Top 9 App Walkthrough Examples To Inspire You

Most interactive product demos or app walkthroughs creation process starts off by coming up with a story for your demo. Instead of staring blankly at your screen, take the best practices from the 9 app walkthrough examples we will break down below.

Unlike onboarding tools that show prospects how to get the most out of software, after they've purchased it, we use the term “app walkthroughs” for interactive demos that allow users to get the feel of your software before purchasing it or booking a sales call. 

The main difference is that app walkthroughs require almost zero commitment from users and that's exactly the reason why they're so popular.

Think of them as a self-serve sales demo, and unlike classic sales demos, they don’t require users to sit through a long sales call with minimal interactions. App walkthroughs also encourage prospects to explore the tool in-depth, unlike product screenshots that show just a fraction of it.

Plus, interactive walkthroughs:

• Cater to users who want to experience the product at their own pace before committing to signing up or jumping on a call.
• Increase conversion rates and sign-ups by up to 1.7x.
• Are available 24/7 and you can easily update them with new features.

So, what do you need to create an interactive walkthrough? You just need the right software and some inspiration. In one of our previous articles, we covered everything you need to know about app walkthrough software, so now it's time to get inspired.

We're going to dive deep into app walkthrough examples from different industries: from tech-savvy tools for digital marketing automation to apps for teachers and students. 

Also, we’ve chosen different types of demos, so you can see platform overviews, feature overviews and demos that dive deep into a particular use case. To learn more about those differences, check out this interactive product demo comparison.

Top 9 app walkthrough examples

Here are some of the best app walkthroughs created by HowdyGo clients. Some of them are website walkthroughs while others are mobile apps.

However, if you want to revise the basics first, check out this article on how to create a great interactive product demo.

1. Flagsmith Platform Overview

Flagsmith is a feature flag and remote configuration service that allows developers to manage feature flags, conduct A/B testing, and control software releases across multiple platforms.

As their tool is complex and has many features, they decided to create walkthroughs for different use cases and used HowdyGo to create a demo center where they host a variety of interactive product walkthroughs:

• Platform overview (the one we'll explore today)
• Feature overview
• Use case deep-dives

Their platform overview demo briefly showcases the most important features in a logical and cohesive way. It doesn't have a protagonist, but it's story-led to a degree, as steps guide users through the process of releasing a new feature.

Interestingly, they used annotations for two purposes: to explain how to use particular features and showcase their value proposition.

The results? “We have clear attribution and have been able to track results — demos are having tangible impact for us." says the Head of Marketing at Flagsmith

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Target audience: Tech leads, DevOps, developers and other technical roles who deploy software

How they’re using it: A secondary button on their home page, with the call to action “Try interactive demo”.

Demo style: Multi-chapter

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Platform overview

Key highlights: 

• This demo has a fantastic 90% completion rate, mainly because it's quick, engaging and easy to follow.
• It’s divided into four chapters whose names clearly suggest what feature is covered in each chapter so users can easily skip a non-relevant chapter or return to one that interests them the most.

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2. Ansarada MS Office

Ansarada is an operational resilience and risk-management platform that helps businesses anticipate potential risks and disruptions and make sure to stay compliant with industry regulations.

Ansarada’s interactive demo focuses on its effortless integration with Microsoft Office. The goal is to educate users on how easy it is to open, edit and collaborate on Microsoft Office files within their platform.

The annotations emphasize the fact that you can collaborate with your colleagues on files in real time without having to download and upload them multiple times, which is a common pain point that causes users to waste time.

Target audience: PLG – Enterprise

Demo style: Story-driven, no chapters

How they’re using it: As part of their feature release blog and in an email to current users to demonstrate the new feature.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Integration overview

Key highlights: 

• The annotations show users how to use the platform and highlight Ansarada’s competitive advantages, such as real-time collaboration and automatically saving changes in files. 
• With HowdyGo, you can add annotations to any element of your demo. Use them to explain features and hacks that are not that obvious and that users might miss if left to explore the tool on their own.

3. Cloudforecast

Cloudforecast is an AWS cost-management tool for engineering and tech teams. Cloudforecast’s platform has many features, but the demo below focuses on the Zero Waste feature, which helps you discover resources that are potentially wasting your money and creates comprehensive reports.

Although it's not very long, the demo is divided into four chapters which makes it even easier to follow.

Target audience: DevOps, engineers, tech teams

Demo style: Multi-chapter

How they’re using it: Embedded straight into the ZeroWaste feature page.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Feature overview

Key highlights:

• The app walkthrough elements are the same orange color as the buttons on their website, providing consistency in branding. (HowdyGo app walkthrough software allows you to customize all elements of your walkthrough down to the browser frame.)
• They're using emojis related to ecology and zero waste to make the walkthrough more engaging.

4. ADInstruments

ADInstruments is a multi-purpose software for science researchers and educators. In this situation they are demonstrating their EdTech platform to academics and course administrators.

This demo provides an overview of Lt, their online learning platform and shows educators how to create courses using their platform. Thanks to detailed explanations, they're making it suitable even for non-tech-savvy teachers.

It also has an interactive walkthrough where educators can see the platform and courses from a student's perspective, showcasing that the platform is a win-win for both parties.

“HowdyGo is very easy to use, and I built a demo within a day. These demos can be iterated on quickly and simply, and Tom and the team are always on-hand to provide help and advice. The HowdyGo team are very responsive, and changes have been made in the product as a result of my feedback, which is really gratifying as a user!” says the Product Marketing Manager of ADInstruments.

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Target audience: Educators and teachers

Demo style: Multi-chapter

How they’re using it: A button on their home page, with the call to action “Instant Demo”.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Platform overview

Key highlights:

• This app walkthrough explains valuable features and provides plenty of tips and tricks for educators on how to get the most out of this platform, which may not be obvious at first. The annotations guide them through different ways to structure a course and explain useful elements that teachers might not notice otherwise, like mini-pages and providing feedback.
• The annotations have cool emojis that make the explanations more engaging and easier to follow.

5. BOGIO

BOGIO is an SMS marketing tool made for e-commerce businesses. Their SaaS product demo is divided into multiple chapters, and it shows how to:

• Create SMS campaigns
• Integrate BOGIO with email marketing tools like Klaviyo
• Examine analytics

Target audience: E-commerce business owners and marketers

Demo style: Multi-chapter, analytics

How they’re using it: Embedded directly into their home page, with translated versions in both English and Swedish.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Platform overview

Key highlights: 

• There are two versions of the same demo, long and short. They embedded the quick and engaging version on their homepage with only a few steps. 
• After finishing the demo, you can press the button See the full-length demo, to unlock the longer version. There’s no need to sign up or commit, but this allows BOGIO to track the percentage of users who clicked on the button and who are probably more qualified leads.

6. Visitly

As the name suggests, Visitly is a visitor management system for tracking visitors, customers and employers. It has many purposes, but it's mostly used for contactless signing in and out by employees.

The platform has many features that are impossible to cover at once, so the app walkthrough focuses on giving an overview while also highlighting the most valuable features, such as visitor flows, dashboards and customization.

If you want to excel in product demo video production just like Visitly, check out this guide with some valuable tips.

Target audience: Businesses of all sizes, especially in industries such as hospitality, tourism, retail and healthcare

Demo style: Multi-chapter

How they’re using it: Sent as a follow up after sales demos.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Platform overview

Key highlights: 

• This demo may have a lot of steps, but its navigation is excellent, so nobody feels overwhelmed by the number of features. Viewers always know how many steps there are left in a chapter (for example, 3/4), and it’s much easier to follow when you know what to expect. 

7. Sleekflow

Sleekflow is an omnichannel marketing platform that serves to build customer journeys and automate communication across all touchpoints.

In this interactive walkthrough, they've opted for a story-driven approach, showcasing their platform from the perspective of Leo, a digital marketing manager with whom many users can identify.

The demo focuses on creating a WhatsApp chatbot and user journey map, but it also briefly touches upon other key features.

For similar tools, check out this article on 8 inbound marketing software for SaaS companies.

Target audience: Business owners and marketers

Demo style: Story-driven, multiple chapters

How they’re using it: Embedded walk-throughs of new features in their product update blogs.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Feature overview

Key highlights: 

• This walkthrough has clickable buttons. For example, you can click on the WhatsApp widget to open the chatbot. Then, you can scroll down to read the sample conversation, making it all feel very natural, like you're using the app.

8. Skodel

Skodel is an app for psychological self-assessments and it has two versions, one for businesses and another one for schools. For this article, we've chosen their product tour for schools created using the HowdyGo demo recording software.

The tool is focused on students' well-being. It allows students to do self-assessments and surveys and creates personalized well-being plans for them.

Although Skodel's users are students, their buyer personas are decision-makers in schools who want to purchase this system. Their demo is simple and quick and story-driven. We're seeing a tool from the perspective of Julian, a student who is taking a survey.

The purpose of the demo is to show that the user interface is simple and friendly, suitable even for students who are not tech-savvy.

Target audience: School principals, teachers, school psychologists

Demo style: Story-driven

How they’re using it: Multiple demos embedded into their website showing the experience of students, school administrators and teachers.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Use case deep dive

Key highlights: 

• Skodel goes above and beyond in terms of providing value. After watching the demo, you’re not asked to sign up yet and you’re offered a free bonus instead (action plan template). What a smart way to capture leads! You can do the same, just think about what could your lead magnet/valuable resource be.

9. Tango

Tango is a tool that helps professionals and small businesses create contracts, work scopes, and automate billing.

Instead of just explaining the key features of their platform, they've opted for a more creative approach to keep users engaged and make sure they watch the whole demo.

They created a fictional character Don Draper that the target audience can identify with, and they're guiding users through a 19-step process showing how Don Draper uses their tool to share proposals.

Target audience: Freelancers, consultants, agencies, small and medium businesses

Demo style: Story-driven, no chapters

How they’re using it: Embedded as a lead-magnet on their website with paid advertising directing viewers to see the demo.

Interactive product demo hierarchy: Platform overview

Key highlights:

• The demo shows the tool from the user's viewpoint and also from the viewpoint of the user's clients (who have to accept the offer and sign the contract), reassuring users that their clients will find it easy to use.
• Two lead-capture forms are placed in the middle of the demo for people who have seen enough and are ready to sign up for their platform. Many users don’t watch the demo until the end or skip some parts, so multiple lead capture forms are essential to ensure everyone sees your CTA.

Want to see more examples? No problem! We've gathered more interactive product demo examples here.

Tips for creating effective app walkthroughs

After creating over 1000 app walkthroughs for our clients and analyzing their performance, we came up with the following tips that will not only help you create app walkthroughs that users will love but will also make sure your demos bring you the desired results (qualified leads, queries, sales, etc).

For a longer version, check out the full article on 7 tips for better interactive product demos, but here are our top three tips for now:

1. Choose the type of walkthrough based on the audience and your funnel

The best way to increase the success of your app walkthroughs is to show the right demo to the right user at the right time. This will depend on your target audience but also on the stage of their buyer's journey.

Here are some suggestions, given that you probably want to achieve different goals at different stages of your marketing funnel:

1. Awareness (TOFU): In the early stages of the funnel, our clients have had the most success with platform overview demos that give viewers the overall feel of the platform without going into too many details. Platform overviews are great to embed on your home page or PPC landing page, as they're a good starting point for getting to know your product.
2. Consideration (MOFU): You can still use platform overviews in this stage, but we suggest feature overview demos as they allow you to highlight some specific features and details that make your solution stand out. Feature overviews are also great for new feature launches since users can see new features in action before they commit to purchasing them.
3. Conversion (BOFU): It's safe to assume that prospects in this stage have already familiarized themselves with the basics of your product and have seen overview demos. This is your chance to remove any purchasing barriers and objections through use case specific deep dives or using a tangible example showing users how your product solves their particular problem.

2. Personalize your app walkthroughs

One of the best ways to increase conversion rates is to personalize product tours for different customers. Imagine being guided through an app as John Doe without a profile picture vs being guided with your own avatar, name or company logo. The experience is completely different, even though the app is the same, right?

With a demo automation software like HowdyGo, this can be updated with only a few clicks. When editing annotations, just enter the variable you want to personalize, for example, the prospect's name. The walkthrough software will then automatically add the prospect's name throughout the tour.

For more secrets on increasing conversion rates, check out this article with 8 examples to increase SaaS landing page conversion rates.

3. Make sure that the app walkthrough is easy to navigate

Creating long and detailed app walkthroughs has its benefits, but you should be careful to not overwhelm your audience. The solution is dividing long demos into chapters and adding navigation that allows users to easily skip or return to previous steps.

According to our performance analytics, 90% of viewers who have seen over 75% of the steps in a platform overview demo go back to revisit some of the steps again.

Bonus tip: Use product analytics and user behavior data to figure out where your users return the most and use that insight to strategically place a lead capture form there. Not all users complete the whole demo, and that's okay, as you can place multiple lead gen forms throughout the tour instead of waiting for the end to add a CTA.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are different types of app walkthroughs and product tours that you can create with HowdyGo, but they all serve the same purpose: to increase your conversion rate and generate more sign-ups and leads.

We hope that these examples inspired you to create interactive walkthroughs for your own product. If you're not sure where to start, we've got you covered. Apart from the free trial, we offer hands-on founder support to ensure the final product is a lead generation machine!

Try HowdyGo for free and see for yourself!

FAQs

How to make an app walkthrough?

First, make a script or list of features you want to cover. Then, get a good app walkthrough tool, open your website or app, show a particular workflow and let the walkthrough tool record it. You can later edit the recording, and add chapters and interactive elements.

What makes a good walkthrough?

A good app walkthrough is interactive and easy to navigate, even for new users. You can create one by adding interactive elements that boost user engagement, such as clickable buttons and menus. If you want to go one step further, you can also add personalization so that your product tours show customer names, profile pictures and logos.

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