Instagram sees a 5% decrease in Daily Active Users (DAU) over a week. How do you determine the root cause?

Recall: The GAME Framework

The GAME framework is a structured approach for analyzing product changes and issues:

1. Goals – Clarify what the metric represents and why it matters.
2. Actions – Identify user/system behaviors that may have changed.
3. Metrics – Investigate supporting metrics that explain the shift.
4. Evaluate – Isolate root causes and determine next steps.

Step 1: Goals

First, clarify what DAU means in this context—is it logins, feature usage, or full app opens? Then confirm whether the 5% drop is statistically significant by comparing against historical baselines and accounting for seasonality or holidays.

Also check: is the decline gradual or sudden, and is it localized to certain regions or global?

Step 2: Actions

Identify any recent changes in user behavior or system performance that could explain the drop:

• Was there a decline in app opens, feature usage (e.g. stories, reels), or content creation?
• Did push notifications fail to reach users?
• Was there a drop in content supply (e.g. creator output or virality)?
• Were there external events (e.g. outages, major news)?

Step 3: Metrics

To validate or eliminate hypotheses, drill into supporting metrics:

• Upstream and engagement metrics: Post views, likes, messages sent, time in app
• Platform health: Crash rate, latency, push delivery success
• User segmentation: Break down DAU by device, OS version, geography, user type (new vs. returning)
• Internal changes: Check launch logs for experiments, UI changes, or algorithm updates
• Support signals: Spike in customer complaints, app reviews, or Zendesk tickets

Step 4: Evaluate

Once you’ve gathered evidence, classify findings:

• Root cause: e.g. a push notification bug reduced re-engagement
• Contributing factor: e.g. fewer content creators posting that week
• Irrelevant variable: e.g. unrelated experiment with no reach

Summarize your findings into a timeline and prioritize fixes or mitigations. Communicate with product, engineering, and support teams to take fast action, then continue monitoring to confirm recovery.