The New York Times’s Wirecutter property specializes in product recommendations—think Consumer Reports for millennials. They engaged Fueled to mobile-optimize their site and create new features aimed at boosting user re-engagement.
“The product Fueled delivered allowed us to generate revenue before launching, which was very impressive.”
A Shopper’s Best Friend
Wirecutter’s in-depth, meticulously researched reports have earned them a place in many shoppers’ hearts as the ultimate authority on what to buy. From electronics to gardening tools, Wirecutter has vetted the competition and crowned a winner. They earn an affiliate commission when users transact on the product links embedded in reviews.
The Task
Wirecutter needed quick, collaborative product development. Having cemented their site as the go-to for reviews, the Wirecutter team began figuring out how to grow re-engagement with users who weren’t in an active research-and-purchase mode. Their first step was to create a Deals page–a single place to view discounts on anything the site had recommended. Figuring out what to do beyond that was a bit more challenging.
Readers could consume their content and purchase recommended products, but outside of immediate purchasing, there was no other form of engagement. After researching the competition, interviewing users, and modeling out a range of ideas, the team settled on experimenting with two new features: lists and profiles.
Lists are a way for Wirecutter’s editors to remix and reorganize content from around the site into new, topical pages. For example, their Throw a Backyard Party list includes their winning charcoal grill, cooler, patio umbrella, bug repellent, and outdoor speakers—all products whose reviews on the main site live separately.
After beta testing for Lists, Wirecutter was ready to focus on user reengagement. In order to let users save lists, we introduced the idea of a user account. Previously, there was no way for a user to “sign in” and save products they loved. This made it difficult for Wirecutter to segment users. By laying the foundation for robust user profiles, Wirecutter is taking a key step towards getting a deeper understanding of their users.
Our expectation is that as favoriting and other account-dependent features are introduced, we will be able to build out additional ways to show users custom, targeted content that will further drive engagement. For example, we can email users to let them know, “our tip pick from the bluetooth speaker review you read are on sale for 30% off—save $20 now!”
Optimizing for Mobile
Aside from introducing new features, Fueled optimized Wirecutter’s existing site for mobile, creating a smoother experience that would drive users to stay on site longer and visit more pages.
Integrating User Data
To support the new customer-centric features, we needed to access existing product details from Wirecutter’s custom database. The database was missing data like user interests, so we built additional data layers on top of the existing database. This allowed us to support the integrity of the existing data while building upon it to test the functionality of the new features we created.
