2K's Direct-to-Consumer Engine
Building an end-to-end e-commerce ecosystem for a global game publisher
Role:
Lead Product Designer
Platform:
Web Application / Responsive Web / Design System
Project Types:
Systems Design / Internal Tooling / E-commerce strategy
Deliverables:
Research, Strategy, User Flows, Design System, Visual Design, Testing.
Summary
Challenge
2K's marketing campaigns were sending players to static landing pages that didn't match their intent or purchase context. This disconnect was suppressing conversion rates across a catalog of titles.
Approach
I led the design of an end-to-end direct-to-consumer ecosystem: a proprietary page builder, a dynamic 2K Store, and a configurable retail component. Replacing static one-size-fits-all funnels with persona-specific, context-aware destinations.
Results
Conversion rate increased 0.8% in the first year and an additional 0.4% in the second, across a platform serving 220,000 monthly visitors spanning multiple game titles and marketing channels.
Context / Background
A review of our traffic analytics revealed a disconnect between our marketing campaigns and user destinations. We evaluated behavior and pain points in relation to business goals and found that outdated methods produced static ads leading to static landing pages that didn’t meet user needs. This prompted us to reassess our cross-team communication, workflows, and tools, uncovering a lack of innovation that contributed to below-average conversion rates.
Persona-Specific Customer Journey
My Role
⬩ As lead designer, I owned the end-to-end design process, from research through delivery.
⬩ I conducted primary research, including user interviews, surveys, and competitive analysis.
⬩ Led the design of individual components, UI patterns, page builder application, and 2K Store website.
⬩ Collaborated to develop new internal processes for marketing campaigns.
Building a Workflow
By collaborating across teams, we modernized our processes and built proprietary tools that enabled the creation of dynamic ads linked to dynamic, persona-specific destinations, resulting in a far more cohesive and effective user journey.
Persona-driven dynamic sales funnels
Page Builder Application
We designed and built a proprietary tool called Beacon Page Builder, which enables anyone to quickly create landing pages. Marketing teams can choose from several popular templates, rearrange section order, and customize component options across mobile and desktop viewports. The system synced with 2K’s Storybook platform, allowing users to review components styled according to each sub-brand’s visual design.
Conversion-Driven 2K Store
Users already deep into the consideration phase of the buyer journey are funneled to the 2K Store, where the user experience is molded to their needs. A dynamic product designed so users land on the correct game product associated with their specific sales funnel.
Matching experiences to user intent.
Individual Game Page
Landing pages & retail component
Users in the awareness and early consideration phases would be directed to landing pages tailored to their segments. The heart of these landing pages was our retail component, which was built with a wide range of features to meet the needs of performance marketing. It can display descriptions and visuals for each edition, advertise sales and bonus offers, and include specific features for mobile and desktop.
Includes section
An extension of the retail component is the "includes" component. Built with an event listener so its content changes to match the user's retail choices.
Always testing
We conducted a variety of tests on the retail component to continuously learn and improve it. The results of these tests helped us identify and fix bugs, improve the performance of the component, and make it more user-friendly. Below is a test document that evaluated the placement of our sale banner.
Results & Impact
Although the improved architecture and user experience of these e-commerce products contributed to increased conversions, it was the research and analysis of our sales funnel that had the greatest impact. Our overall conversion rate increased by 0.8% in the first year, and additional refinements in the second year resulted in an additional increase of 0.4%.
1.2%
Total Conversion Rate Increase
220
Thousand
Monthly Visitors