UX Case Study: Data-Driven Redesign to Reduce Churn

Executive Summary

In 2023, DS Marketing (a B2C SaaS platform enabling supermarkets and pharmacies to generate marketing flyers rapidly) faced a critical retention challenge, with monthly churn fluctuating between 10% and 14%. This high drop-off rate threatened the long-term sustainability of the business.

As Product Owner and Product Designer, I led a cross-functional initiative spanning research, product strategy, and UX redesign. By shifting our core interface from an unfamiliar step-by-step wizard to an intuitive, industry-standard canvas model, we stabilized and reduced monthly churn down to 6%, preserving significant monthly revenue and recovering over R$ 500,000 in ARR.

1. The Challenge & Business Impact

DS Marketing generates over R$ 800k in Monthly Recurrent Revenue (MRR). However, erratic churn rates averaging 12% per month meant losing over 50% of new signups within their first few months.

Key Business Risks:

• Unrealized LTV: New clients canceled before reaching their break-even point.
• High Financial Loss: In a SaaS model of this scale, each 1% reduction in churn was worth nearly R$ 1,000,000 annually.
• Product Risk: Without structural changes, customer acquisition costs (CAC) would become unsustainable.

2. Discovery & Research

To understand the root causes behind early cancellations, I conducted an internal diagnostic alongside cross-functional team discovery.

Research Methodology:

• Internal Stakeholder & CS Alignment: Shadowed Support and Customer Success teams to categorize recurring user feedback and friction points.
• Qualitative User Interviews: Conducted in-depth interviews with active and former clients to identify drop-off drivers.
• Desk Research & Product Audits: Evaluated usage patterns and feature adoption across the platform.

Key Insights:

• Unfamiliar UX Architecture: Unlike industry standards (e.g., Canva, Adobe) that use a left toolbar and right canvas, our platform relied on a rigid step-by-step form wizard. Intended to simplify creation, it actually restricted flexibility and created cognitive friction.
• Feature Overload & Clutter: Unused tools diluted the core value proposition, making onboarding harder than necessary.
• Perceived Value Disconnect: Low product engagement during onboarding directly correlated with early subscription cancellations within 30 to 60 days.

3. UX Strategy & Solution

In collaboration with engineering leadership, we embarked on a complete overhaul of the core design experience.

Strategic Product Decisions:

• Adopted Industry Mental Models: Replaced the wizard layout with a familiar two-column architecture (left-hand tool menu, central canvas) to eliminate the learning curve.
• Streamlined Core Workflows: Optimized the flyer generation engine so users could build a 30-product promotional flyer in under 5 minutes without manual formatting barriers.
• Eliminated Feature Bloat: Deprecated low-engagement features to focus the UI on high-frequency, high-value user tasks.

4. Results & Business Impact

The redesigned platform was deployed with continuous feedback loops across business, tech, design, and CS teams.

• Churn Reduction: Monthly churn steadily decreased from a peak of 14% down to a stable 6%.
• Revenue Retention: Reduced monthly revenue loss by 50% (from losing ~R$ 80k/month down to ~R$ 40k/month).
• Financial Impact: Generated an estimated retention value exceeding R$ 500,000 in ARR.
• User Onboarding: Significantly reduced friction for non-technical users in supermarkets and pharmacies.