Katch Marketplaces was a large endeavor including product research, UI design, UX design, development and management. Marketplaces is a real-time bidding platform that allows advertisers to pay for clicks, calls, and leads that are made on different networks’ websites. It is used by advertisers, publishers, and network owners to manage campaigns, ads, analytics and a/b testing.

Goal

Most of Katch’s competitors have multiple platforms to do everything Katch can do. Its numerous features, that have been built over time, added up to a large and quite confusing application. To add to the complexity, the platform has many toggles to control what certain users can and cannot see. And the worst of it all was that all these features led to a very slow platform. So slow, that you could easily load a page, leave your computer to make a sandwich, come back, and then see the page load. Organizing and optimizing the platform was extremely needed.

Research

Our team quickly interviewed users and managers of the platform. We listened to their pin points and needs. Created personas and user stories based on their daily routines. We found the long workarounds they made to accommodate the platform’s shortcomings. Competitors varied from very complex to very simple. Most of them had the ability to save custom reports. They either managed keyword campaigns or display categories, which are both quite different than vertical selectors. After a lot of talks and studies, we found we were and wanted to be more on the complex side of our competitors. What we wanted to change though was our intuitiveness. Most of the clients using the platform were so frustrated with the platform they required Katch employees to manage their accounts.

Design

I took the pin points and boiled them down to the main issues with the platform. The two issues that resinated across the platform was the lack of users and the difference between internal and external networks. I made it so accounts were treated equal.

Result

The platform entered the modern age of design and increased user participation by 50%.