Designing

&

validating

a

native

monetization

surface

@

I

led

the

development

and

validation

of

a

venue-discovery

experience

that

turned

sponsored

venues

into

useful

event

ideas,

testing

new

partnership

opportunities

while

maintaining

engagement

with

user-created

events.

View Clyx Website

Role:

Product Manager, UX Designer

Duration:

4 weeks from discovery to MVP validation

Skills:

Product

analytics,

interviews,

surveys,

A/B

testing,

UX/UI,

PRDs,

post-release monitoring

Tools:

Figma,

Figjam,

Mixpanel,

Zoom,

Typeform

OneSignal

My Role

In my role, I owned the project from opportunity framing through MVP validation. I translated growth and partner requirements into product hypotheses, led the research and solution-prioritization process, designed the experience, and worked with engineering and growth to launch and evaluate a configurable MVP within six weeks.

This project's focus was to determine whether partner venues could be integrated in the same ecosystem as partner events, test for genuine user value and provide evidence for further commerical investment.

Context

Clyx had identified partner-sponsored content as a revenue stream. Event promotion fit naturally within the app because events were already its primary form of discoverable content. However, event-only promotion restricted partners to running activities at specific dates and times.

Many prospective partners wanted ongoing visibility for their venues. Supporting this would expand the inventory Clyx could offer, but inserting conventional advertising into a user-generated content experience risked reducing relevance and trust.

Question

How can we create a promotional venue-discovery experience that's in line with how users already make plans while maintaining engagement parity with organic UGC?

Scoping

Many prospective partners wanted ongoing visibility for their venues. Supporting this would expand the inventory Clyx could offer, but inserting conventional advertising into a user-generated content experience risked reducing relevance and trust.

In scope

Testing whether promoted venues could provide useful planning inspiration

Connecting venue discovery to Clyx’s event-creation loop

Evaluating where and how promoted venues should appear

Building a configurable MVP that could support continued experimentation

Measuring initial adoption, repeat use, and downstream event engagement

Out of scope

Selling the feature to partners

Developing pricing or billing models

Building partner campaign-management tools

Measuring revenue or return on advertising spend

Defining long-term partner and revenue operations

Defining Success
01

Adoption

The % of MAUs that publish an event using a promoted venue within their first 30 days.

02

Impact

The % of MAUs that attend an event hosted at a promoted venue within their first 30 days.

03

Recurrence

The % of converted MAUs that publish a second promoted-venue event within 30 days of the first post.

04

Downstream parity

The % difference in average engagement between organic events and promoted-venue events.

Research

I combined stakeholder input, product analytics, interviews, and surveys to answer three questions:

What partner requirements would the feature need to support?

How did users currently find venues and organize plans?

Where could venue suggestions add utility without disrupting existing behavior?

Process
Stakeholder requirements

Conversations with existing event partners clarified the prospective business value: partners wanted sustained venue visibility in addition to promotion of time-bound events.

Survey topics

Ranking

Decision-relevance of event variables

Likert scale

Demand for venue and activity inspiration

Likert scale

Willingness to post with pending event details

Likert scale

Desirability of example event suggestions

Interview topics

How do users approach organizing events outside of Clyx?

Which decisions are made first in the planning process?

How do users feel about sponsored content on Clyx and why?

What makes an app-based suggestion feel useful and trustworthy?

User insights
01

From surveys

Users evaluate venues through a small set of high-signal details

Images, proximity, and reviews were the strongest inputs users relied on when narrowing their venue options.

Implication:

Surface

this

information

up

front

so

users

can

assess

ideas

without

repeatedly

opening

venue-detail

pages.

02

From interviews

Planning does not follow a single sequence

Users did not consistently begin with the same decision. Some started with an activity, while others began with a venue, location, or time.

Implication:

Organize

promoted

venues

around

a

variety

of

planning

variables.

03

From interviews

Contextual relevance mattered more than sponsorship alone

Interviewees did not reject suggestions simply because they were promoted. Negative reactions were more closely associated with content that felt irrelevant, disruptive, or disconnected from what they were trying to do.

Implication:

Promoted

venues

should

use

interaction

patterns

consistent

with

Clyx's

existing

experience.

04

From exploratory usage data analysis

Placing the feature exclusively inside creation would restrict its reach

Usage data showed a clear distinction between users who already created events and those who primarily browsed or joined them.

Implication:

Give

venue

promotion

its

own

discovery

surface

that

could

reach

creators

and

non-creators.

Approach

We considered three principal ways to introduce promoted venue suggestions:

01

Main-feed placement

High visibility.

High risk of disrupting organic event discovery.

High risk of reducing feed relevance & social proof.

02

Creation-flow placement

Strong contextual relevance.

Only reaches users who had already decided to create an event.

03
Selected

Standalone discovery experience

Reaches creators & non-creators.

Protects existing feed.

Controlled environment for testing.

Requires users to navigate to a new page.

Experiment design

As the commercial model remained unproven, we designed the MVP as a learning system rather than a fixed advertising product.

The standalone page was composed of modular sections that allowed the team to vary:

The planning variable used to group suggestions

The types of venues and activities presented

The ordering of content

The amount of event information already defined

User flow & wireframing

Browse venue and activity ideas

Narrow suggestions using planning variables or categories

Evaluate using key information

Select a suggestion

Post the event

Finalize outstanding event details with group

Interface

The selected solution was a standalone page built for both user utility and continued experimentation.

Testing planning starting points

The discover page utilizes decision-variable grouping. Each section can easily be swapped out to create new opportunities for testing.

Activity-led browsing

Category filters supported users who knew the kind of activity they wanted to organize but had not selected a venue. The ordering and composition of categories could be adjusted in response to observed demand, creating another route for testing.

Reducing evaluation effort

The three most relevant decision variables - images, proximity, and reviews - were displayed directly on suggestion cards. Users could also open a suggestion to see the full details.

Release & monitoring

We released the feature to the full user base and used its modular structure to vary planning starting points and category positioning and grouping. Over the first 30 days, we measured conversion to creating an event using a promoted venue, the percentage of users joining promoted-venue events, and downstream engagement relative to organic events. We additionally measured repeat creation up to an additional 30 days after the original creation instance.

Validation results

Adoption

22%

Conversion amongst MAUs to posting a promoted venue event through the new surface in the 30 days post launch.

Impact

58%

Conversion amongst MAUs to attending a promoted venue event in the first 30 days post launch.

Recurrence

42%

Conversion amongst MAUs to posting a second promoted-venue event in the 30 days following their first post.

Parity

+3.6%

Higher avg. event engagement against purely organic user-generated events.

Reflection

This project reinforced that monetization should not begin with deciding where to place advertising. It should begin by identifying a genuine user need that a commercial partner can help satisfy.

By treating partner venues as useful inputs to the planning and creation experience, we identified a potential revenue surface that complemented Clyx’s core product behavior rather than competing with it.