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Understand User Goals to Drive Growth

Codecademy

Background:

Codecademy wanted to improve user activation from their website, and to do so, they knew they needed to better understand their users' expectations upon arrival on their website. Was it to switch or advance careers, learn for fun, or something else? It was crucial that they got this right so they could tailor their messaging and convert more users. The answers to these questions would help Codecademy figure out if they were the right fit, or if users were coming to them and expecting something they couldn’t deliver on.

Codecademy leveraged the open-ended question format to provide the opportunity to learn something new and unexpected. In addition, the open ended format helped them prevent biasing users based on the options they would’ve offered in a multiple-choice, close-ended format.

1. Uncover what matters to your users

Insights Gathered: Codecademy sent an in-product survey to users who signed up for a course 2 days after conversion. They wanted to target users while their motivation was still fresh in their minds, yet not too early in the product experience where they risked distracting them from activation. With open-ended questions, Codecademy was really able to drill into the fears, uncertainties, and doubts around what users are feeling at this critical journey. They sent tens of thousands of in-product surveys and generated over 1500 responses.

Actions: Through open text responses they learned that users’ weren’t lacking confidence in Codeacademy’s content, instead they had concerns about their own ability to learn a new skill. They then took the open text responses and crafted new messages leveraging their users own words and phrasing.

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2. Build the right experience for the right type of user

Insights Gathered: As Codecademy reviewed the responses a distinct theme started to emerge. They were doing a much better job recruiting and converting hobbyists than they were at converting career oriented users. And both of these users wanted really different things. Hobbyists were very price conscious where career learners really wanted step-by-step guides and self-paced learnings. Both users are valuable to the Codecademy business, but the career learners are where they generate most of their revenue.

Actions: Taking the scaled analysis of their open-ended responses from Sprig’s AI they then had a roadmap for how to optimize their messaging, conversion, and product experience for each type of user.

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