Campaign Tool Fragmentation
Campaign setup, reports, and customer data lived across separate views, forcing merchants to switch contexts frequently.
AppCard
Loyalty & Marketing Platform
Streamlining loyalty and marketing for higher merchant retention and customer engagement.
Overview
AppCard is a data-driven loyalty and customer engagement platform that helps retailers turn transaction data into personalized marketing experiences. The goal was to simplify complex analytics and campaign tools into an intuitive, actionable dashboard for store owners and marketing teams. Through user-centered design and strategic UX decisions, the platform improved visibility into customer behavior, campaign performance, and ROI tracking.
End-to-end UX strategy
User research, wireframes to prototypes
Usability testing and design system
Cross-team collaboration
The Challenge
Merchants struggled with a fragmented, inefficient platform that hindered their ability to engage customers effectively.
Offer Management Friction
Merchants struggled to configure loyalty rules, track offer performance, and optimize programs without clearer guidance.
Limited Merchant Confidence
The platform made campaign ROI and setup status hard to scan, leading to lower adoption and weaker merchant retention.
Methodology
Research & Process
Key Design Focus Areas
- Mobile-first for merchant checks.
- Accessibility and WCAG compliance.
- Simplicity through intent-based UI.
Competitive Audit
Analyzed 5 major loyalty platforms to identify gaps in usability and features.
Design Iteration
Moved from low-fi wireframes to a hi-fi design system with a mobile-first focus.
Discover & Define
Conducted user interviews, surveys, and pain-point analysis with 20+ retailers.
Definition
Created 3 core personas and mapped user journeys to visualize merchant workflows.
User Journey Map
Mapped the end-to-end merchant journey from onboarding through campaign management and performance analysis, identifying key touchpoints and pain areas.
Persona
Mark Thompson
Drive customer loyalty and revenue growth through AppCard's data-driven marketing platform, delivering personalized experiences and maximizing customer lifetime value.
Action
Signs up for AppCard
Configures loyalty program
Imports customer data
Creates marketing campaigns
Monitors analytics and performance
Task List
- Create account and confirm setup
- Connect store profile details
- Define rewards and customer tiers
- Adjust rules for branches and offers
- Upload CRM files and map fields
- Resolve sync gaps before launch
- Select audience and schedule timing
- Review the campaign flow end to end
- Track open rates and redemptions
- Compare ROI across active offers
Feeling
Hopeful
Engaged
Cautious
Optimistic
In control
Opportunity
- Clarify onboarding steps and setup progress
- Reduce uncertainty in first-time use
- Offer smarter defaults and previews
- Group loyalty settings more clearly
- Provide cleaner import guidance
- Surface field-mapping issues earlier
- Preview campaign impact before launch
- Make scheduling logic easier to trust
- Highlight ROI insights faster
- Reduce dashboard clutter for core metrics
Mood
Customer confidence over time
Signs up for AppCard
- Create account and confirm setup
- Connect store profile details
Clarify onboarding steps, show setup progress, and reduce uncertainty in first-time use.
Configures loyalty program
- Define rewards and customer tiers
- Adjust rules for branches and offers
Offer smarter defaults, clearer previews, and better grouping for loyalty settings.
Imports customer data
- Upload CRM files and map fields
- Resolve sync gaps before launch
Provide cleaner import guidance and surface field-mapping issues earlier.
Creates marketing campaigns
- Select audience and schedule timing
- Review the campaign flow end to end
Preview campaign impact before launch and make scheduling logic easier to trust.
Monitors analytics and performance
- Track open rates and redemptions
- Compare ROI across active offers
Highlight ROI insights faster and reduce dashboard clutter for core metrics.
User Persona
Rachel Cohen
Merchant Operations Lead
Oversees branch setup, loyalty rules, and offer logic across locations, and needs one structured system that reduces setup friction and configuration mistakes.
Needs
- Centralized control over accounts, branches, and reward rules
- Clear hierarchy for program settings across multiple locations
- Fast visibility into customer, campaign, and performance data
Pain Points
- Configuration is spread across disconnected admin screens
- Changes across branches are hard to track and validate
- Frequent context switching slows setup and increases risk
Goals
- Launch and maintain loyalty programs without misconfiguration
- Standardize settings across stores and teams
- Reduce system setup time for new offers and branch updates
Daniel Levy
Merchant Marketing Manager
Builds promotions and tracks ROI, and needs a guided campaign workflow that makes setup faster, safer, and easier to evaluate in real time.
Needs
- Step-by-step campaign creation with clear previews
- Real-time visibility into opens, conversions, and ROI
- Mobile-friendly monitoring for quick campaign checks on the go
Pain Points
- Long multi-step forms are error-prone and hard to review
- No clear preview of campaign impact before launch
- Analytics are difficult to connect back to campaign decisions
Goals
- Launch promotions faster with fewer setup errors
- Optimize loyalty offers using live performance data
- Prove campaign impact and revenue outcomes quickly
The Problem
The Problem
Fragmented Loyalty Program Configuration
Merchants managed loyalty rules, branch settings, and reward logic across disconnected views. Program configuration required navigating multiple sections, increasing operational friction and risk of misconfiguration.
The Solution
Centralized Merchant Control Panel
Designed a unified administrative interface to:
- Consolidate account, branch, and reward configuration into a structured hierarchy.
- Enable dynamic reward rule management (points logic, discount tiers).
- Improve cross-entity visibility across branches and program settings.
- Reduce cognitive load through clear grouping and systemized navigation.
Structured system design simplified multi-entity configuration.
Design Rationale Map
Behavioral mapping layer
Mapping where merchant actions and decision density concentrate.
For AppCard, the useful pressure point is smaller than the full screen: account setup and reward logic carry most of the merchant decision load. This overlay comes from UX review of the interface, not analytics events.
High-value actionsMerchant setup actions concentrate in the account details card, where branch, loyalty, and ownership details meet.
Dense decision areasReward logic is separated because rule changes affect points, discounts, and campaign ROI.
Campaign Workflow
The Problem
Workflow Friction
Creating campaigns required navigating lengthy, multi-step forms with no visual previews, leading to user errors.
The Solution
Smart Campaigns & Automated ROI
- Replaced complex campaign forms with a guided, step-by-step wizard to simplify creation.
- Streamlined the workflow to reduce friction and improve campaign setup efficiency.
- Integrated real-time analytics to track open rates, conversions, and ROI for data-driven optimization.
Achieved by replacing complex forms with a guided, step-by-step campaign builder.
Mobile Experience
On-the-go monitoring
A Lighter Merchant View for Daily Checks
Merchants often reviewed live offers and performance data away from the main dashboard. The mobile surface distilled the product into a faster view for quick checks, active coupon monitoring, and campaign awareness on the go.
- Prioritized revenue and active coupons as the first-scan mobile signals.
- Reduced layout complexity so featured campaigns and coupon cards stay readable on smaller screens.
- Preserved campaign visibility and redemptions without forcing merchants back to desktop.
Impact & Results
35%Faster system setup
50%Faster offer launch
HighMerchant satisfaction and retention
1Modular design system across B2B and B2C
- Merchants can access key performance data significantly faster through the new dashboard widgets.
- The guided campaign wizard cut the time required to launch a new marketing offer in half.
- Improved UX led to higher satisfaction scores and reduced churn among small business owners.
- The modular design system now supports both B2B and B2C use cases seamlessly.
Key Learnings
Mobile-First Critical
Even for complex B2B platforms, busy merchants rely on mobile. Designing for small screens first forced us to prioritize only the most essential actions, boosting overall adoption.
Previews Build Trust
Merchants were hesitant to launch campaigns blindly. Introducing real-time visual previews significantly reduced errors and increased the speed of campaign deployment.
Continuous Feedback
Integrating A/B testing tools didn't just help merchants; it created a continuous feedback loop that informed our own product roadmap and feature prioritization.
Next Project
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