---
layout: post
title: Measuring the Success of a Public Web API
image: http://kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com/api-evangelist-site/blog/API-Craft-Logo.png
author:
  name: kinlane
tags:
- Web
---
I'm a member of a Google group called [API Craft](http://groups.google.com/group/api-craft "API Craft"). There are some really smart API folks talking about everything from API deployment to API business strategies there.

The other day someone in the groups asked:

> _**How does someone measure success in developing and deploying a public–facing Web API?**_

Scott Regan ([@scottregan](https://twitter.com/#!/scottregan)) of [Apigee](http://www.apigee.com "Apigee") gave a great response, and I wanted to share with everyone here. Scott’s suggestions for measurements were:

*   **Revenue** - For public APIs, could be affiliate program revenue, ad revenue, or if incremental traffic from apps to the website has a known monetization rate
*   **Reach** - Incremental new user accounts or unique users
*   **Partnerships** - Number of new partnerships established around your API
*   **Apps** - The number of new apps developed using your API
*   **Traffic** - Apply percentage of incremental traffic ("our API channel is now X% of total internet traffic")
*   **Brand** - Measuring increased 'brand', but only if the company has an really established way to do this

Scott goes on to say:

> _When it comes to business metric tracking one thing i've seen work well is when the API team publishes a 'dashboard' widely and regularly - tracking actual results to estimates - because it helps PM focus the roadmap on what moves the business needle as agreed and avoid getting the team pulled in different directions._

Each API could potentially have different success factors depending on the type of API or the goals of a company. But revenue, reach, partnerships, apps, traffic and increased brand awareness are good places to start.  Thanks Scott.