Case Study - LeadDyno

LeadDyno

LeadDyno is an industry leader in affiliate tracking technology and affiliate program management. Since 2014 it has tracked over 309M+ referrals and recorded over $161M in client sales in 2022 alone.

My Role

UX Designer, UX Researcher

Methods

User interviews, survey, wireframes

Team

Product Manager, Technical Delivery Manager, UI Designer, 4 Developers, Customer Support Agent, Growth Marketing

Problem

Affiliate program managers are struggling to accurately gauge the health of their program performance due to inadequate reporting data. They aren't able to see how their affiliates are performing, the product they're selling, or the revenue that they're bringing in. This inability to access essential data poses a significant risk, as it increases the likelihood of user churn. For LeadDyno, ensuring that program managers can perform these health checks is crucial for retaining customers and maintaining business stability.

A view of the legacy design from a design audit. Unfortunately, I was unable to get an asset with data.

Solution

The team designed a new reporting experience to give managers clearer, actionable insights, reducing reliance on customer support and improving retention.

Impact

The gradual rollout of redesigned reporting screens led to improved user satisfaction and engagement, helping reduce churn by an expected 11% and enabling better decision-making for program managers.

Final UI of the visitors dashboard overhaul.

Research: Finding the Root of User Frustration

To kick off my research, I began by combing through help desk tickets to identify users who had a history of reporting issues, along with a shortlist of users whom the product manager had spoken with. This method helped streamline our recruitment process, ensuring that we targeted the right users. We focused on users who met key criteria, for example: generating a minimum of 'X' revenue annually and having an active account for at least one year.

I conducted 8 out of 10 remote, moderated user interviews, with the Product Manager shadowing the sessions. Although scheduling conflicts prevented us from completing all 10 sessions, we were fortunate that users were willing to provide additional feedback via email, which proved to be highly valuable.

After the interviews, I presented the insights to the team and led a survey initiative targeting 100 power users. The goal was to determine if the broader user base shared the same sentiments uncovered during our interviews.

“The data I have now doesn’t tell me much, I have no idea who or how my affiliates are doing. It would be great to be able to see exactly how much of my sales is coming from them.”
- User Interview

User Interview Insights

75% of program managers reviewed report data daily.‍

38% would switch to a competitor if it wasn't so complicated.‍

63% to view affiliate program data as a unique source.‍

User Survey Insights

80% felt reporting is strongly related to program success.‍

65% expressed the need to view affiliate program metrics against their overall program performance.‍

43% felt that data exports were tedious and cumbersome.‍

"I have to contact support to get the data I want, and when I do get it, I always have to spend time in Excel cutting up the report. It’s so tedious.”
- User Interview

Crafting the Solutions: Concept to Delivery

In shaping the solutions, I began by closely examining the research insights to identify the core frustrations users faced with the current reporting system. Collaborating with the Product Manager, we developed key questions for each reporting section, focusing on what users most needed to know to achieve their goals. These questions guided the design of both the screens and the data points, ensuring that every element of the revamped dashboards directly addressed the most critical user concerns.
‍

By centering the design process around these essential questions, we ensured that the solutions were not only functional but also highly relevant to the users' needs. I benchmarked all of the legacy reporting screens and began wireframing concepts using the key questions developed with the PM. Unfortunately, I was unable to showcase the legacy screens here.
‍

We met consistently over a period of time, often with the technical delivery manager and a lead developer to review the feasibility of the concepts. After we established feasibility and viability, I worked closely with the UI designer, creating and refining components and translating the wireframes into high-fidelity mocks.

The reporting overhaul consisted of multiple screens, ranging from the main dashboard, leads, customers, purchases, affiliates, and commission dashboards.

Dashboard redesign for enhanced program metrics.

Problem

Managers are unable to effectively assess both overall program performance and the performance of individual affiliates with the current data set that LeadDyno offers.

Solution

Provided a comprehensive dashboard that displays both overall purchases and affiliate-specific transactions, enabling managers to quickly gauge performance at a glance. The solution also includes purchase attribution in a table format, allowing managers to filter or export data as needed for a detailed evaluation of individual affiliates.

Impact

Empowered managers to quickly identify trends and discrepancies in both overall and affiliate-specific performance. By enabling purchase attribution and enhanced data filtering and export capabilities, managers gained deeper insights, allowing for more informed decision-making and improved strategic planning.

The final design for the purchases dashboard.

Supporting custom data exports.

Problem

Users struggled to access and make sense of their program data in LeadDyno. Custom data reports were handled by the customer support team, but even then, users had to spend additional time cleaning and organizing the data after receiving their file.

Solution

Introduced custom data export functionality, enabling users to select specific criteria and generate personalized reports directly from the platform.

Impact

This solution eliminated the need for support agents to act as intermediaries, providing program managers with direct, on-demand access to their program data. It also freed up valuable time for both the users and the internal team, improving overall efficiency and user satisfaction.

Final CSV export treatment.

Final UI for CSV exporting

Challenges and Next Steps

Usability Testing

Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to test prototypes with users. If I had to go back, I would prioritize another round of testing prior to developer handoff. I was able to gain feedback about our early high-fidelity designs from users we had previously interviewed which garnered positive feedback and continued to work with the PM to conduct flash interviews with users for our design concepts.

Rollout Strategy

Reporting consisted of various screens; visitors, leads, customers, purchases, commissions, and affiliates. Rather than bundling them as one large update, we opted for a phased approach over the next several months. In order to introduce the updates to users, I worked closely with the PM and growth team to design comprehensive communication releases to users as well as design a tool-tip walkthrough for users that see the updated designs for the first time.

Soliciting Feedback

We knew the risk of forgoing usability tests, and focused on functionality expecting corner cases to surface. We wanted to set the expectation for our users that it would not be a perfect release, so we branded the redesigned screens as beta to help ease the transition. I set up an in-app survey using a tool called Refiner to solicit feedback through in-app surveys and encouraged users to contact the team about any bugs or issues. All of this feedback was stored in a research file for iterating.