The audience management solution in Leanplum that helps marketing teams build, manage, and better understand their diverse audience and leverage this data in their marketing strategy.

Audiences

Leanplum is a leading multi-channel customer engagement platform that helps forward-looking brands meet their customers' real-time needs. Marketers think in the context of Audiences, yet Leanplum was providing a User-level view, which was too granular for the marketers' needs.

Overview

Leanplum emphasized individual users over audience segments. Saving an audience was technically possible, but hidden in a hard-to-discover dropdown, leading to repeated manual work.

Product Analysis

Only insight available was audience size - no channel preferences, health indicators, or behavior breakdowns. Key actions were hidden, leading to frustration and errors.

User Pain Points

Most marketers didn't know you could save an audience. Even those who did rarely used the feature - they didn't trust it due to lack of guardrails and visibility.

User Interviews

Competitors had audience management tools, but their solutions lacked depth, especially around reuse, collaboration, and insights. We saw this as an opportunity to differentiate.

Competitive Analysis

Forrester and Gartner validated our hypothesis that marketers think in the context of Audiences, and they want to be empowered in the way they can define them.

Analyst Reports

We conducted comprehensive research to understand how marketers managed audiences and identified critical gaps.

Research

We needed to shift from a user-level mindset to one centered around Audiences as first-class citizens. The new experience had to elevate Audiences as a primary concept, allowing marketers to view audiences holistically, validate their structure, and preview representative user samples.

Insights

Make Audiences a first-class citizen in the interface, creating a dedicated, centralized space that laid groundwork for more scalable strategic workflows.

Centralization

Prioritize discoverability and collaboration, making it easy for teams to access, edit, and engage audiences while reducing repeated work.

Productivity

Create a consistent experience for building, saving, and engaging with audiences, ensuring users could apply their knowledge across different parts of the product.

Consistency

Embed actionable insights at every level, helping marketers understand their audience and choose the right engagement strategies with health metrics and engagement data.

Meaningful Insights

Design the UI to support exploration and iteration. Users could experiment with filters, preview results, and revert changes, lowering the risk of mistakes.

Flexibility & Forgiveness

Five core principles guided our design approach to transform audience management.

Design Approach

Returned to users with early concepts to validate direction, uncover edge cases, and ensure the updated experience wouldn't disrupt existing workflows.

Regular critiques and team reviews kept us aligned across design, product, and engineering, surfacing implementation challenges early and sparking ideas for deeper functionality.

Design Critiques

Phased beta with engaged users revealed friction points. We thoughtfully reintroduced individual user search one layer deeper to provide continuity while guiding toward strategic workflows.

Beta Program

We validated our approach through continuous iteration and user feedback at every stage.

Feedback and Iterations

We launched a phased beta with engaged users. A key friction point was finding individual users, a familiar habit from the old product. This was a deliberate shift to an audience-first model to scale campaigns and reduce repetition. To ease the change, we brought back user search within the Audiences view, preserving continuity while guiding users toward a more strategic workflow. Some found it disorienting at first but later saw the value in a broader perspective.

Beta Program Insights

A dedicated dashboard for all saved audiences with organized, searchable views and real-time metrics. Teams get organized views with metadata and real-time metrics showing where each audience is being used, plus high-level health insights across the user base.

Audience Dashboard

The core space for building and refining audiences with powerful yet intuitive tools. Designed around Clarity, Flexibility, and Forgiveness with drag-and-drop rule rearrangement, merge/split logic blocks, and undo/redo for confident exploration.

Audience Builder

Detailed user sampling view for transparency and confidence in audience logic. Preview real users in any audience, validate audience logic matches expectations, and provide transparency into actual user data for quality assurance.

Users in Audience

Audience insights enabled smarter segmentation and more relevant messaging. By helping marketers understand audience breakdown and behavior patterns, we empowered more informed campaign decisions.

Campaign Impact

Reusable audiences significantly reduced campaign setup time. With visibility into existing audiences, marketing teams avoided redundant segmentation work and aligned more quickly.

Operational Efficiency

The solution encouraged collaboration between teams, ensuring visibility and promoting knowledge sharing. It served as a guardrail preventing duplication or over-communication.

Team Collaboration

The new audience management platform delivered measurable improvements across multiple dimensions.

Impact

Audiences laid the foundation for future innovation in targeting, experimentation, and automation. This was the first step in reimagining how marketing teams understand and engage with their users. Many solutions feel obvious in hindsight, but took rounds of iteration and collaboration to achieve.

Reflection

The solution that helps data governors manage the process of sourcing, analyzing, and controlling the available data in Leanplum to leverage in their business and marketing strategies.

Data Control

Making Data Accessible and Manageable for Marketing Teams. While Leanplum's messaging and engagement tools were powerful, data capabilities had a critical gap. Data was technically accessible, but discovering, managing, or activating it often required developer support, creating bottlenecks for marketing teams.

The only data-facing tool in the platform was a static Events list with no metadata, context, or controls.

Static Events List

User attributes lacked a dedicated management interface, and importing/exporting data was primarily done through APIs.

No Attribute Management

CSV uploads required developer intervention. Partner integrations existed, but weren't visible or configurable from the UI.

Developer Dependencies

Non-technical users, especially marketers and CRM leads, were regularly blocked from executing basic workflows.

User Workflow Blocks

Our support team spent a disproportionate amount of time responding to tickets related to data imports, partner setups, and event discovery.

Support Volume

The only data-facing tool in the platform was a static Events list with no metadata, context, or controls. During early audits and user interviews, it became clear that users lacked a clear source of truth for their data.

Problem

We audited the existing experience and reviewed common support tickets. The Events list presented raw data, but lacked the metadata and control users needed to make sense of it.

Marketers often shared that they weren't confident in what data existed or how reliable it was. Many avoided attempting data uploads or partner integrations altogether to avoid back-and-forth with engineering.

Support Ticket Review

Setting up CSV imports or integrations required combing through documentation or working with developers. In practice, many marketers simply avoided these workflows altogether.

User Workflow Analysis

We began by auditing the existing experience and understanding user needs through comprehensive analysis.

Data Control - Central Hub for All Data Operations. We introduced a new top-level navigation item, Data Control. This became the central hub for all data integrated into and out of Leanplum. I worked closely with the PM and engineering leads to define the information architecture and interaction model for this new surface.

Solution

View and edit all tracked user events, with added metadata and validation controls.

Events

Manage user properties through a similar interface to Events.

Attributes

A directory of third-party integrations with setup flows embedded directly into the UI.

Partners

A drag-and-drop interface for non-technical users, with inline validation and upload history.

CSV Uploads

We built four modular, interconnected components. Each module reused consistent patterns from the rest of the product.

Four Core Modules

Initial Design Approach. We initially explored using a two-level detail view pattern similar to what we had implemented in the Audiences page. However, due to technical constraints, saving edits on individual records would block the entire interface while the backend job completed. This would have introduced a frustrating delay for users.

Events & Attributes Design

User Testing Reveals Critical Issues. We tested early flows with a small beta cohort and used their feedback to refine how we surfaced data status. One of the most significant insights came when users struggled with the Events module's save behavior. Many were confused when editing individual events caused delays or interface blocking. This validated the need for our batch-edit single-page model and clarified our prioritization going forward. The feedback reinforced that, while the adjustment required a learning curve, it ultimately aligned better with how teams work across multiple events in one session.

Beta Validation

From Individual Edits to Batch Workflows. Based on beta feedback, we optimized batch workflows to meet user expectations at scale and shifted additional design focus toward clarity, responsiveness, and feedback mechanisms for these batch actions.

Refined Solution

Final Single-Page Layout. To resolve the interface blocking issue, I designed a single-page layout that allowed users to make batch edits across events and then save them together. This pattern preserved flexibility while accommodating technical constraints. We added persistent save indicators and inline validation to prevent surprises.

Events Management

Dedicated Interface for User Properties. User attributes gained a management interface similar to Events. Marketing teams could now manage customer properties directly without relying on documentation or developer support.

User Attributes Management

Making Integrations Discoverable and Actionable. Integrations were previously handled through engineering teams and documentation. We made them discoverable and actionable in-product by introducing a Partners page where users could view and configure integrations directly from the UI. This also helped surface and promote the full set of available integrations in Leanplum, many of which users were previously unaware of.

Streamlined Drag-and-Drop Experience. We designed a streamlined drag-and-drop experience for uploading user data via CSV. Integrated validations provide immediate feedback on file structure and formatting issues before upload. To support collaboration and traceability, we also included a visible upload history with metadata such as filename, upload time, and uploader.

Non-technical users gained the ability to access and manage data without relying on engineering or support. This unlocked faster iteration cycles and gave marketing teams greater autonomy in campaign setup.

User Empowerment

Tickets related to data access, configuration, and imports dropped significantly, allowing support teams to focus on higher-impact work.

Support Load Reduction

By surfacing and enabling partner integrations directly within the platform, we extended Leanplum's capabilities and positioned Data Control as the foundation for future ecosystem expansion and vendor flexibility.

Expanded Product Offerings

Data Control became the foundation for broader data governance and user behavior segmentation. By centralizing data visibility and control, we enabled more sophisticated campaign strategies.

From Blocker to Strategic Enabler. Data Control transformed how Leanplum treated data—no longer just a backend artifact, but a strategic, user-facing capability that became a core enabler of campaign strategy and lifecycle marketing.

A lightweight design system with essential UI components and responsive layouts.

The platform merges experimentation and configuration to accelerate innovation and optimize development.

Experience the redesigned dashboard with improved performance and streamlined workflows

Interactive Experiment Dashboard

Experimentation Platform

Experimentation drives innovation, but inefficient tools were slowing our users—engineers, data scientists, and product managers—hindering their ability to test, learn, and iterate. To address this, I led Product Discovery, collaborating with engineering and data science to analyze usage data, gather insights, and review past feedback.

Engineering builds new features and sets up tracking for experimentation.

Implementation

Data Science tests hypotheses, analyzes results, and uncovers insights.

Experimentation

Product Management coordinates feature rollouts, ensuring a smooth transition from testing to production.

Rollout

The platform serves diverse users in the experiment-driven rollout lifecycle. Once features are fully rolled out, some experiment variables remain adjustable, while others become embedded in the code.

Understanding the users

Needed optimization to improve speed and discoverability for a better user experience.

The Experimentation Dashboard

Required improvements to simplify the process, making it more intuitive and accessible for new users.

The Experiment Creation Flow

Through cross-functional research, I analyzed usage data, gathered insights from internal users, and reviewed past feedback. This deep dive uncovered major challenges that directly shaped product strategy.

Leading Product Discovery to Shape Strategy and Direction

Heavy charts slowed interactions. We replaced them with a lightweight table design, drastically improving page speed and responsiveness.

Performance Issues → Streamlined Design

Critical details were buried. We redesigned the layout with a new design system that makes important information like metadata clear and accessible at a glance.

Hidden Information → Clear Visibility

Filtering options were scattered. We consolidated filters into a single area, including new metadata options, enabling faster search refinement.

Fragmented Filters → Unified Controls

For years, the experimentation dashboard served as the heart of the platform, but it had become a source of frustration for users. We completely reimagined the dashboard, designing a solution that puts users first.

Transforming the Experimentation Dashboard to Foster Collaboration and Ease Discovery

The heart of the platform where users discover, filter, and manage existing experiments. This transformation wasn't just about fixing problems, it was about creating a dashboard that drives efficiency, supports innovation, and empowers users to do their best work. What was once a source of frustration is now a tool that unlocks new possibilities.

Experimentation Dashboard

Deep-dive interface for analyzing results, viewing metrics, and understanding experiment performance. Essential for data-driven decision making and results interpretation.

Experience the full experiment details page that appears when clicking on an experiment

Experiment Details Page

Experiment Details

Users felt lost without clear guidance, leading to skipped steps. We created an intuitive, guided experience with clear markers for new users while retaining depth for power users.

Complexity & Cognitive Load → Guided Flow

Users couldn't determine progression direction, creating a disjointed experience. We established logical visual hierarchy and consistent flow patterns.

Unclear Layout → Visual Hierarchy

Errors went unnoticed until later, forcing backtracking. We added real-time validation that alerts users immediately, allowing fixes on the spot and significantly reducing error rates.

No Validation → Real-Time Feedback

Building on past experiments was cumbersome. We revamped cloning to be faster and more seamless, allowing users to iterate with minimal effort.

Complex Cloning → Seamless Process

The creation flow presented obstacles particularly for new users. The journey of creating an experiment was fraught with complexity and confusion. We overhauled the experience, placing clarity and simplicity at the forefront.

Transforming the Experiment Creation Flow to Streamline Experimentation Velocity

Guided workflow for setting up new experiments with proper configuration, targeting, and validation. Crucial for experiment quality and reducing setup errors.

Try the improved experiment creation process with guided steps and real-time validation

Experiment Creation Flow

Experiment discovery speed significantly increased, enabling users to find relevant tests much faster.

Faster Experiment Discovery

By eliminating friction, we empowered users to focus on innovation and insights, rather than wasting time navigating the dashboard.

Improved Productivity and Satisfaction

Error rates were reduced drastically through real-time validation, streamlining workflows and improving efficiency.

Error Rate Reduction

Users now complete setups faster and with fewer mistakes, leading to faster innovation cycles.

Increased Experiment Velocity

This transformation wasn't just about fixing problems, it was about creating a platform that drives efficiency, supports innovation, and empowers users to do their best work. What was once a source of frustration is now a tool that unlocks new possibilities.

Establishing ongoing feedback loops—rather than reacting to issues—creates deeper visibility into user needs. Regular touchpoints surface hidden pain points early and ensure the product evolves meaningfully.

Building Continuous User Feedback Loops

Platforms influence how teams collaborate, make decisions, and structure work. Well-designed systems drive efficiency and alignment, while poor design creates friction and reinforces inefficiencies.

How Platforms Shape Team Culture

Success requires ensuring people embrace new tools. Effective change management through clear communication, structured onboarding, and ongoing support is essential for driving adoption and long-term success.

Thoughtful Change Management

This experience deepened my understanding of designing for internal tools and the broader role of design in shaping workflows and company culture. Key takeaways from designing experimentation tools that drive organizational change:

Key Learnings

A kanban-style workflow that turns your Gmail and Outlook inbox into a todo app using inbox zero principles, helping you manage your email and tasks in one central place

Flow-e

In the age of AI, a new kind of user is emerging: agents. They also need clarity and consistency, and the same empathy we bring to human-centered design.

Beyond Interfaces: Designing for Agents

Have you ever felt frustrated that the results of your work fall far short of what you envisioned in your head? That the polished, fluid experience you imagined just doesn’t translate into reality?

The Gap in Product Design

Designing internal tools is a unique challenge that reshapes how work gets done. These tools directly impact workflows, productivity, and business operations. Their success depends on thoughtful design, strategic execution, and a deep understanding of user needs. When done right, internal tools streamline processes, enhance collaboration, and drive innovation across an organization.

Beyond Interfaces: Designing Internal Tools

An in-depth look at creating the Audience Builder, exploring the design decisions, user experience considerations, and technical challenges in building a powerful audience segmentation tool.

Hey there!
Got questions about
my work or projects?
Let's chat!

Projects

Experimentation Platform

Audiences

Data Control

Eve

Flow-e

Writing

Beyond Interfaces: Designing for Agents

The Gap in Product Design

Beyond Interfaces: Designing Internal Tools

Audiences: Building a Builder

Hey there!Got questions about my work or projects?Let's chat!

Projects

Experimentation Platform

Audiences

Data Control

Eve

Flow-e

Writing

Beyond Interfaces: Designing for Agents

The Gap in Product Design

Beyond Interfaces: Designing Internal Tools

Audiences: Building a Builder

Hey there!
Got questions about
my work or projects?
Let's chat!