Driving Smarter Ad Pitches: Redesigning an Automotive Research App for Adoption

Project Summary

Spectrum Reach developed an automotive research tool to help advertising executives understand vehicle sales trends and pitch data-informed campaigns to car dealers. However, the tool saw low adoption. My goal was to uncover why it wasn’t resonating with users and design a solution that aligned with their business storytelling needs.

My Role

  • UX Researcher

  • UI Designer

Outcomes and Impact

The redesign directly improved user engagement, streamlined proposal creation, and strengthened the application’s overall value to ad executives through:

  • Increased application adoption, as measured through product analytics

  • Faster development of ad campaign proposals

  • Improved perceived usability, measured by gains in the System Usability Scale (SUS). Score increased from 45 to 68.

  • Successful integration with additional ad campaign software and Salesforce, enabling ad executives to move from insights to action more seamlessly

“I can now build a pitch in half the time — and with better insights.”

— Advertising Executive

The Challenge

Executives needed to quickly analyze dealer sales, competitive positioning, and segment performance (e.g., make, model, SUV, truck). But the existing app demanded too much effort to find and interpret the right data.

How might we increase adoption of an automotive research tool by helping ad executives identify and navigate to the right business story more efficiently?

The original system presented dense, map-based data visualizations that made it difficult for ad executives to quickly find insights and build a clear advertising narrative. Users often had to manually dig through multiple filters and charts to piece together a compelling story for dealerships.

“It can be difficult to tell where the story is at times. You really have to dig around to find it.”

— Advertising Executive

The Approach

The engagement began with a review of product analytics, which confirmed that ad executives were not using the tool consistently or effectively. To understand why, I conducted usability testing with key users.

Key findings:

  • High cognitive load made it difficult to extract insights

  • Users were seeking three core types of business stories, but the app didn’t support these narratives clearly

  • Navigation and structure didn’t align with real-world ad pitch workflows

The Solution

Based on research insights, I redesigned the application experience around three guided workflows tailored to the core business stories executives needed to tell:

  • Overall Market Share and Dealer Performance

  • Market Trends by Make

  • Market Trends by Segment (SUV, truck, etc.)

Design improvements included:

  • Streamlined navigation focused on storytelling paths

  • Simplified data visualizations

  • More intuitive entry points for finding relevant insights quickly

  • Integrated additional advertising platforms, enabling ad executives to conduct audience research and create tailored advertising proposals for dealerships.

  • Integrated Salesforce, allowing all research and advertising proposals to automatically sync to client records without the need for manual uploads.

I designed a streamlined user flow that made it easier for ad executives to find insights, create proposals faster, and automatically sync work to Salesforce — improving both user efficiency and client engagement.

I introduced three guided workflows aligned to key sales stories, giving users a clear starting point and structured path through the research process instead of dropping them into an overwhelming, unfiltered data view.