Blog Conversion Elements: Quicken

Blog Conversion Elements

Low-frame count, animated, embeddable blog elements that educate visitors on relevant features in Quicken's personal finance software products.

Tools & Platforms Used

• Bootstrap 3
• WordPress Shortcodes
• Adobe Photoshop
• Figma
• Sublime Text
• Quicken Pricing API

Project date

This project completed in February 2023.

Project Summary

The Quicken blog had been experimenting with different types of elements to try and retain user attention, build trust in the brand, and ultimately increase conversion. My goal was to create a new kind of embeddable blog element that encouraged conversion and/or upsells through visitor education. However, it couldn't look like a banner, otherwise it might cause the banner blindness effect. And bonus points if it entertained the visitor a little!

My responsibilities

I designed and developed 5 responsive shortcode blog elements. I fetched data from an already available Quicken web pricing API.

I gathered feedback on the designs and user experience from multiple teams, and iterated improvements into the final versions.

I also conducted some very basic testing on their effectiveness through Optimizely, which resulted in 175% increase in conversion among blog visitors.

The challenge

As previously stated, Quicken needed to encourage visitor retention on the blog and/or website; even better would be increasing the sales of Quicken products!

However, we had to avoid standard banner ads as the average consumer will skip right over it.

To the left are some of the designs that were also experimented with inside the blog.

To the top are some of the other designs that were also experimented with inside the blog.

Solution

I checked out competitor websites for ideas, as well online creative collections like dribbble. I also sketched out wireframes and went through iterative feedback rounds, which began with a simple concept share.

I was most drawn to the idea of low-frame count animations visually showing the user how some of our core financial software features might look and function. Also, if we can tie in an introductory copy line from the content the element is embedded in, that will keep the element feeling like its part of the content. The slowly animating element will be a nice break from a text-heavy page while not being interruptive or obnoxious.

 

 

Results

After many rounds of feedback and iterating design + development tasks, these were ready to test within our real blog content.

The Quicken SEO Manager provided a list of our top performing blog posts. Partnered with the Content Director, we chose 3 to test the separate elements on. We did A/B 50% / 50% traffic to the same blog - one version with the blog conversion element embedded in its content, and one without. We began with just one, and planned to ramp up to all 3 test blogs to get the final, average results between them.

The first round went well, with a 175% conversion rate increase for visitors that were exposed to that conversion element in that specific blog article. However, before we moved onto the second and third testing rounds with the other blogs and shortcode elements, the company decided to move forward on a bunch of huge initiatives - one of which was a rebrand. In summary, all projects were being put on hold so that these new initiatives could be focused on.

That said, with such a clear, positive impact in revenue, I think testing and integration of these elements should have continued. They were development and design complete; they just needed to be implemented more broadly in our content. I’m still proud of this project and the potential revenue it would have captured for company.