Meet Emily. She’s an API product manager at ACME, Inc., an ecommerce company that runs on dozens of APIs. One morning, her team lead asks a simple question: “Who’s our top API consumer, and which of your APIs are causing the most issues right now?”
For Emily, that’s not a simple question at all. She doesn’t have direct access to these insights. Instead, she has to reach out to the engineering team. That means interrupting their work, waiting for someone to pull logs or write a query, and then trying to make sense of the output once it finally comes back. By the time she has the answers, the moment has usually passed.
This cycle repeats itself whenever Emily needs to understand adoption, measure performance, or track the health of the APIs she owns. She knows the information exists, but it’s locked behind technical tools she can't easily access. What she wishes for is straightforward: a way to answer these questions herself without burdening the engineering team or waiting for some ad hoc reports.
In this post, we'll learn about the role of API product managers like Emily, who they are, and what their responsibilities include. We'll also walk through the challenges they face when it comes to accessing API analytics, the key KPIs they need to track, and finally, how Kong Konnect's Advanced Analytics can make their job easier.
API product managers look after APIs as products in their own right. Their job is not about building features for an app or website. Instead, they focus on the building blocks that developers use to create those features. Below is what their role entails.
In short, API product managers make sure the APIs they own are not just shipped, but used, trusted, and successful. And to do that well, they need visibility into usage, health, and adoption.
Want to learn more about API product management strategy? Check out the API Product Managers Guide for a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities of managing APIs throughout their lifecycle.
Owning an API doesn't end at launch. API product managers need ongoing visibility into how their APIs are used, how they perform, and where developers run into problems. Without that visibility, they can't make informed decisions about adoption, reliability, or growth.
Below are some of the reasons why many API product managers still struggle to access data.
The result is frustration on both sides. API Product managers can't act quickly, and engineers get stuck responding to ad hoc requests instead of focusing on building and improving APIs.
So what data really matters? If API product managers had direct access to the right insights, they could make faster, better decisions without waiting on others. That starts with a clear set of metrics showing the adoption, performance, and reliability of the APIs they own.
Once API product managers have easier access to analytics, the next question is what to actually measure. Not every metric adds value. The goal is to focus on the signals that reveal adoption, performance, reliability, and business impact.
Here are the most important KPIs to track.
Usage metrics
Performance and health metrics
Security metrics
Business and engagement metrics
Quality of service metrics
Together, these KPIs give API product managers a complete picture of how their APIs are used, how they perform, and how they contribute to business goals.
But knowing which metrics matter is only half the battle. The real challenge is making these insights easy to access and use in daily decision-making. This is where Konnect's Advanced Analytics comes in handy.
Let’s bring Emily back. She logs into her Konnect account and navigates to Analytics → Dashboards. From here, she creates a new dashboard using a pre-existing template. These templates capture best practices and give her a quick starting point.
Now, in just a few clicks, Emily has one place where she can see traffic trends, top consumers, error hotspots, latency, and overall API health. No tickets. No waiting. Just the insights she needs to do her job.
Out of the box, the “Shared services dashboard” template already includes a rich set of charts and metrics.
With this starting point, Emily can add or remove charts, customize the layout, and filter the data to focus on what matters most.
At the beginning, Emily’s simple questions — like "Who is using my APIs?" and "Which ones are causing the most issues?" — felt impossible to answer without waiting on engineering. With Konnect's Advanced Analytics, those answers are now at her fingertips.
She no longer has to chase logs or request custom reports. Instead, she can open her dashboard, see adoption, performance, and reliability in one place, and make decisions with confidence. The engineering team stays focused on building, while Emily gains the independence she needs to guide her APIs toward growth.
For API product managers everywhere, that independence is the difference between reacting to problems and leading with insight.
Exploring Advanced Analytics and creating your first custom dashboard in Konnect is easy. If you're already a Konnect customer, custom dashboards are available in your organization today. Just log in, go to Analytics → Dashboards, and either start with a template or create one from scratch.
If you're new to Kong, you can sign up for Kong Konnect for free and try it out yourself.
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