Redesign Email Automation Features to Boost Personalization and Engagement
In this project, I revamped the email automation process, enabling personalized customer journeys and achieving a 15% increase in engagement. By combining behaviour-driven segmentation and advanced workflow design, we delivered a seamless and efficient marketing solution. （Client: EmailOctopus）
Key Outcomes
15% Increase in Engagement
Personalized journeys enhanced user interaction
30% Reduction in Setup Time
Automation streamlined manual processes, saving significant time
20% Improved in Email Open Rates
Refined segmentation strategies targeted right audience
Enhanced Decision-Making
Visualized reports empowered marketers to track and optimize campaigns
Project Overview
This project focused on transforming the existing email automation system to better meet the needs of customers and marketers. The goal was to enhance personalization, improve engagement, and optimize campaign performance through the following objectives:
Define Customer Behavior: Identify key triggers for personalized messaging
Streamline Workflows: Automate processes to reduce manual tasks
Improve Tracking & Reporting: Provide visualization tools to measure campaign effectiveness
My Contributions
I played a central role in the project, contributing across various stages:
Customer Behavior Analysis
Defined behaviour triggers to enable tailored marketing strategies
Workflow Development
Built detailed workflows to automate complex processes efficiently
Stakeholder Collaboration
Gathered insights through interviews and workshops to align the solution with business goals
Journey Mapping
Designed user-centric email journeys, balancing automation and personalization
Data Visualization
Designed reporting dashboards to track and refine campaign performance
Visual Examples
01 -
Customer Journey Mapping
Visual representation of the automated customer journey, highlighting decision points and personalization strategies.
02 -
Customize the Journey Editor to Meet Marketing Goals
Easily create emails, schedule sends, segment journeys by conditions, and adjust the flow based on your customers' actions—all tailored to achieve your marketing objectives.
03 -
Review Detailed Reports
Access comprehensive automation journey reports, including both overview metrics and detailed performance insights for individual emails.
Design Process
Research & Analysis
Problems statement
A basic and limited process for selecting lists, setting triggers, and editing content.
Insufficiently detailed reports, such as the lack of individual email performance breakdowns.
These issues hinder usability and campaign optimization for new users.
Challenges
01 - Help novice users quickly understand and adopt the "Automation Feature" for a smooth onboarding experience.
02 - Create an automation journey that supports complex marketing goals while remaining user-friendly.
03 - Ensure the feature’s UX and style align with the overall product for consistency.
Product review
In order to improve the new automation feature on EO, we analysed EO's current feature and its usability to better understand what is lacking and how we improve this experience.
User journey map
Personas
Competitors analysis
Research Methods
Conducted a literature review on email marketing.
Analyzed competitors and reviewed their automation workflows.
Insights
Intro screens encourage and guide new users.
Pre-built journey blocks improve feature adoption.
Colours and icons enhance user understanding of actions.
Email previews in workflows help users recall content.
Sub-email reports are integrated into journey reports for detailed insights.
Brainstorming
Core Solutions
Feature explanation
Let users quickly distinguish the automation journey by illustrations and explanations.
Pre-built journey
Provided ‘pre-built’ journeys of different marketing goals to aid adoption and create the journey easily.
Audience segmentation
Let users quickly distinguish the automation journey by illustrations and text explanations.
Journey editor
Customizable to fit marketing goals by setting emails, adding time delay, email sending conditions, and customers’ actions.
View reports directly
We set connections between the journey and the reports. Users are able to run through reports directly.
Specific reporting
We made reports more targeted and accessible. Users can directly view detailed reports for the parts they want to know.
User Flow
Preparation Stage:
Access campaigns and explanations.
Create a campaign automation journey or use pre-built journey templates.
Journey Creation:
Select audience segmentations to set triggers.
Customize the journey by adding emails, time delays, sending conditions, and customer actions to align with marketing goals.
Post-Launch Reporting:
Launch the campaign and access detailed reports.
View performance metrics for the overall journey and individual emails.
Low-fi prototype
Wireframe
Prototype - Initial Version
Campaigns page
Manage Campaigns: Access and manage regular and automation journey campaigns in one place.
Journey Overview: Get a clear introduction to the automation journey feature.
Start a Journey: Build an automation journey directly from this page.
Journey creation pages
Name your automation journey and select an audience list.
Choose to create a custom journey or use a prebuilt template.
Set a trigger by defining audience segmentation as the starting condition.
Journey Editor page
Configure emails, time delays, sending conditions, and customer actions to meet marketing goals.
Quickly access both overview and detailed email reports once the automation journey is launched.
Report pages
Overview Report: Shows audience status, proportions, and monthly journey stats, with an option to view detailed email performance.
Email Report: Provides insights into customer interactions and detailed email performance in the journey.
Usability Testing
Iteration
Campaigns page
Keep just one "Create" button to simplify navigation.
Remove the "step count" and add status labels for better tracking.
Add a data module to allow users to preview key metrics.
Journey creating pages
Simplify default options to ensure consistency across all choices.
Journey Editor page -1
01 - Enhance icon styles with clearer shapes and colors for easier selection.
Journey Editor page -2
02 - Add a "Save as Draft" button next to "Publish" to let users save their journey without publishing immediately.
01 -Add a "View Report" icon button for direct access to reports.
02 -Include a data overview feature so users can view data without opening the report.
Report - 1
01 - Simplify text to save space.
02 - Remove the "recent activities" section, as users don’t find it useful.
03 - Enlarge the "Monthly Journey Stats" block, as users find it important.
Report -2
01 -Remove unnecessary information as per user feedback.
02 - Add a dropdown menu to allow users to switch between different email reports.
Updated hi - fi prototype
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Whole journey
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4 pop-ups_purple trigger & ‘more’ button
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All campaigns
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Create a campaign
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Overall report
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Individual report
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Individual report - dropdowns
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Select a journey
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Choose trigger - 1
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Choose trigger - 2
UI Components
Updated prototype
What did our clients say?
During the process, we kept presenting our plans to our clients and conducted quick tests for the purpose of critically receiving feedback.
What I learned?
Focus on the Minimum Viable Product
It is tempting to design more features and come up with solutions to non tested problems. But, it’s vital to get the first version of your product out as soon as possible to understand your users and iterate.
Design can reduce cost/ risk
Through thoughtful design, we helped clients reduce production costs and create greater profits, focusing not only on aesthetics but also on practical value.