Medicare Product Redesign & Optimization

Doubling Annual Revenue for a Product that Was in Decline

Tools Used

Figma, UserTesting.com, Optimizely, Crazy Egg, Typeform, Storybook

Status

Launched

Background

The Medicare product within the Health vertical, like most products at U.S. News, has a traffic funnel business model that relies heavily on Google search traffic to funnel users into products where revenue is driven by ad impressions, ad clicks, and CTA's that take users to partner websites to complete a task (conversions). In addition, revenue is also driven by badge licensing for the U.S. News "Best" badges.

In the case of the Medicare product, display ads that provide revenue via impressions/clicks had mostly been removed, and the primary driver of revenue was FSA's (Fully Submitted Applications). An FSA is when a user clicks the "Apply Now" CTA and then completes a Medicare application on eHealth's website. Although leads alone do not generate revenue, they are still an important success metric.

The Problem

YoY traffic for Medicare had been going down since 2022, and subsequently conversions (FSA's) and revenue had gone down too.

Challenges

Trust Architecture v.s. Commercial Architecture

U.S. News's brand equity is "independent rankings", but conversion requires steering people toward paid partners. The redesign has to visually and structurally separate "here's our neutral analysis" from "here's where you get quotes", or else it erodes credibility that drives traffic in the first place.

Disconnected Conversion Data

Using Google Analytics, Optimizely and Crazy Egg, we were able to track a wide range of metrics including clicks on "Apply Now" (leads), page views, clicks per page view, etc., and we did receive FSA (conversion) numbers from our partner. However, since conversions happened on the partner website, we didn't have the capability to directly connect that data back to on-site click paths or user journeys for analysis.

Regulatory Ceiling on Growth Tactics:

Medicare is a complex and highly regulated domain. CMS Medicare marketing rules restrict urgency language, plan comparison claims, and lead-capture practices far more than typical products. Standard conversion levers (aggressive CTA's, "limited time" framing, multi-step lead forms) carry compliance risk in a way most products don't.

Business Goals

Increase Traffic

Improve SEO with strategic keyword placement and improved information architecture to help increase traffic.

Increase Engagement & Trust

Improve user sentiment or how they feel about the Medicare pages, or in other words improve trust and confidence (vague metrics) so users are more likely to convert.

Improve engagement metrics such as clicks per page view, number of pages viewed per session, and how far users scroll down a page, which are signals that user are learning and gaining value from the content and becoming higher quality leads that are more likely to complete applications. Improve user sentiment or how they feel about the Medicare pages, or in other words improve trust and confidence (vague metrics) so users are more likely to convert.

Increase "Apply Now" and Phone Call CTA Clicks

Optimize the CTA's to increase the amount of leads for applications.

The Solution

Pump the breaks… Stop filling up pages with slop content and massively long paragraphs of text with the hope that it will improve SEO and traffic and hence conversions, and instead focus on user needs and improving the quality of the content, architecture, navigation and visual design.

Visual Redesign = Increased Trust

There has been extensive and well documented research that a visual UI redesign can improve perceived trust, especially in the context of websites and apps. A Stanford study found that users mentioned a site's "design look" in 46.1% of credibility-related comments, more than any other feature.

Another study found that when the same content was presented with higher aesthetic treatment, it was judged more credible in 19 out of 21 cases, about 90%. Users often form these judgements quickly, sometimes within seconds, before they deeply evaluate the content.

Better Architecture & Navigation

Improving the organization and navigation of content and pages will help enable users to engage and spend more time with the product as a whole, as well as come back to the product, which subsequently will lead to more CTA button clicks and a higher percentage of those leads submitting applications (converting).

Optimizing CTA's

Make the CTA's look and feel less like a scam. Clean and polish the hero section and CTA units, and add helpful text to help set expectations and reduce hesitation from clicking.

Identifying Usability Issues with Unmoderated User Testing

Extensive user testing was conducted across 9 different Medicare pages, and the final report consisted of 83 pages.

Synthesizing the Research

Not all pages shared the same positives and negatives. While some pages did better for page layout and content design, others did poorly.

However, at a high-level what we found was:

Not all pages shared the same positives and negatives. While some pages did better for page layout and content design, others did poorly.

However, at a high-level what we found was:

What's Not Working Well

Pages and sections are often too long and text heavy… too much scrolling

Pages and sections are often too long and text heavy… too much scrolling

Page design looks and feels "outdated"

Page design looks and feels "outdated"

Poor optimization for mobile

Poor optimization for mobile

Ads are intrusive, redundant and "off putting". Bottom ad reduces screen visibility.

Ads are intrusive, redundant and "off putting". Bottom ad reduces screen visibility.

Confusion about meaning of various kinds of ratings and badge content (example, star ratings v.s. user ratings).

Confusion about meaning of various kinds of ratings and badge content (example, star ratings v.s. user ratings).

Lack of transparency or understanding about the methodology or what went into ratings.

Lack of transparency or understanding about the methodology or what went into ratings.

Not possible to compare plans side-by-side

Not possible to compare plans side-by-side

What's Working Well

Star ratings standout and influenced decision.

Star ratings standout and influenced decision.

Best insurance companies categories aided decision making (member experience rating, low-cost, etc.)

Best insurance companies categories aided decision making (member experience rating, low-cost, etc.)

Search filters are helpful

Search filters are helpful

Why Trust Us Methodology unit provides sense of trust

Why Trust Us Methodology unit provides sense of trust

Search cards display key information

Search cards display key information

The search pages seemed to score highest for the content itself. Often the content was seen as useful, informative, and comprehensive.

The search pages seemed to score highest for the content itself. Often the content was seen as useful, informative, and comprehensive.

Running Surveys to Connect What Users Do with What Users Say

We prompted users to provide feedback directly on the Medicare pages to help us gain addtional insight and triangulate the most important problems.

Overview

378 Responses

378 Responses

Launched on all Medicare pages

Launched on all Medicare pages

Goals

Learn what kind of Medicare content users would be interested in.

Learn what kind of Medicare content users would be interested in.

Learn which Medicare resources users consider to be the most helpful

Learn which Medicare resources users consider to be the most helpful

Learn if users are interested in enrolling in Medicare and if & how they've enrolled in the past.

Learn if users are interested in enrolling in Medicare and if & how they've enrolled in the past.

Analysis & Recommendation

Top Medicare content users are interested in:

Recommendations

Create a Medicare quiz to guide and educate users through the most important criteria when selecting a plan.

Create a Medicare quiz to guide and educate users through the most important criteria when selecting a plan.

Make "Find plans by zip code" the main CTA so users are required to only search by zip code to avoid frustration. Alternatively, include the counties that are covered in the rankings list. The rankings lists are also an opportunity to establish authority and highlight why each company made the list (ratings, pros & cons, etc.)

Make "Find plans by zip code" the main CTA so users are required to only search by zip code to avoid frustration. Alternatively, include the counties that are covered in the rankings list. The rankings lists are also an opportunity to establish authority and highlight why each company made the list (ratings, pros & cons, etc.)

Using Additional Research Methods to Validate Problems, Gather Insights, and Identify Opportunities

Heatmaps

I don't have any screenshots of the heatmaps we ran over several months for the various Medicare pages, but they did help confirm that many pages were too long and overwhelming— particularly the Landing Page. They also showed that the majority of CTA clicks happened on the Right Rail Unit instead of the Bottom Sticky Unit.

A/B Testing & Web Analytics

We ran consistently ran A/B testing experiments with Optimizely and had various traffic and events tracking with Google Analytics, which helped provide insights such as which pages and CTA's performed the best.

Competitive Analysis

I don't have any screenshots from the original Forbes or NerdWallet Medicare landing pages, but they did help influence how I redesigned the landing page for U.S. News (they've sinced change and in someways resemble the redesigned U.S. News Medicare landing page now).

Heuristic Evaluation

I took time to analyze and interact with the various Medicare pages and content. My biggest takeaway was just the overall lack of consistent spacing and sizing of elements and text. The clutter made it hard to scan.

Leading Brainstorming Workshops with Stakeholders

I organized and led multiple brainstorming workshops with stakeholders for a variety of pages including:

Best In-State Pages

Best In-State Pages

Honor Roll Pages

Honor Roll Pages

Search Pages

Search Pages

Visualizing the High-Level Page Structure

The Final Product, Before & After

By looking at the images below you can get a taste of just how long some of these pages were before. Although there were many more things that could be improved, this initial redesign focused on the highest impact targets, which were reducing the page length and improving the visual hierarchy, visual design, navigation, SEO, and CTA units on the Landing Page, Best In-State Pages, and Honor Roll Pages.