Overview

This project had two parts: 

1. The creation tool that enables advertisers to customize the messaging experience with pre-programmed decision trees  

2. The messaging experience that empowers members to choose their own path based on what’s relevant to them  

I was primarily focused on building the creation tool and envisioning the future of the messaging experience.

Problem Space

Messaging has become the preferred way of communication for the modern generation because it is instant, less formal and more engaging. This shift is impacting the way people communicate, not only with each other, but with businesses, too.

The previous message offering (Message ads) for members is one-way communication, which is no longer preferred.

Conversation ads vision

Approach

I conducted a heuristic evaluation of 6 competitor chatbot creation platforms to understand the strengths and weaknesses. 

Key takeaways:

1. Users need high visibility of the conversation they are building, but a tree visualization may not equate to being the most usable

2. All platforms provided “templates” as a way to help users jumpstart their conversation build

Explorations

Following a better understanding of the chatbot builder landscape, I explored various interaction models ranging from a decision tree editor to none at all.

Research

I honed in on the “half preview” design as that was the most realistic and consistent interaction model based on the existing ad creation layout. I tested with 5 participants.

Research Goal: Understand how users use and respond to the Conversation ads creation.

Key research areas:

• Does the preview feel intuitive to use for navigation?

• Can advertisers create their ad with a paginated experience? How do they feel about it?

• Does the user understand the Lead Gen Form flow (1 LGF per creative, LGF setup is before conversation setup)? 

Final outcome

As a result of this project, we delivered a new, flexible ad format creation experience for advertisers and an engaging, choose-your-own messaging experience for members. By addressing user pain points and adding the additional features (templates, decision tree preview), we aimed to empower advertisers to customize their messaging experience that best fits their business needs.

Results

"With Conversation Ads, we managed to increase our audience engagement, while cutting our CPC in half. They allow us to offer our audience a variety of information in one attractive ad format - and without forcing them to leave the LinkedIn platform."

— Anne Gebhardt, Digital Marketing Manager Episerver

Metrics

• Generates 45% of Sponsored Messaging leads, 15% of all LMS leads

• Clicks/send is 1.5-2x higher than Message Ads (old ad format)

• ~6,900 new advertisers who have never used Sponsored Messaging generated ~$11.4M in FY-21

Personal growth

• Learned about the chatbot space and decision tree conversations

• Learned how to work with the constraints of staying consistent with other ad creation layouts

• Patent issued for “Paginated Method to Create Decision Tree Conversation”