AdInsight
Digital marketers spend a lot of time manually improving ad campaigns. AdInsight is an AI-powered platform that automates this process, improving ad campaigns’ performance while saving valuable time.
*The platform is currently in internal testing, with a public release planned for 2025. All data and results presented are based on the internal testing version.
Role
Design Lead
Team
Teamed up with one junior designer, two data scientists, four engineers, and one project manager
Year
2023-2024
Overview
Our client was a top digital advertising agency with over 3,000 clients in Hong Kong. As their business grew, they wanted to use AI automation to make their advertising more effective and save time.
This project aimed to make advertising campaigns more efficient and effective by using data strategies and AI technologies, helping businesses achieve their digital marketing goals.
Research
Since our team hasn’t worked with digital advertising before, doing early research is very important. Our research found that digital advertising tool users mainly fall into two groups:
1. Small and medium-sized business advertisers (SMBs) who handle their own ads.
2. Digital marketing agencies managing ads for multiple clients.
We interviewed and surveyed some users from both user groups. Here are some of the key challenges we identified that users face in their daily work:
SMBs:
- Knowledge Gap and Skill Limitations:
- Lack of knowledge in digital advertising.
- Difficulty in using Google Ads to create ads, set budgets, and select keywords.
- Time-consuming to learn and adapt to digital tools.
- Time and Budget Constraints:
- Limited time and financial resources for ad management.
- Rapidly Changing Market Environment:
- Difficulty in quickly adapting advertising strategies.
- Tendency Toward Third-Party Agencies:
- Preference for reasonably priced third-party agencies for optimization support.
- Consideration of Online Advertising Optimization Tools:
- Willingness to use online tools for optimization.
- Concerns about tool features, such as credit card requirements and pre-payment.
Agencies:
- In-Depth Understanding and Customized Strategies:
- Requires significant time investment to deeply understand each client’s brand, specific requirements, and unique advertising strategies.
- Challenges include differing business models, target audiences, and competitive landscapes for each client, necessitating customized solutions.
- Cross-Client Management and Resource Allocation:
- Difficult to balance cross-client management and resource distribution.
- Senior agent was typically limited to managing 4-5 clients at most.
- Rapidly Changing Market Environment:
- Difficulty in quickly adapting advertising strategies.
- Time Management and Efficiency Issues:
- Struggled with time management and efficiency due to multiple urgent tasks.
- Creative and Time-Intensive Ad Copy Creation:
- High-quality ad copywriting required extensive creative expertise and time investment.
- Data Reporting and Client Communication:
- Time-consuming to create detailed reports and communicate feedback with clients.
We also took a close look at the features, information architecture, and reviews of other ad optimization tools to understand how existing solutions address these challenges. We found that AdInisght could fill some gaps.
Here are some insights:
- Localized Focus: None of the competitors provide Asia-specific benchmarks or localized insights.
- Simplified UI: SMBs often struggle with the complex interfaces of existing platforms.
- Automation: Limited automated optimization tools to provide actionable insights.
- Custom Reporting: Most platforms lack flexibility in creating customized reports.
Opportunities
After conducting user research and analyzing the findings, we identified key opportunities and translated them into actionable solutions. The following is an overview of how AdInsight addresses user pain points through prioritized product features.
Concepts
After some iterations, I developed 2 core functions for the product.
#1 Performance Grader Report – Delivering Immediate Value
🤔 The Challenge:
New users often start with a blank slate in advertising platforms, causing uncertainty and delayed value realization.
🎯 The Solution:
An onboarding flow that delivers immediate value through a free Performance Grader report:
Instant ad account analysis after Google Ads connection
No need to add any payment methods
Campaign performance scoring benchmarked against local industry standards
Actionable optimization recommendations
Full access to optimization tools to experience measurable results during the 14-days trial period
🕹️ Task Flow Diagram:
🎉 Ad Performance Report:
*Tip: You can scroll up and down to explore the entire report.
#2 Optimization Workflows – From Analysis to Actions
🤔 The Challenge:
Users often have difficulty translating performance data into concrete actions. They see the problems but don’t know how to effectively solve them.
🎯 The Solution:
We created a streamlined workflow to turn insights into results:
1. Automatically identify improvement opportunities.
2. Provide tailored optimization actions.
3. Support immediate implementation of recommendations.
🕹️ Task Flow Diagram:
🎉 Optimization:
Usability Testing and Refinements
After a series of wireframe refinements, we conducted usability testing. Testing focuses on the following areas:
1. Evaluate whether the wireframe structure effectively supports user workflow.
2. Identify pain points or areas of confusion in the interface.
3. Gather user feedback on navigation, information hierarchy, and overall usability.
UI Design
Usability testing results guided us to iterate and improve the AdInsight product experience. The following are some of the UI designs.
Sign up
Ad Performance Report
Dashboard
Optimization
Tailoring a Scalable Design System
We developed the first version of Adinsight’s design system to ensure the product’s consistency and scalability. Leveraging our team’s existing design system as a foundation, I tailored a new system that aligns with Adinsight’s unique style and brand elements.
This involved identifying 10-15 reusable components, refining design tokens (such as colors, typography, and spacing), and introducing new core components to enhance usability and cohesion.
Results
After months of development, the AdInsight beta has become the go-to tool for clients’ daily ad optimization.
In a three-month A/B test with 126 advertising accounts, including small businesses and agencies, the test group saw impressive gains: ROI increased by 20%, conversion rates went up by 15%, and daily optimization time dropped from 2.3 hours to just under an hour, a 42% improvement.
This outperformed the control group using traditional methods. User feedback is key to ongoing improvements, creating a positive cycle of better ad performance and user experience.
* Test method: Equal group comparison (63 in the test group/63 in the control group), with data verified by period comparison.