Surface
Account Setup onboarding flow, with a personalized Homepage checklist
Team
1 Product Manager · 3 Engineers · 1 Designer (me) · 2 SMS Designers
Scope
Product Design · User Research · Prototyping
THE PROBLEM
44% of new users are switching from another ESP, but Mailchimp treated them like anyone else
Mailchimp found that a significant share of new users aren't
new to email marketing at all. Around 44% are switching from another email service
provider, facing two challenges at once: migrating their data and learning a new
platform. To win and retain them, Mailchimp needed to make that transition feel
seamless, but the onboarding flow never asked, so it never adapted.
RESULT
A personalized onboarding path that recognized switchers early and made setup feel guided instead of generic
The solution: a short, targeted question during signup that
identifies email, SMS, or both-channel switchers, then personalizes their Account
Setup checklist on Homepage with a high-priority task to sync contacts from their
previous tool.
01
101
ITC Test Cohort
A/B tested starting August 2025, tracking customers reaching 1+ payoffs within 7 days.
02
Sep '25
Rolled to Baseline
A positive lift in 7-day payoffs was strong enough to ship to 100% of new users.
CONTEXT
A rare chance to ask something personal in an onboarding flow that had never asked before
Mailchimp had never added a highly personalized question to
Account Setup, so this was a genuine experiment: would capturing intent that early
increase task completions like importing contacts and migrating data? It also lined
up with two FY26 goals already in motion, growing integrations through earlier data
collection, and increasing activation for SMS and WhatsApp.
OPPORTUNITY SIZING
A SWAG sizing exercise to see if the revenue case justified the build
| Metric | Paid Users | Free Users |
|---|
| Customers activated weekly | 5,825 | 18,744 |
| % replacing an existing tool | 14% | 21% |
| % supplementing an existing tool | 30% | 32% |
| Total % of "switchers" | 44% | 53% |
| # of switchers | 2,563 | 9,934 |
| % 60D retention | 76% | 5% |
| % lift in retention (opportunity) | 8% | 8% |
| # of customers retained | 156 | 40 |
| AOV | $48 | $13 |
| Retained $s | $7,480 | $517 |
| Single cohort 12m value | $48,769 | $3,368 |
| Total annual value | $352,301 | $24,331 |
SWAG sizing of the revenue opportunity from ESP switchers.
KEY DECISIONS
Three calls that shaped the experience, and why I made them
The project split into three problems: what new question to
ask, which concept to build it around, and how to turn the answer into something
useful downstream. Concept testing, user testing, and the final Homepage
integration each pushed the design in a different direction.
DECISION 01
Replaced an existing "features" screen with a new "channels" screen
The current Account Setup flow already asked users what
marketing features mattered most to their business, but that question only gave
the SMS team weak signal, under 30%. I proposed shifting the language and options
from features to channels instead. It surfaced more useful signal for both email
and SMS, and freed up room for a new, personalized switcher screen right after it.
DECISION 02
Added a new tools screen, personalized based on how they answered the channels question
Right after the new channels question, I added a "What tools
are you currently using?" screen that adapts to whatever the user picked: SMS
switchers see texting platforms, email switchers see ESPs, and anyone who picked
both, or skipped the question, sees a broader, generic set. I concept-tested four
directions before landing here. The two-screen version I'd considered risked boxing
users into only email and SMS, and its language wasn't inclusive of intent
customers, so a single, conditional screen won out.
DECISION 03
Connected the flow to a new, high-priority task on the Homepage checklist
Once the personalized flow was finalized, I designed logic
for a new Homepage checklist task that adapts to what the user told us. Pick exactly
one tool and the task gets specific, "Add your contacts from Klaviyo," using their
own tool as the example. Pick more than one, pick "other," or skip the question
entirely, and it falls back to a general "Add your contacts" card. It's always the
first item on the checklist, right where switchers will see it.
next best action: import contacts
