The Challenge
The VITAL Card team identified a potentially groundbreaking concept in consumer banking: what if they took the money that banks usually spend on customer acquisition and gave it back to the customer? The result would be a card that could offer best-in-class rewards as well as higher margins. But to make it work, we'd have to find a way to reduce the average CPA from $1000 to around $1.
By working quickly through customer segments, advertisements, and landing page designs, we helped VITAL launch a wildly successful pre-launch campaign, raise their Series A, and hire an internal team to bring the product to life.
How we approached it
12 Weeks
4 Philosophers
Product, Design, Engineering
We welcomed the VITAL team into our office during the course of our engagement, which enabled us to gain a very strong understanding of their business model. The high degree of collaboration also increased our feedback loops, allowing us to experiment with many more design possibilities.
We also collaborated closely with our end users. We conducted eight rounds of user tests comprising 50 interviews. Each round informed changes to our communication design; we ended up running ten different experiments aimed at optimizing our viral coefficient.
What We Made
Optimized marketing campaign and landing page for the pre-launch of the VITAL Credit Card including gamification and feature development to increase sharing.
The Result
- Launched one of the most successful pre-launch campaigns ever
- Improved ad conversion rate from <1% to 35%
- Improved conversion rate from 3% to 25%
- Over 85% of our users come from referral vs an industry average of less than 0.50%
- Helped VITAL hire an internal team and raise two additional rounds of fundraising
100K+
Signups in 3 months
5.73
Viral coefficient
<$.20
Cost per lead
Services
Product Strategy, User Research, Conversion, Marketing Optimization, Brand Design, Card Design, User Experience, Visual Design, Recruiting Support, and Software Engineering.
Technologies
React, Ruby On Rails, Drip, Sendgrid, Postgres, Mixpanel, and Google Analytics.