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Axios Newsletter Ads Tool
As Axios increased their newsletter portfolio, it was crucial to create a less manual and more streamlined way to place and schedule ad creatives as well as quality assure them. Axios original newsletter ad support system was first set up to only manage around eight newsletters. The Ad Ops and CS teams used Google Analytics in order to set-up all Newsletter ads. The workflow by which Ad Ops traffics ads to email newsletters was unsustainable and unscalable.
Discovery
Our mail goal was to provide a sustainable and scalable newsletter ads manager that supports the exponential growth of Axios newsletters: a in-house solution, where users can schedule and QA ads ahead of time, in less than 5 minutes, cutting down the amount of time a user was spending on this process (half a day, everyday). But first, we conducted user interviews to understand the current AdOps workflow and list their pain points.
Weekend work
Ad Ops team would have to be online on the weekends in order to schedule ads for Newsletters coming out that day.
5 different tools
The Ad Ops and CS teams used several different tools in order to set-up all Newsletter ads, which proved to be wary.
2~3 hours a day
We found out that it takes an average of two to three hours of a user’s time every day in order to set up all ads for that day.
Exploring
I explored a list view showcasing all newsletters folders that are coming out that day, together with a filter as a way for the user to select which newsletters they would like to see. I also took a step back and though about how the user would like to better visualize all of the newsletter that are coming out that day and upcoming days. With that in mind I also explored a calendar view and went straight to usability testing.
Testing
During the usability test it was revealed that users were familiar with this pattern and found the experience intuitive so we went through with a list view for MVP allowing users to navigate through past/future dates, featuring newsletters for that specific date, create ad hubs and ad campaigns. We utilized icons as status indicators making sure the tool was accessible to all and decided to re-use a lot of already built components, which allowed us to build the full tool in 3 sprints. Our MVP was ready.
Outcome
1. 25% reduction in overall time spent trafficking and testing newsletter ads.
2. Eliminated weekend work for AdOps team.
3. Reduced risk of AdOps capacity being a blocker to new newsletters.