Product led GTM: the product does the selling

Product led GTM is a strategy where the product is front and center in driving customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion. A simple way to describe it is:

Product creates demand. Product converts demand. Product expands accounts.

Sales reps lead the customer lifecycle in traditional sales led approaches, but with product led GTM, buyers can experience the product at their own pace. This means that buyers self-educate, self-qualify, and see the value of the product a lot earlier than they otherwise would.

This article covers real examples of product led teams, the ways product demos can fit in, ways to measure success, and how AI can fit in (plus how not to use AI) with a product led approach.

Sales led growth vs product led GTM: why most SaaS companies go hybrid

It helps to separate the two terms.

Product led growth (PLG) is the growth engine. It is the idea that product usage drives customer growth through adoption, retention, and expansion.

A product led GTM strategy is the full system around that engine. It ties together product teams, marketing efforts, sales and marketing efforts, customer success, and measurement so you can predictably acquire customers, convert free trial users into paying customers, and expand accounts.

Sales led growth is a more traditional growth strategy that revolves around a sales team driving customer acquisition. This approach is often used by companies with an enterprise motion and long sales cycles.

A hybrid approach (AKA a product led sales/a product led sales model) is arguably the most common for most modern SaaS companies. The product drives demand and qualifies intent, then the sales and customer success teams focus their time elsewhere.

Here's a blog that breaks down product led GTM vs sales led go to market in more detail.

Where demos fit in with a product led motion

Demos are one of the cleanest ways to make product led GTM work because they let potential customers experience your product without needing a sales call or other setup. They come in not only as “sales call asset”, but as a tool you can use across the whole customer lifecycle. Here's how that looks at each stage:

• Prospect: At the start of the customer journey, demos reduce friction in the buying process. They help people self-educate before a free trial or a sales call. This can lift conversion because prospects get a feel for your product before they ever hit your signup form. Demos can also help customer acquisition cost, because people who aren't a fit bounce earlier. This means that more of the deals on the board are self-qualified and more educated by the time they talk to sales.
• Evaluation: Demos support a faster sales process. They work as a shared leave-behind artifact across stakeholders, so your internal champion can get buy-in and keep the deal moving. Sales reps can send interactive demos after the call to maintain momentum and give stakeholders the extra context you would normally only get by attending the demo, keeping the account aligned between meetings.
• Post conversion: Demos become a customer success lever. They help onboard new roles, introduce premium features, and support expansion. That is where you start improving net revenue retention and increasing customer lifetime value.

At every stage, demos keep the product front and center, providing something to prospects can experience from first click through to onboarding as a customer.

Case study: Flagsmith and product led customer acquisition

Flagsmith (a feature flag tool for software developers) is a great example of product led go to market because they treated demos as part of the acquisition and activation system, not just content.

Here are a few things they did that support product led GTM

1) They added a “Try Interactive Demo” call to action to the homepage.
What this looks like: The CTA sends visitors to a demo centre where they can click around and understand the product before committing to a free trial (or a sales call).
Why it works for product led GTM: It shortens the time it takes for someone to “get it”. That improves customer acquisition quality and makes later conversion steps smoother because prospects arrive at signup already oriented to the workflow.

2) They used demo engagement as an intent signal, not just a vanity metric.
What this looks like: They tracked demo completion and related demo behaviour, then pushed those signals into HubSpot.
Why it works for product led GTM: It makes the motion operational. The sales team can prioritize product qualified leads based on user interactions. This is operationalizing product led sales with sales reps engage when product usage shows intent.

3) They measured downstream impact, not just demo views.
What this looks like: They tied demos to outcomes like free trial signups, activation and conversion.
Why it works for product led GTM: It turns demos into a measurable lever for customer acquisition cost and conversion, rather than a “nice marketing asset” that is hard to defend or improve.

Check out more about how they use interactive demos.

Case study: Komo and the “full loop” use of demos across acquisition, nurture, and expansion

Komo is a customer engagement platform that helps brands run interactive campaigns, collect first-party data, and measure participation. Komo shows the “full loop” use of demos across acquisition, nurture, and expansion. Instead of treating demos as a one-off marketing asset, they use interactive demos and tours to keep prospects and customers moving through the customer journey.

Here are a few things they did that support product led GTM

1) They put an interactive demo on the homepage for inbound prospects.
What this looks like: A visitor can click through a realistic Komo workflow straight from the homepage, without needing to start a free trial or book a sales call.
Why it works for product led GTM: It improves customer acquisition quality by shortening the time it takes for someone to understand what the product actually does. That typically increases conversion rates and reduces friction in the buying process.

2) They ran demo-led email campaigns to keep evaluation moving.
What this looks like: Instead of relying on follow-up meetings, Komo used interactive demos inside outbound and nurture emails so prospects could explore the product at their own pace.
Why it works for product led GTM: It keeps momentum between touchpoints and lets sales reps focus on prospects showing real intent, rather than repeating the same walkthroughs.

3) After conversion, they used in-app product tours and paywalled feature demos to drive upgrades.
What this looks like: Inside the app, Komo surfaced interactive tours and demos for locked features at the moment those features became relevant. Rather than pushing users to a pricing page, they let users experience the premium workflow in context, then upgrade when it clicked.
Why it works for product led GTM: This is demos supporting customer success outcomes, not just marketing and sales efforts. It ties upgrades to real product usage, which makes expansion feel like a natural next step and supports net revenue retention.

4) They connected demo engagement and product usage insights back into HubSpot.
What this looks like: Demo events and usage signals flow into HubSpot so the team can trigger the right follow-up, route leads, and spot expansion opportunities based on real behavior.
Why it works for product led GTM: It turns product usage data into a growth lever. You can see who is engaging, what features they care about, and which accounts are most likely to expand, then act on it quickly.

You can read more about how Komo uses interactive product demos here.

Product qualified leads (PQLs) and the product led sales model

Product qualified leads (PQLs) are leads that show intent through product usage rather than through marketing engagement alone. In a product led sales model, this matters because it changes how sales reps spend time. You stop treating every lead the same and instead prioritize product qualified leads and can engage with them differently based on their behavior.

A marketing qualified lead might have qualified through a marketing campaign click or a form fill. A PQL is driven by product usage data: activation reached, key actions taken, teammates invited, repeated engagement, or interaction with advanced features and premium features.

Flagsmith feeds demo data into HubSpot and adds things like demo completions or demo events to lead scoring. Demo data can be a PQL signal that tells you (and Sales) that the prospect has actually experienced the demo workflow.

Measuring product led GTM with product usage data

Product led GTM relies on measurement. If you cannot connect product usage to pipeline and revenue, you don't really have product led GTM. You just have a free trial.

The most useful measurement approach is to connect three datasets:

1. Product analytics (product usage, user behavior, user engagement)
2. CRM data (pipeline, stages, sales cycles)
3. Billing outcomes (free to paid conversion, expansion, churn).

When that data is connected, you can measure what actually drives customer acquisition and what improves customer experience over time.

When we look at how this plays out in funnel stages, this looks like:

• At the acquisition stage, you want to understand how demos influence conversion. That can be visitor-to-demo starts, demo-to-free trial conversion, and demo engagement through key events.
• For conversion, you want to measure free trial users converting to paying customers, and the relationship between PQLs and closed-won deals.
• For expansion, you want to focus on net revenue retention and which product usage insights predict upgrades.

This is where you start getting clarity on unit economics. You can understand how product led GTM affects customer acquisition cost, and how activation and expansion affect customer lifetime value.

How AI fits into product led GTM

AI fits when it reduces friction in the buying process or helps teams scale their customer interaction without losing quality.

The strongest AI applications tend to be onboarding and personalization, where the product adapts based on user behavior and helps users reach value faster. Another useful area is summarization: giving sales reps and customer success teams a short, accurate view of product usage, demo engagement, and where the account is stuck. AI can also help create demo variants faster, especially when you need different versions for different target audiences.

My honest opinion on this - Rightly or wrongly, AI is inserted into every conversation right now. It can definitely support product led GTM, but I see it hinder it just as often for example - sending out specific messages to prospects based on incorrect information, potentially encouraging prospects to look elsewhere for other alternatives.

The practical takeaway

A product led GTM strategy is not “no sales”. It is a go to market strategy where product teams build the path to value, marketing efforts drive the right traffic, sales reps focus on product qualified leads, and customer success teams scale adoption and expansion using product usage insights.

Demos are a simple, high-leverage way to make that system work because they let potential customers experience the product early, speed up sales cycles, and support expansion after customers convert.

If you're looking at adding demos into your GTM setup, start for free to create your first demo and give it a try, or message us if you'd like to talk.