Background

Prezzee is a dynamic and innovative digital gifting platform that has reshaped the way people give and receive gifts in the modern era. Launched in 2014, this Australian-based company has harnessed the power of technology to provide an extensive array of digital gift cards from a diverse range of popular brands and retailers. Prezzee currently operates in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. 

Prezzee's user-friendly mobile app and website have redefined the art of gift-giving, offering unparalleled convenience and speed. With a commitment to simplicity and sustainability, Prezzee has become a go-to solution for individuals and businesses seeking a hassle-free and eco-friendly way to share their sentiments on various occasions. In this digital age, Prezzee's evolution highlights the transformative potential of technology in revolutionizing traditional practices and enhancing the overall gift-giving experience.

Prezzee’s journey with Optimizely’s Web Experimentation platform, supported by partner The Lumery, began in April 2022, with implementation occuring in May 2022.


Problem

Prezzee faced significant challenges before embracing Optimizely for experimentation. As Andrew Harman (Senior Product Manager at Prezzee) explained, Prezzee had already initially embarked on the journey of optimizing conversion rates in their marketing efforts, focusing on minor enhancements.  However, they soon realized that their aspirations extended beyond incremental changes. They sought to validate broader and more intricate concepts, test market responses, and evaluate customer reactions to feature-rich alterations, transcending simple A/B testing of elements like images or headings.

In addition to their experimentation challenges, Prezzee grappled with operational hurdles, particularly in the realm of enabling marketing to complete experiments end to end. The Marketing team lacked the technical support essential for safely developing, and launching experiments. Understanding the potential disruptions and risks of unguided marketing experimentation, they recognized the imperative of establishing a robust delivery model supported by technical teams.

Ultimately, Prezzee's decision to embrace Optimizely stemmed from their desire to tackle complex experimentation challenges head-on. They needed a tool capable of accommodating their ambitious feature-driven experiments while concurrently establishing a secure and controlled environment for experimentation company-wide. Optimizely emerged as the solution that would help Prezzee overcome these obstacles and achieve their broader experimentation objectives.

Benefits & Solution

Prezzee's journey with Optimizely was complemented by their partnership with The Lumery, who facilitated their onboarding process. They opted for an assisted onboarding program as part of their sales experience, with The Lumery overseeing the initiative. The onboarding program primarily revolved around comprehensive training on the Optimizely system, and a focus on experimentation fundamentals and design. Additionally, The Lumery conducted site audits, collaborating closely with Prezzee to develop their experimentation approach and launch their first experiment. This engagement proved to be a valuable knowledge booster, equipping Prezzee with the expertise needed to harness the full potential of Optimizely for their experimentation needs.

After a smooth onboarding process, the Prezzee team quickly got to work in leveraging Optimizely’s experimentation platforms to elevate the digital experience for its customers whilst testing and iterating on new ideas, product launches and conversion optimisation and strategy. 

Prezzee harnessed the power of Optimizely's Web Experimentation platform to transform its approach to website optimization and feature implementation. Before adopting Optimizely, Prezzee faced challenges in assessing the impact of changes made to their platform. They relied on best practices, user feedback, and some quantifiable data, but lacked certainty about the outcomes of their updates. 

With Optimizely, they gained the ability to conduct controlled experiments, gathering precise data on how each change performed. Notably, Prezzee even utilized Optimizely’s platform to hide certain code changes, effectively creating a defacto control group through varying the experience using Optimizely. This innovative approach allowed them to validate enhancements and adapt quickly based on the results. It also addressed limitations, such as the need to interact with backend systems or access their design system, by enabling them to build features directly into their source code. By leveraging Optimizely, Prezzee achieved a data-driven and agile approach to website optimization, enhancing their user experience and overall platform performance.

The organisation now utilises key Web Experimentation features such as the Visual Editor, and Stats Engine, which makes sure that experiments reach statistical significance as quickly as possible. Andrew Harman detailed that Prezzee use the Stats Engine as ‘a complete source of truth for experiment performance’, highlighting the trust internal teams have in the data Optimizely’s platform provides. This complete trust in Optimizely’s platform has facilitated a shift in culture at Prezzee. Now, decisions can be validated by clear data that senior leadership can trust and act upon.  

Faced with a strategic decision to make gift card recipients mandatory to add their cards to a digital wallet, Prezzee leveraged Optimizely to conduct a series of experiments to find the best approach. 

They explored different scenarios, including making wallet addition mandatory and leaving it optional but with prominent nudges for sign-ups. These experiments encompassed a range of user interface changes, prompts, and gamification elements designed to gather insights and user feedback.

Remarkably, the experiment results showed that leaving wallet addition optional but with strong prompts led to nearly as many sign-ups as the mandatory approach while delivering a superior user experience. By carefully optimizing the user journey and finding the right balance between encouraging sign-ups and maintaining user satisfaction, Prezzee achieved impressive results.

This data-driven approach not only improved sign-up rates but also had a profound impact on executive decision-making within the company. Armed with concrete data and insights, the company chose to retain the optional but highly encouraged sign-up approach, avoiding the potential backlash that could have come with a mandatory requirement.

The business experienced substantial success as a result of this experimentation. Monthly account creations surged, with approximately 100,000 to 150,000 new members  signing up each month—a significant increase.

Initially, the experiment involved triggering an existing sign-up modal using Optimizely, and applying minor UI changes to ensure the customer experience was consistent to the context. A customer could close the modal to access their gift card like before without signing in.

Conclusion

Prezzee's future plans in the realm of experimentation and optimization are focused on scaling their efforts and expanding their reach. As Andrew Harman explained, the business aims to extend the scope of experimentation across more teams or "squads" within the organization. The goal is to conduct a greater number of experiments, which will allow them to continuously enhance their user experience and business outcomes.