marketing case study 02


Optimizing Marketing Performance


Marketing Operations | Email Marketing | User Journey Analysis

 

 

The campaign wasn't underperforming because people lacked interest. It was underperforming because unnecessary friction in the marketing workflow prevented people from engaging. By identifying and removing that friction, I improved the user journey and increased campaign performance.

 

01 project background


As part of my marketing role at NextGen InterArts Foundation, I supported sponsorship and partnership outreach for the organization's annual interdisciplinary arts competition. To help potential sponsors better understand the impact of the event, each outreach email included a link to the previous competition highlights video hosted on the organization's website.


To evaluate campaign performance, I monitored key engagement metrics, including email open rates, click-through rates, website traffic, and video views.

02 the challenge


While the email campaign generated strong open and click-through rates, I noticed that the number of video views remained significantly lower than the traffic reaching the website. This indicated that many recipients were interested enough to click the link but were not actually watching the highlight video.


Rather than assuming the issue was related to the email content itself, I wanted to understand where users were dropping off in the engagement journey.

03 investigation



I mapped the recipient's experience from the initial email click to the website and evaluated the entire journey from a user experience perspective.


By walking through the process myself, I discovered that the email directed visitors to a lengthy webpage where the highlight video was buried far below the fold. Users had to scroll extensively before reaching the video, creating unnecessary friction in the experience and increasing the likelihood that they would leave the page before viewing the content.


This analysis suggested that the bottleneck existed not in the email campaign, but in the transition between the email and the website.

04 solution


To streamline the user journey, I collaborated with the website administrator and requested an anchor link that would take visitors directly to the video section instead of the top of the webpage.


After replacing the original webpage URL in the outreach emails with the anchor link, recipients were able to access the highlight video immediately with a single click, eliminating unnecessary navigation.

05 results


Following the workflow improvement, the highlight video's play rate increased by approximately 20%.


Although the email campaign itself remained unchanged, reducing friction within the user journey significantly improved engagement with the campaign's primary content. This experience reinforced the importance of evaluating marketing performance across the entire customer journey rather than optimizing individual touchpoints in isolation.

 

06 marketing operations insights


  • Used performance data to identify hidden workflow bottlenecks rather than relying on assumptions.
  • Applied user experience thinking to analyze the end-to-end marketing journey.
  • Collaborated cross-functionally with the website administrator to implement an efficient solution.
  • Improved campaign performance by optimizing workflow instead of creating new marketing assets.
  • Demonstrated that small operational improvements can generate meaningful gains in marketing effectiveness.