Show real value, not potential value:
The most significant barrier to feature adoption isn’t learning curves or technical complexity; it’s users not seeing how it applies to their world. Showing users exactly how a feature would have solved last week’s frustration is much more powerful than demonstrating what it could theoretically accomplish. Skip the generic demos and instead walk them through their actual workflow, highlighting the specific pain points your feature eliminates. When someone sees their real data and thinks, “this would have saved me three hours on Tuesday,” you’ve crossed from interesting to essential.
2. Prove it before you launch:
Building credibility starts before the official release. Partner with engaged customers during development to create genuine success stories that feel both validated and personally relevant. These aren’t polished marketing case studies; they’re real experiences from peers facing the exact same challenges. Focus on specific, measurable outcomes that potential users can immediately relate to their own situations. When people hear concrete results from companies dealing with similar problems, they immediately see how it applies to their world. The key is making validation feel personal, not just proven.
3. Surface features at the right moment:
The best feature discoveries happen during moments of natural workflow friction rather than through generic announcements. Understanding user behavioral patterns allows you to surface relevant capabilities exactly when they’re needed most. When you notice a user consistently copying Jira ticket URLs and pasting them into your tool, that’s the perfect moment to surface your Jira integration. This works even better when you can add context like “Three other product managers on your team are already using this integration.” Features discovered during moments of repetitive friction feel like natural workflow evolution rather than product marketing.
Ivo Bronsveld
Head of Product
Commercetools
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivobronsveld
1. Involve key customers early in the process
Your best customers are the most invested in your success. Give them early access, and they’ll catch issues and provide insights that save you from costly mistakes at scale.
2. Align your customer-facing teams first
Your customer success and services teams are your secret weapon for adoption. When they understand the value and can speak confidently about new features, they become your best salespeople.
3. Show clear ROI from day one
People adopt what clearly makes their business better. Skip the feature tour and lead with concrete benefits – whether that’s time saved, revenue gained, or costs cut.
JB (Jean-Baptiste) Mairy, PhD
Chief Product Officer
MyCellHub
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jean-baptiste-mairy
1. Tackle a problem users have and know they have, even if it’s not the problem you solve in the end. By not solving the problem, I mean not solving the exact problem users express. Sometimes it’s better to solve a more global or local problem than what the users express. For instance, 90% of the frustrations could be solved by tackling 20% of the scope of the problem.
2. Tackle a problem users have searched for a solution to. If it’s a problem, but they didn’t search for a solution, it’s most likely not worth it.
3. Base your feature/release on concrete features that are used by users and their feedback, not based on what you think would be nice
Kalina Lipinska
VP Product
Teamleader
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalinalipinska
As for the adoption of new releases:
1. Make sure the scope of the release is sufficient: it’s too easy to speed up the release by cutting into your MVP, but release too little and users will not find value in it; plus, it will be much harder to get them to come back and try the feature again once it’s improved.
2. Timing: layering the releases, like combining related features into a big bang release, and if not possible, spreading the releases so that they don’t conflict with each other. And obviously avoiding holiday periods and such
3. The correct segmentation: who’s the correct target for the feature, are there subsegments that should receive a different message (like admins versus regular users). Here, the business typically wants to blast to as many users as possible, but it causes release fatigue for users, and as product leaders, we have to guard this extra carefully
Patrick Meutzner
Founder & CPO
Trengo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmeutzner
1. Create buzz upfront without even having the feature, framing the value of the feature as a no-brainer and placing a seed inside of their heads (this helps while promoting the feature later for an easier adoption curve)
2. Make the feature or product as self-service as possible. Everything needs to be self-explanatory, without technical “implementation experts or customer success managers” required to get traction or adoption
To delve a bit deeper into point 2, include as many examples as possible of how the product functions or appears when set up or configured. Show, for example, what the CSAT your customers receive looks like when setting it up. Show how the temporary credit card looks (with the pre-filled info on top of the credit card, e.g., when creating one. This accelerates the adoption because of the visual components, which show the end result, making it immediately understandable.
3. Use conversational AI for your customers to overcome the more complex technical setups (which are adoption blockers) with smooth conversation-plays that auto-generate tailored-made settings and products.
Rune Werliin
CPO/CTO
Starred.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/werliin/
1. Cross-team Effort
Drive adoption as a company-wide initiative, not just a product launch. Coordinate marketing, CS, and sales to ensure the story and value of the new feature are consistently reinforced across all customer touchpoints.
2. Beta Rollouts to Create FOMO
Start with controlled beta rollouts to selected customers. This not only gives you feedback but also builds anticipation and a sense of exclusivity that fuels broader adoption once the feature is released.
3. Iterate early and often.
Track early engagement and collect both qualitative and quantitative feedback to make fast improvements. Showing customers that their feedback shapes the product and drives stronger and sustained adoption.
Martine van der Lee
CPO
KidsKonnekt
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinevanderlee
Driving feature adoption in a noisy world? Go back to basics.
In SaaS — especially in complex industries like childcare — driving high adoption of new features isn’t just about tooltips, in-app onboarding, or email campaigns.
You can only meet people where they are. And in a world full of noise and overwhelm, trust, timing, and relevance matter more than anything else.
Here are three tactics that work, and maybe are becoming even more important – even if they seem counterintuitive:
1. Co-create with your champions, not just your users
Go beyond generic user feedback. Involve the most respected, forward-thinking voices in your niche in shaping your roadmap, naming, and rollout. These aren’t always your biggest customers, but they are your most credible (think knowledge, network, commitment, forward-thinking). When they feel ownership, they become your natural promoters.
2. Make rollout a real moment of real-life connection
In-person events, peer-led sessions, or a personal call from a CSM can cut through digital fatigue like nothing else. Trust is built in person. One breakfast with five local managers can yield more adoption and insights than a newsletter sent to 5,000.
3. Focus on one simple outcome, not the full feature set
Don’t talk about what the feature does, talk about what it changes. In an age of overwhelm, people don’t care about “powerful capabilities.” They care about time saved, fewer steps, or reduced errors. Adoption starts with empathy.
In the end, human connection and simplicity win. Always.
Quentin Denis
Head of Product
Shippr
https://www.linkedin.com/in/qdenis
1. Design the UX/UI to feel instantly familiar and intuitive, minimizing clutter and aligning with patterns users already know. Adoption accelerates when users don’t need to ‘learn’ the product, but can use it almost instinctively.
2. Assume no one will read a handbook or attend training. Features must be self-explanatory, guiding users naturally through visual cues, defaults, and microcopy. If it isn’t apparent, adoption will stall.
3. Don’t confuse speed with incompleteness. Users only adopt features that truly relieve a pain point. Even at the MVP stage, ensure the core problem is solved end-to-end, otherwise, you risk losing trust before adoption even starts.
Bram Billiet
Co-Founder & CPO
usewhale.io
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bram-billiet-uxdesign
Most companies treat customer feedback as a backlog item or a pat on the back. I see it differently. Feedback is (one of) the cheapest, most accurate form of market research you’ll ever get. Customers are literally telling you what they’d pay for.
1. Feedback as Demand Validation
When customers are hacking together workarounds, they’re not complaining; they’re prototyping your next monetizable feature for you. That’s disguised willingness to pay. Ignore it, and you’re leaving ARR on the table.
2. Feedback as Pricing Pressure Test
When customers obsess over one part of your product, they’re giving you data on what’s most valuable. That’s a signal for re-tiering or packaging, not just “making it better.”
3. Feedback as Strategic Forecast
The most interesting feedback is where your product breaks. If SMB users start asking for enterprise-level functionality, that’s not just a feature request; it’s a roadmap telling you what new market you’re being pulled into.
