Find product-qualified expansion accounts
Usage rising, new active users, a second team switching on. The product already told you which customers have outgrown their plan. Read it before the renewal.
The conversation
Sample accounts and numbers, for illustrationYouFind customers where product usage is rising, new active users appeared this month or a second team started using the product, rank them by how much the usage has grown against what they pay for, and give the account manager the evidence for an expansion conversation.
Unify3 checks · product events, warehouse usage tables and CRM
- Read weekly active users, feature use and new users per customer from PostHog and the usage tables in Snowflake.
- Matched each customer to its plan, seats and renewal date in Salesforce.
- Separated rising usage, new active users and new teams, and ranked by growth past the plan.
Twenty-one of 86 customers show one of the three signals. Eleven are past the seats on their plan, and four have a second team using the product.
- 21
- customers with a signal of 86
- 11
- over their seats
- 4
- second team switched on
- 6
- renewing within 90 days shown to owners first
Active users, seats and dates are read from the data. That a customer wants to expand is the reading, and the account manager makes it.
YouRank them by how far past the plan they are and tell me which signal matters most at each.
UnifyMerridian leads: nearly twice the users the plan covers. Northwind is a different conversation, because the growth is a new team, not the old one growing.
- 1Merridian Systems180% of seats
- 2Northwind LabsNew team
- 3Halden Robotics+60% usage
- 4Lumen Freight+12% usage
- Seats versus teams
- Merridian needs more seats for the same team. Northwind needs a plan that covers a second team with its own owner. The notes are different.
- Renewal timing
- Merridian renews in November. The note goes now, so the expansion is a conversation and not a surprise on the renewal quote.
YouShow me the four second teams: which department or domain is new, when it started, and who leads that team?
UnifyFour customers had a second team start this quarter. At three of them the team lead is already a user, which makes the conversation easy to open.
| Customer | New team | Started | Users | Who leads it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwind Labs | RevOps | 3 weeks ago | 8 | Jon Park, Head of RevOps, active |
| Calderon Health | Onboarding | 5 weeks ago | 5 | Ines Varga, Director of Onboarding, active |
| Oakline Health | Field service | 7 weeks ago | 6 | Hana Ito, VP Service, active |
| Brightpath | Finance, on a new domain | 2 weeks ago | 3 | Not identified yet |
The team is read from titles and email domains on the product events in PostHog and Segment, matched to contacts in Salesforce. Where the lead is not identified, the account manager asks the original team.
YouOf the six renewing in the next 90 days, which have grown since they bought, and by how much?
UnifyFive of the six have grown since they bought. Here they are in renewal order, because that is the order the conversations need to happen in.
- Late OctoberBrightpath · owner ChrisWeekly active users up 30% since purchase, plus three finance users on a new domain.
- NovemberMerridian Systems · owner AnaEighteen active on ten seats, up from nine users at purchase.
- Early DecemberCalderon Health · owner ChrisUsage up 45% since purchase, and onboarding started as a second team.
- Mid DecemberOakline Health · owner SamField service added six users; the original team is flat.
The fifth is up 15%. The sixth is flat since purchase and is on the list for its new users, not for growth.
YouDraft the notes with the evidence and route them to the account managers.
UnifyTwenty-one notes are with their account managers, each with the customer’s own numbers attached.
ToNils Berg
SubjectEighteen people on ten seats
Nils, eighteen people on your team used the product last week, on a plan built for ten. That usually means the team grew faster than the setup did. Before November, would it help to look at what a plan sized for the team you have now looks like, and whether the routing rules need to change with it?
Set up
- Twenty-one notes routed to account managers Each opens on the growth in the customer’s own numbers and asks what the team needs next.
- Weekly read of usage against plans New signals reach the owner; customers already written to are skipped until something changes again.
- Renewals inside 90 days flagged first So the expansion conversation happens before the renewal quote, not on it.
The numbers are the customer’s own. The note asks what they need; it does not tell them what to buy.
Product-qualified expansion, with and without Unify
The usage data knows which customers outgrew their plan. It sits in a dashboard nobody in sales opens.
| Without Unify | With Unify |
|---|---|
| Expansion is spotted at renewal, when the customer mentions they added a team | Every customer's usage is read against the plan and seats in the CRM, every week |
| Usage lives in the product analytics tool and the plan lives in the CRM, and nobody compares them | Rising usage, new active users and new teams are separate signals, each shown with its numbers |
| The account manager asks for more seats with no evidence the customer would recognise | Customers are ranked by how far usage has grown past what they pay for |
| A second team adopting the product looks the same as the first team using it more | The account manager gets the evidence in the customer's own numbers, and the note opens on it |
Start from this prompt
Make it your own in Unify, then review the results.
Find customers where product usage is rising, new active users appeared this month or a second team started using the product, rank them by how much the usage has grown against what they pay for, and give the account manager the evidence for an expansion conversation.
What else you can ask for
The walkthrough is one path through this workflow. These are the turns people take most often.
- Over their seatsWhich customers have more weekly active users than seats on their plan, and by how many?Try in Unify
- Second teamWhich customers had users from a new department or domain start using the product this quarter, and who leads that team?Try in Unify
- Renewals firstOf the customers renewing in the next 90 days, which have grown their usage since they bought, and by how much?Try in Unify
How it changes by who you sell to
- Software
- A software customer whose weekly active users doubled since purchase is paying for the old number. Ask for customers where active users exceed the seats on the plan, and open on the growth rather than the overage.
- Financial services
- Bank and insurer usage grows by department as the tool is approved for wider use. Ask for customers where a second department started using the product, and route the conversation through the relationship owner.
- Healthcare
- Provider usage spreads facility by facility. Ask for customers where a new facility or department appeared in the usage data, and for the department head at the new site as the contact.
- Retail and e-commerce
- Retail customers expand by store and by season. Ask for customers whose usage rose outside the seasonal pattern, and for the head of e-commerce or operations rather than the store user.
- Manufacturing
- Manufacturing customers add plants, and each plant shows up as new users on the same account. Ask for customers where users appeared at a new site, and for the plant's operations lead.
Next in customer expansion and health
+2New stakeholdersCatch new stakeholders at customer accountsA new VP at a customer has never heard of you and owns the budget your product sits in. Find them in their first 90 days, before they find a replacement.
+2ExpansionExpand into a customer's neighboring teamsThe next deal is often one department across from the one you already serve, and sometimes it has already started without you. Find both, and who to ask.
+5Cross-sellFind cross-sell opportunitiesCustomers on one product whose stack, hiring or usage says they fit a second one. Name the product, show the evidence, and find the person who would buy it.
Connect what this workflow uses
Each guide covers the connection, what Unify reads and writes, and what to check before the first run.
- Connect PostHogConnect PostHog to Unify as a destination, choosing the product events and the person and company context to send.
- Connect SegmentSend supported Segment events into Unify through Webhook (actions).
- Connect SalesforceAuthorize Salesforce in Unify, configure CRM field mappings, and choose when to enable writing.
- Connect HubSpotConnect HubSpot to Unify, map Company and Person fields, and plan CRM exclusions and supported write-back.
- Connect GmailConnect Gmail to Unify for sequence emails and replies.
Questions about this workflow
Where does the usage data come from?
From PostHog or Segment if you forward product events, or from usage and billing tables in Snowflake or ClickHouse brought in through Fivetran, Hightouch or the Unify API. Users are mapped to the customer account through the group or company property.
What counts as product-qualified?
Three things, shown separately: usage rising faster than the plan allows for, new active users this month, and a second team or department appearing in the data. Any one of them qualifies; two or three rank higher.
How is this different from paywall hits?
A paywall hit is a limit the product enforced. This is usage that grew without hitting one, read against the plan in the CRM, so the conversation happens before the customer is blocked rather than after.
Does the note mention the price?
No. It opens on the growth in the customer's own numbers, names the team that grew, and asks what they need next. The plan and the renewal date are shown to the account manager, not written to the customer.