Web Stories

Snapchat launched the stories format in 2013, since then it has been adopted by a great number of platforms. In 2019 Bloomberg reported that Instagram had brought in $20 billion in advertising revenues, in great part thanks to this format.

During 2020-2021, news websites adopted Google's web stories format, and Softonic decided to experiment with it.

Project Goals

The team aimed to promote CPA and CPI products through a new channel, increase engagement, and attract mobile organic traffic via Google Discover. We followed Lean methodologies over roughly two months to test content performance and assess tools.

My Role

Product Designer — Research, Prototyping, Testing, Stories Design, Writing & Content Creation. I studied competitor implementations, evaluated creation tools, designed components, created surveys, and analyzed data.

First Iteration

Testing focused exclusively on mobile. Initial experiments used dummy stories on program pages with typeform surveys. Two variants tested: contextual reviews and editorial topics. Results showed CTRs below 2%, indicating low transactional-phase interest. Survey feedback revealed interest in user-generated video reviews and gaming content.

Second Iteration

Testing moved to category pages (discovery phase). Editorial and gaming-specific variants were tested. CTRs averaged around 8%, with Minecraft and Roblox stories performing exceptionally well.

Third Iteration

Full infrastructure implementation allowed testing actual functionality. Campaigns focused on Mobile Legends and Lords Mobile with revenue-share in-app purchase programs. Content was SEO-optimized for Google Discover. The team selected makestories.io as their platform and created reusable templates plus tutorial stories.

Conclusions & Learnings

This project allowed creative exploration with gradients and bold color palettes not possible in day-to-day work. It provided opportunity to experiment with modern design trends and explore print design.