Welcoming Brands to Aztro

Between 2019 and 2021 I launched Aztro Marketplace, a platform dedicated to helping design-driven brands from around the world connect with retailers and interior decorators in the United States. Having three different types of customers with different needs and pain points made us focus a lot on how they came to our site.

Metrics-driven Design

We partnered with an SEO agency that managed our Google Analytics and helped us track key metrics related to various aspects of the site such as:

Which landing page got more viewers and conversion rate.
How long a viewer stayed on the page.
Which social media or e-commerce campaigns brought more traffic?
Understand which was the bounce rate
Measure the success of Facebook and Google Ads

With this data at hand, we would adjust, test, and relaunch our landing pages. In the two years, we operated we had about five different landing pages, everyone better or more effective than the other.

Communicating our 'Why'

Our approach was to communicate to their emotional side, then how convenient our solution was. Through conversations with brands, we understood that beyond selling their products, many of our brands cared about who else would be on the platform. They wanted to be next to brands that would elevate the atmosphere.

So we came out with a series of catchy phrases that helped describe our vision and mission. In order to make our message consistent across different channels of communication we looked at these headlines in conjunction with our ad campaign taglines. We used Sembrush, an SEO tool to also measure the success of the words we had in mind.

We used words like “community” and “creatives” to both entice their ego and passions, as well as appear in common related searches for them. For our brands, it became:

“Join a Community of Like-minded Creatives”

Hero Image

We chose an image, that generically any creative would agree as elevated design. For interior decorators, images of products in space help them visualize how products may look in their projects. For retailers, the challenge was that we had a total of 12 categories, from kitchen items to jewelry, to pet products. To simplify the customer experience, we grouped our major categories into five distinct groups and created different variations of our landing page. This approach ensured that as soon as customers landed on the page, they felt a sense of connection and relevance to the content displayed.

1/7

Communicating 'How' and 'What'

One of our early versions of the Landing page for Brands presented the benefits in bullet points. Reading the metrics we saw a high level of bounce rate and a low time on the page. We realize that brands were mostly represented by highly visual people. So we created visually rich illustrations to complement text information. This allowed us to highlight emotional and functional features in a more storyline way.

V3 - Benefits Communication

V7 - Benefits Communication

One of our early versions of the Landing page for Brands presented the benefits in bullet points. Reading the metrics we saw a high level of bounce rate and a low time on the page. We realize that brands were mostly represented by highly visual people. So we created visually rich illustrations to complement text information. This allowed us to highlight emotional and functional features in a more storyline way.

V7 - Benefits Communication

Benefits Communication

During our interviews with prospects and existing members, we found that this pricing structure was one of the keys deciding factors they considered before committing to join our platform. To differentiate ourselves from other e-commerce sites and marketplaces that were often opaque about their fees and charges, we chose to fully display our commission rates. We presented this information in a traditional table format, which allowed users to easily compare and locate key benefits they were interested in.

Call to Acction

On our later versions of the landing page, we opted for using the same call-to-action at the top and the bottom. To test the effectiveness of different CTAs, we conducted A/B testing with a small group, using “Apply to Sell” “Create an Account,” and “Join Our Community.” Although these options seemed simple, it was crucial that we did not lose customers toward the end of the process. Our A/B testing showed that the most effective call-to-action was “Create an Account,” as the word “apply” inspired fear of rejection, and the word “join” communicated over-commitment.

Final Product

Final Metrics

Take Aways

It took us six versions of our landing pages to see some real results. Working with Aztro and directing the design of these pages taught me how to turn data into actionable elements that can be measured, tested, and improved. In many instances, I had to let go of layouts, call-to-actions, and graphics that I thought were beautiful or necessary to better understand, but that ultimately, based on metrics, were taking up critical space or guiding the customer in a different direction.

By putting data-driven decisions at the forefront of our landing page design process, we were able to improve our conversion rates and achieve better results. It's important to always keep the customer journey in mind and be willing to adapt and make changes based on the data. Remember, the ultimate goal is to create an effective and engaging landing page that encourages potential customers to take action.