Two-step self-serve campaign creation flow

Redesigning onboarding for self-serve growth: 10X faster flows

To simplify sales to the B2B audience and attract B2C professionals, SEOmonitor needed a self-serve path through campaign creation and forecasting.

I collaborated with the Head of Design to deliver a tested self-serve experience: owned input and review screens, built high-fidelity prototype, and refined the flow through 10 expert interviews.

Problem

Conversion from trial users was around 1% in the existing onboarding flow. Most users dropped off before they reached the product’s value:

15-minute wait - users waited for campaign data due to technical reasons on SEOmonitor's side.
9-step complex form - a long setup with inconsistent design that did not match users' campaign planning process.
Sales help required - most users needed help, which made the journey hard to scale.

15-minute wait

Previously, users had to wait 15 minutes for campaign data due to technical reasons on SEOmonitor's side. That delay came before the product showed any value.

Previous campaign processing wait screen — The old flow made users wait before they could see useful campaign data.

9-step complex form

Before that wait, users had to complete a long form with inconsistent design. The order of questions did not match how interviewed SEO professionals expected to build a campaign.

Old campaign setup form — The campaign setup asked for too much effort before users had seen product value.

Sales help required

Most users needed an assistant to complete the journey. Without help, they were overwhelmed by UI complexity. That made the self-serve experience hard to scale.

Complex campaign and forecast interface — The product had useful data, but the onboarding experience made that complexity hard to approach alone.

Solution: two-step experience

We made a simple two-step experience instead of a nine-step one. Data was predefined and positioned as an insight.

New two-step campaign creation experience — The new flow turned campaign setup into a review step: users checked suggested data instead of creating it from scratch.

Instant forecast

There was no more need to wait 15 minutes. Users could immediately get an approximate forecast while accurate data was processing.

Immediate forecast based on approximate campaign data — The new flow gave users an immediate approximate forecast while the accurate one was still processing.

De-risking the investment

To reduce the risk of an incorrect investment, we tested the prototype through in-depth interviews and UX experiments.

We conducted 10 calls with SEO experts and covered the full campaign-to-forecast journey.

Validation summary with 10 calls and full test coverage

Result

Users could now get value of the tool with zero energy invested. This drove curiosity and trust.

Faster time to value - users could reach their data immediately instead of waiting before seeing product value.
Sales capacity freed up - the new flow reduced basic setup support and helped sales focus on more valuable calls.
Investment risk reduced - 10 SEO experts validated the full journey.

Final exploratory forecast interface — All of the complexity was integrated into an intuitive interface that was easy and interesting to explore.

Bonus: Educational materials

As a bonus, insights from the interviews were reused as educational materials. The same research improved how SEOmonitor communicated its unique features to new users.

Educational materials based on interview insights