Pre-Launch Metric Framework for Instagram Stories: Primary Metric, Inputs and Guardrails
Company: Meta
Role: Product Manager
Category: Analytics & Experimentation
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are the product manager for Instagram Stories, and the feature has not launched yet. Stories lets people share photos and short videos that disappear after 24 hours. Before launch, how would you set up the metrics that will tell you and leadership whether Stories is making progress? Explain the goal those metrics serve, the primary metric you would commit to, the supporting metrics and guardrails around it, and how you would set targets for a feature that has no history.
```hint Two sides of one loop
Stories only works if some people post and their friends watch. Think about what each side has to do for the launch to count as a success, and how a new format affects the rest of Instagram.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- What is the main reason for building Stories: getting people to share more often, answering a competitor's similar format, or increasing time in the app?
- Will Stories launch to everyone at once, or through a staged rollout that leaves some users as a comparison group?
- Over what horizon will leadership judge progress: the first weeks after launch, or a quarter or more?
- Will Stories carry ads at launch, or is monetization out of scope for now?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal for Stories stated before any metric, linked to what Instagram is trying to achieve overall.
- The sharer and viewer journeys, with metrics for each step and an explanation of how the two sides feed each other.
- One primary metric with a precise definition and a reason it reflects the goal better than the alternatives.
- Guardrails for cannibalization of feed posts, app performance, safety and privacy.
- A plan for setting targets with no history and for measuring causal impact despite network effects.
### Follow-up Questions
- A month after launch, Stories is popular but feed posting has fallen. Is that a problem, and how would you decide?
- How would you design an experiment for Stories when a user's friends may or may not have the feature?
- What would make you change the primary metric six months after launch?
Overview: A pre-launch metrics question about Instagram Stories. It asks how a product manager would define the goal, a primary metric, sharer and viewer funnel metrics, and guardrails before the feature ships, and how to set targets and measure causal impact once it launches.