Onboarding New Users to AdRoll’s Ad-Tech Product
AdRoll
Summary
Imagine that you're a digital marketer and it's your first day with a new ad-tech platform. Where do you start? What do you do? I designed a feature to help new users complete the account setup process and take their next steps in online advertising on our platform. Through thorough information gathering from stakeholders and subject matter experts, and user testing, I created an effective tool which got our users spending on our platform.
The Challenge
Starting out on the AdRoll platform was complicated; From placing the pixel (a piece of tracking code) on the user’s website to targeting and budgeting for their ad campaigns, because of users’ difficulty in completing setup tasks, we were seeing churn, and AdRoll was missing out on advertising income. We needed a way for new users to get quickly up to speed and start spending on AdRoll's platform.
The Process
To develop a user-centered onboarding experience, we conducted in-depth stakeholder interviews and user research, including user journey mapping and persona development. We identified key pain points and opportunities for improvement, particularly in the sign-up flow, where pricing clarity was lacking. We created detailed user storyboards to visualize the onboarding process for both novice and experienced users. By collaborating with product area owners, we mapped out essential tasks and ensured a seamless user experience across all product features.
Solution
We created a wireframe which had the aforementioned checklist, high-level website metrics, recommended next actions, and a section for resources. Recommended actions and resources update as the user launches certain ad campaign types, as well as changing as time goes by, or if seasonal guidance is available.
We also included a 20 minute live consultation with an AdRoll optimization expert after hearing during research that customers who received consultations had a 32% retention rate after one month versus the baseline of 10%.
Now, we have a multi-tabbed checklist with different technical set up steps required for a user to successfully use ALL of the features within AdRoll, not just ads. As a user completes these steps they’ll see the progress bar fill in along with green checks on each item. I added a section with website metrics.
The “What to do Next” section is now built in logic to guide users on what marketing strategies to start with first in the AdRoll platform—it’s dynamic based on what the user has or has not already launched.
I overhauled the Resources section with built in logic to suggest different content from our resource & help centers, based on where the customer is in their lifecycle.
Results
Our new onboarding features are a success! 23.5% of users engage with the checklist, 5% use "What to Do Next," and 2.5% access further resources. Pixel placement increased 18%, significantly boosting advertising spend.
We're exploring future improvements like personalizing onboarding based on user experience and goals.
We started work on an AI project which would provide guidance on everything from onboarding to campaign setup and the ability to answer performance-related questions. We were in the information gathering stage (before the project was put on hold): interviewing our Account Managers to see what their customers find most valuable, so we can recreate those services with AI so our smaller customers can benefit too.
