Akero Contact Pipelines
Introduction
Akero is a platform that uses AI and automation to improve student advertising performance for higher education. It accounts for over 300 colleges and universities around the world. Their objective is to expand their growth in the US market.
However, the data imported to the contact pipeline needed heavy cleaning, was difficult to manage, missed key metrics, and the reporting features were less than ideal.
The WHO. The WHAT. The WOW!
How might admissions staff members obtain key pipeline metrics and build reports in Akero without need intervention from Akero staff?
01
Introduction (TL;DR)
Data imported to Akero's Contact Pipeline feature was virtually unusable. This also caused repercussions to other potentially powerful features like reporting as the two were linked. Despite this being built with the intention of being a main value proposition, contacts were one of the least used features on the Akero dashboard where less than 5 US clients utilized the features.
Therefore, I recreated the Contact Pipeline's workflow which created many new functions that would be adopted into Akero's new flagship offering "Audience Opportunity Analysis".
02
User Problem
"Anya, the admissions officer for University of East Dakota, needs a way to obtain key pipeline data so that she can determine the performance of her campaigns without without needing the help of Akero staff."
03
User Research
After interviewing 12 key clients, sales, customer success, and our development team, I was able to not only find the biggest pain points that needed to be addressed in our product, but also pain points in our development process. By addressing both these issues, I could create a delightful offering in less time and stress on our team.
Key Takeaways
Clients are concerned about the scalability of their data and would love to be able to build various reports that cater to different members of the team they must inform. Unfortunately, Akero's reporting is not robust and often reports inaccurate data.
Fortunately, there are functionalities pre-built inside of Akero already that can be adopted for this new objective.
04
Our Solution
"Anya, the admissions officer for University of East Dakota, has a way to obtain key pipeline data so that she can determine the performance of her campaigns without without needing the help of Akero staff."
Before and After Examples
Before and After Examples
Here is a redacted version of the project proposal I created along with feature requirements. Each number in the proposal aligns with the numbers in the "After" images so development knew exactly what the desired outcome was.
05
Product Lifecycle
The general flow of this build was broken down into Planning/Analysis, Design, Development, and Launch/Testing/Maintenance using Agile methodology and a bespoke Product Management process that was built around human-centered design.
Key Artifacts
Planning/Analysis – Stakeholder interviews, Scenario Maps, Empathy Maps, KPI definition (such as comparing DAU and MAU to other popular Akero features as well as Unique vs Total Page visits)
Design – Wireframes and User Paths
Development – Product backlog, Gantt Charts
Launch/Testing/Maintenance – Tag UI events for data collection, Utilize Product Management process to make adjustments based on feedback, Release Notes
Sample Agile Process
Custom Akero PM Process
06
Results
Despite the company cutting back labor via layoffs that affected my entire team, there were a lot of benefits in the process. This included laying the groundwork for Akero's newest flagship feature "Audience Opportunity Analysis", streamlining development time, and providing valuable incremental releases for clients (such as new segmentation features).
IBM Master the Mainframe
User registration experience
🚩 Sprint-based revamp to mesh multiple registration sites into one seamless GDPR compliant journey.
🎯 Resulted in ~20% boost in completed registrations !