Sinclair's local news business depends on readers staying long enough to consume stories, engage with content and eventually convert. But account and app prompts were interrupting readers too early. I first removed a high-friction prompt, generating $125K in incremental ad revenue, then used service design to help the organization shift toward a value-first, trust-first conversion strategy.
The initial problem looked like a conversion optimization issue, but the underlying business tension was broader: the organization wanted more known users while readers wanted fast access to local stories. Phase 1 removed a major interruption and improved readership. Phase 2 used service design to reframe how, when and why conversion requests should appear across the journey.
I framed the mandate, mapped the current system, connected behavioral analytics with customer evidence, facilitated the stakeholder decision, and led the strategic Phase 2 reframe.
I worked across Product, Data, Marketing, Editorial and Engineering so the recommendation balanced customer experience with the business need for known-user growth.
Grow known users and first-party data through account creation and other conversion mechanisms.
Get to a relevant local story quickly, especially when arriving cold from search, social, alerts or shared links.
The systems map showed siloed ownership. The journey showed the sequence of friction. GA4 quantified the cost.
Customer journey - friction accumulated before conversion felt useful.
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GA4 overlay - 18.8M popup exposures, 6.7M exits and 6,509 signups.
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Systems map - the reading and conversion experience crossed multiple teams, which made the friction a service problem, not only a UI problem.
View full sizeMarketing had a legitimate reason to protect a first-party-data acquisition mechanism.
Leadership approved removing the account-creation popup because the abandonment cost was materially larger than the value created by the small number of signups.
We gave up one immediate capture mechanism to protect readership and create room for a more strategic conversion model.
The journey view made the strategic shift visible: reduce friction, deliver value first and time conversion to reader context.
Phase 2 reused the four behavioral archetypes from the persona study, then added diary-study evidence and a Jobs-to-Be-Done lens to understand how friction and switching risk differed by reader context.
A context aware service rule made the trust building strategy testable.
View full sizeThe strategic effort was about designing when to ask, what to ask for and how to use context so conversion supported trust instead of competing with it.