Smart recommendations to simplify strategy discovery for financial professionals.
Project Summary:
Implementation of personalized content recommendations in PrincipalAM.com’s Real Estate Investment Strategies section using Marketing Cloud Personalization (MCP). A "recommended" label was added to content cards to increase relevance and engagement.
Key Objectives:
- Reduce information overload for users
- Improve access to timely, personalized insights
- Align with Principal’s digital experience strategy for financial professionals
Method:
- MCP-powered recommendation engine
- A/B testing of labeled content cards
As the UX designer leading this initiative, I followed a discovery-to-delivery process using design thinking methodology. Key to this approach was involving stakeholders and the full team from the beginning to ensure alignment.
We conducted A/B testing on two label variants: "For You" and "Discover." The data showed "Discover" achieved higher click-through rates, confirming its effectiveness.
The personalized article recommendations achieved strong engagement by March 2025, with 5,516 unique visitors and 7,344 impressions. Recommended content saw a 5.58% CTR, a 129.6% increase over the 2.43% benchmark, confirming that advisors valued these personalized suggestions.
Cross-team collaboration proved essential, bringing diverse perspectives that enhanced both the recommendation feature's functionality and design. These approaches: data-informed design paired with team alignment, have now become foundational to our development process. The results validated personalization as a valuable strategy while establishing methods I’ll apply to future projects.
