A useful activation event represents experienced value—not simply a completed registration.
Activation is the earliest reliable evidence that a person has experienced the value your app promises. It is specific to the product, customer and commercial model. Copying a popular metric such as profile completion may be convenient, but it can optimise the team around activity that has little relationship with retention.
Begin with retained users. Compare what they did in their first session or first week with the behaviour of people who left. Interview a small number of each group, then test whether candidate behaviours consistently predict a return. Malaysian businesses should also check differences by language preference, device quality, payment method and acquisition channel where those dimensions are relevant and collected responsibly.
A strong definition is understandable to product, marketing and operations teams. It should happen early enough to influence, but late enough to indicate real value. Treat it as a hypothesis and review it as the product changes.