I
led
the
development
and
testing
of
an
integrated
monetization
feature
to
promote
partner-sponsored
venues
and
events
without
degrading
user
engagement.
Role:
UX Lead
Duration:
4 weeks
Skills:
UX:UI
design,
quant
methods,
qual
methods,
prototyping
Tools:
Figma,
Figjam,
Mixpanel,
Zoom,
Typeform
OneSignal
As UX Lead, I led the end-to-end process from identifying the monetization opportunity through to experimentation and iteration.
This included defining the business problem, designing and testing solutions, and working closely with growth and engineering to ensure the feature could be deployed and iterated on quickly.
Clyx’s primary monetization opportunity was in partner content — enabling businesses to promote events on the platform. While event-based promotion fit naturally into the app’s existing content discovery experience, many partners wanted to promote their venues outside of events with specific times.
How do we promote engagement with partnered venues in a way that aligned with existing user behavior, rather than disrupting it?
In scope
- Testing how venue-based (non-event) content could be surfaced
- Introducing partner-sponsored content within the content creation experience
- Evaluating placement, structure, and integration with existing user journeys
- Measuring engagement, adoption, and behavioral impact
Out of scope
- Building a full monetization system or pricing model
- Defining long-term partner strategy or revenue operations
- Introducing new event discovery flows
20%
Adoption
% of activated users who complete the feature funnel
50%
Recurrence
% of converted users who who complete twice within 30 days
Parity or higher
% pt difference in engagement between partner venue and purely organic venue events
Through stakeholder meetings, I gathered a deeper understanding of our partners business goals and needs.
Through data analysis, I developed an initial understanding of users' in-app event creation and discovery behavior.
Through interviews and surveys, I sought insight in to how users make plans both on and off the app - especially how they find and choose venues.
In synthesizing requirements and mixed-methods data, I created a clear picture of the overlap between business and user goals.
Images, proximity, & reviews are key factors
When looking for venues, users tend to look for this information to narrow their search.
Users need flexibility on what they decide first
The first decision in the organisational process fluctuates based on a variety of factors.
Monetized content should feel organic
Users don’t engage differently with content because it is sponsored — they engage differently when it feels out of context. Partner content needed to match the structure and intent of organic UGC.
Strong segmentation between creators & non-creators
We want to target all users, not just existing creators. For this feature to have high top-of-funnel, it needs its own space outside of the even creation flow.
Insight-driven brainstorming
After researching, we developed a pool of possible solutions backed by our insights.
Affinity
Mapping
To synthesise our potential solutions, we thematically grouped them to combine overlapping options.
Development cost analysis
Finally, we compared expected dev costs to find the right balance of cost and potential benefit.
The solution needed to be a flexible system that allowed continuous testing of the context in which monetized content was presented.
The structure would support purposeful variation such that key elements - user decision variables, content type, and level of event finalization - could be managed and evaluated over time.
This would make it possible to understand not just whether the feature worked, but under what conditions it aligned with user behavior and maintained engagement.
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The key element of our chosen solution is it's flexibility for testing. With its own page, we're able to adjust the context and ordering in which we present the content without interfering with other features. Outside of testing, the feature provides suggestions in a clear and easily navigable way, allowing users to explore and find something they love quickly.
Testing decision-variables
The discover page utilizes decision-variable grouping. Each section can easily be swapped out to create new combinations for testing.
Testing categorization
In the case where users are looking for an idea that is specific to a type of activity, category filters are available at the top of the page. The ordering of these categories is flexible based on the types of activities we see the most demand for.
Key info is highlighted early
Based on our research, images, proximity, and reviews are the three strongest factors when deciding between venues. To help users make decisions faster, this info is clearly displayed on the outside of all suggestions.
Adoption
22%
Conversion of activated users to posting a partner venue event
Recurrence
48%
Conversion to posting a second partner venue event in the next 30 days
Parity
+3.6%
Higher avg. event engagement against purely organic UGC
Merger with feed
Most users don't open the discover page frequently enough.
So, to further increase top of funnel and reduce the number of features the user needs to learn, we merged the discover page with the home feed.
Retaining idea originator
The cohort of users who have joined events created from suggestions, don't convert to creating from a suggestion any more frequently.
When a user creates an event from an idea, the source of the idea is shown alongside the user who turned it in to an event.