Consolidating and migrating websites for a unified brand experience

Consolidating and migrating websites for a unified brand experience

Unifying Hotjar, Heap.io into Contentsquare
Unifying Hotjar, Heap.io into Contentsquare

Role

Project leader

Expertise

Cross-functional leader

Duration

10 months

Contentsquare integrated site
Contentsquare integrated site

Challenge

At Contentsquare, I was tasked with leading a high-stakes digital transformation project by bringing together the strengths of Contentsquare, Heap.io (acquired in 2023) and Hotjar (acquired in 2021) under Contentsquare’s updated merged brand. Each site represented a different go-to-market strategy (PLG, SLG and hybrid).

The challenges were multifaceted:

  • Digital landscape: Each legacy site presented a unique ecosystem of branding, positioning, user journeys, content workflows and technology stacks, demanding a complex unification strategy

  • Rebranding complexity: The project needed to align with a simultaneous company-wide rebrand, adding complexity to timelines and deliverables

  • Resourceful and timely execution: Navigating tight budgets and limited guidance demanded innovative problem-solving to strategically manage project scope and resource allocation

  • Strategic platform unification: The outcome had to maintain ambitious revenue goals for both all existing brands and maintain leadgen actions during the transition

Project methodology diagram
Project methodology diagram
Project methodology diagram

Responsabilities

As the Project Leader my responsibilities covered strategic planning, cross-functional team leadership, executive progress reporting, migration and implementation:

  • Conducted an audit of the three sites to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. Used business results and legacy knowledge base to detect strengths across the different inbound journeys

  • Defined the project scope, goals and success metrics

  • Built a comprehensive RACI matrix to clarify roles and responsibilities across marketing, product marketing, brand, marketing ops, IT, procurement, legal, CTO office, product, corporate and external partners

  • Secured budget and resources and selected an agency partner for design and development

  • Established a phased migration and launch calendar, ensuring minimal disruption to ongoing operations

  • Aligned the project timeline with the global rebranding initiative, creating a consistent user experience across website and product

  • WCAG 2.2 guidelines full compliance

Phase 1: Audit and Strategic Planning

  • Conducted a content and UX audit of each site, identifying high-performing pages and features to retain in the unified platform

  • Mapped the unique customer journeys of each go-to-market strategy, ensuring the new site could support diverse audience needs

  • Created a knowledge repertory with the funnel conversion rates and mapped the processes from lead creation all the way to close won to take informed decisions at the design stage

  • Benchmarked competitors in the same market category and other companies that had similar go-to-market strategy. Researched and created a mood/inspiration board to inform be competitive and one step ahead in terms of design and functionality decisions

Phase 2: Defining the Project Scope and RACI Matrix

  • Scoped the project with clear goals: a unified, scalable platform that increased user engagement and conversion rates across all markets

  • Developed a RACI matrix, clarifying roles for the project team and sub stream stakeholders across marketing teams, CTO, legal, security and the external agency partner

  • Defined project governance and escalation paths to minimize time disruptionsSecured stakeholder alignment through workshops and regular updates

  • The Contentsquare’s growth team production line process was the framework I selected to break the project into substreams, stages, tasks, to set milestones and track progress at each stage

Phase 3: Selecting Technology and Partners

  • Conducted a comprehensive evaluation of existing marketing technology infrastructures, encompassing front-end and back-end ecosystems and operational workflows.

  • Developed a detailed RFP addressing technical, security, accessibility and legal requirements, with clearly defined vendor selection criteria.

Key selection priorities:

  • Flexible, future-proof and scalable deployment and maintenance

  • Enterprise-grade security

  • Multilingual capabilities and ability to integrate into existing localization process and tech

  • Seamless martech integrations (to note, in parallel a MAP migration was undergoing which had a high impact on all leadgen captures and analytics

  • Selected Contentful (headless CMS) for its robust features and compatibility with existing publishing workflows

  • Selected Next.js as the front end and Vercel as the hosting provider

  • Partnered with Together Agency, known for its expertise in SaaS websites and rebranding projects, to handle design and development.

Phase 4: Phased Migration and Launch

Created a migration calendar with three key phases:

  • Content Consolidation: Merging assets into a unified content library

  • Development and Testing: Building the site, including region-specific pages and personalized user paths

  • Launch Sequence: Sequential launches, minimizing downtime and ensuring post-launch monitoring for bugs

Phase 5 (or phase 1.1): Alignment with Rebranding Effort

  • Integrated new brand guidelines timeline into the site’s design, messaging, and visuals

  • Collaborated with the rebranding team to ensure consistency in tone, look and messaging across all digital touchpoints

See below how the sites of Contentsquare, Hotjar and Heap.io looked before

Outcomes

The project delivered substantial business and operational value:

  • Unified platform success: Increased global site traffic by 40% post-launch, with a 25% improvement in lead conversion rates across all regions.

  • Maintained Revenue growth during the transition: Supported FY24 ACV targets for enterprise and mid-market. Conversion rates improvement of 5% from Lead-MQL and it’s expected within 6 months to a 20% increase in traffic numbers

  • Efficiency gains: Reduced technology costs by consolidating three tech stacks into one scalable platform, saving $250,000 annually

  • Brand consistency: Seamlessly integrated the new branding, improving customer perception and creating a unified digital identity

  • Team alignment: Enhanced cross-functional collaboration through clear project governance and communication frameworks

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Copyright 2024 by Cynthia Dubourd

Copyright 2024 by Cynthia Dubourd

Copyright 2024 by Cynthia Dubourd