Leading Design Through an Acquisition

Context

Marigold is a multi-product marketing technology platform serving enterprise clients across email marketing (Sailthru), real-time content personalization (Liveclicker), and loyalty program management (Loyalty). The platform spans three global regions (AMER, EMEA, APAC) and supports thousands of users across 57+ active loyalty clients alone. During my tenure, Marigold was acquired by Zeta Global, one of the most challenging contexts any design team can navigate -- competing priorities, organizational uncertainty, shifting leadership, and the fundamental question of how to maintain quality and momentum when the ground is moving beneath you.

I stepped into this environment as both a hands-on design leader and a practice builder. My team of 6 product designers needed clear processes, shared standards, and a research foundation to guide decisions. None of that existed when I arrived.

The Challenge

The core problem was not any single product issue -- it was organizational. There was no standardized way to request research, no shared methodology, no central repository for insights, and no systematic connection between the teams closest to users (Solution Consultants, Training, Support) and the teams making product decisions. Each product team operated in its own silo, making design decisions based on anecdote rather than evidence.

Compounding this, the acquisition created real urgency. Teams needed clarity and stability precisely when organizational boundaries were shifting. Enterprise clients like Conde Nast had deadlines that would not wait for an integration to settle. And across three complex B2B products, users were struggling with workflows that had never been systematically evaluated -- the Loyalty platform required 29 steps just to create a segment, and core tasks had failure rates as high as 60-80% for first-time users.

I needed to build the infrastructure for research-informed design and deliver the research itself, simultaneously, while leading a team through organizational turbulence and maintaining delivery across every product line.

My Role

Title: Interim UX Design Lead / Senior Product Designer

Actual scope: Design leadership, research practice architecture, hands-on research execution, cross-functional process design, team development

Team: Led 6 product designers -- 1:1s, feedback cycles, career guidance, design critiques

Reporting: Partnered directly with Product and Engineering leadership; acted as bridge between Marigold and Zeta product organizations

This role consistently exceeded its title. Building career leveling frameworks, establishing organization-wide research operations, and creating cross-functional feedback systems are typically the work of a Head of Design or VP of Design Operations -- not an Interim Lead. I did this work because the organization needed it, and because I believe the most impactful design leadership is the kind that builds capability, not just delivers output.

Research & Discovery

My first move was to understand the full landscape before designing anything.

Loyalty Platform -- 60-Page UX Foundation: I conducted comprehensive foundational research combining Amplitude analytics, internal interviews across three continents, updated user personas (3), journey maps, navigation tree audits, heuristic evaluations, first-time usability testing (5 users), competitor benchmarks (Antavo, Capillary, Talon.One), and accessibility scans. I synthesized everything into a 60-page UX Foundation with a prioritization matrix.

The findings were transformative. Only 1 of 5 first-time users completed all core workflows. "Creating an Offer" had a 60% failure rate. Segment creation required 29 steps. Offer creation and wallet linkage demanded 17 steps with 4 context switches. And 81% of all platform views were concentrated on a single page -- the Member CSR screen -- indicating that the platform's advanced features were essentially invisible. This research redirected the entire Loyalty product roadmap.

Liveclicker -- Quantified Success Criteria: For the Liveclicker "NewClicker" reimagined platform, I designed a rigorous UX success criteria framework before evaluating launch readiness. I defined specific, quantified thresholds: task completion rate of 70% or higher, time on task 10-20% faster than baseline, zero critical blockers, interaction parity of 60% or higher, and workflow parity of 70% or higher. This framework provided an objective, data-driven lens for a high-stakes launch decision.

The evaluation revealed that the Phase 1 design intent was directionally correct -- the prototype achieved approximately 93% task completion -- but the live implementation fell short at only 44% task completion due to critical blockers. Workflow parity reached 67%, just below the 70% threshold. This data-driven assessment prevented a premature launch and provided Engineering with a focused remediation path.

Sailthru Folders -- Two Rounds of Research-Driven Iteration: For the Sailthru Folders feature (a brand organization system for enterprise multi-brand accounts like Conde Nast), I orchestrated two rounds of usability testing with 31 participants across 16 hours of research. Round 1 with 6 internal users established a baseline. After working with Product and Engineering to resolve the most critical blockers, Round 2 with 6 external users validated the improvements.

Sailthru Analytics: I conducted 9 user interviews across 2 countries and 3 seniority levels (5+ hours), plus a 29-question survey with 16 respondents across APAC, AMER, and EMEA to evaluate the analytics dashboard experience. The Cheetah analytics survey revealed that only 31% of users agreed dashboards "provide value" and 62.5% still relied on legacy reports.

Cross-Product Workshops: I facilitated 8 workshops spanning co-creation sessions for Loyalty Program Settings (7 participants, 120 minutes), Zephyr Snippets redesign (8 participants, 120 minutes), and cross-product integration workshops bridging Liveclicker with Sailthru, Selligent, and Cheetah (3 workshops, 12 participants, 3 platforms).

In total: 100+ users engaged, 45+ hours of direct research, 5 interview studies, 3 structured user tests, and 8 facilitated workshops -- in a 4-month window.

Design Process

Building the research practice and conducting the research were not sequential activities -- they happened in parallel, each informing the other.

Infrastructure First, Then Scale: I started by creating the organizational scaffolding that would make research sustainable beyond my individual capacity. I built a standardized UX Research Intake Form that linked every research request to Marigold's strategic value pillars (Open & Connected, Insights and Guidance, Deeper Engagement, Market Specialization, Operational Excellence & Trusted Platform). This was not just a form -- it was a forcing function that required anyone requesting research to articulate why it mattered to the business before a single session was scheduled.

I created a Design Brief Template that standardized project initiation across teams, embedding success criteria, stakeholder alignment, and phased milestones into every project from day one. The Brand Organization Design Brief for Conde Nast's Folders feature was the first deployed instance -- with explicit targets of SUS greater than 80 and adoption rate greater than 20% in the first month.

Building the Knowledge System: I established a UX Research Portal on Google Sites as the team's central hub for research methodology, templates, and outcomes. I set up a research repository on Glean.ly for searchable insights that would persist across projects and team members. I created a Research Kanban Board for workflow visibility and a quarterly newsletter to distribute key findings across the organization.

I published a numbered document series -- Document 01: UX Research Fundamentals (14 pages) and Document 02: Surveys (13 pages) -- designed not as reference documents but as self-contained courses. The Fundamentals guide includes a decision tree for method selection, step-by-step protocols for every major research method, and links to internal resources. The Surveys guide provides a 6-phase checklist from objective definition through analysis. These documents enable any designer on the team to conduct quality research independently.

Connecting the Silos: One of the most impactful decisions I made was building systematic feedback loops with the teams closest to users. I established a dedicated Slack channel with an intake form for Solution Consultants, auto-logging every piece of feedback into our shared system. I created weekly rotating meetings with the Training team across 6 product areas, ensuring that frontline intelligence flowed into design decisions rather than evaporating after support tickets closed.

These were not ad hoc check-ins. They were persistent, systematic bridges between customer-facing intelligence and product decisions -- organizational infrastructure designed to scale insight beyond any single research study.

Developing the Team: I built a 69-skill career assessment matrix spanning 12 categories with a career leveling framework defining 4 levels (Junior Designer through Design Director). Each level includes detailed expectations, responsibilities, behaviors, performance signals, and growth pathways. This enabled my 6 designers to self-assess, identify growth areas, and have structured career development conversations. This kind of people infrastructure is typically owned by a Head of Design, not an Interim Lead -- but the team needed it, so I built it.

Solution

The solution was not a single deliverable -- it was an interlocking system of 13 process infrastructure artifacts that transformed how the organization approached research and design:

1. UX Research Intake Form -- Standardized research requests with business value alignment
2. Design Brief Template -- Standardized project initiation with success criteria
3. Discovery Interview Guide -- Reusable 30-minute semi-structured interview protocol
4. UX Research Fundamentals Guide (14 pages, Document 01) -- Comprehensive methodology reference
5. Surveys Guide (13 pages, Document 02) -- Specialized survey methodology reference
6. UX Research Portal (Google Sites) -- Central knowledge hub
7. Research Repository (Glean.ly) -- Searchable insight archive
8. Research Kanban Board -- Workflow visibility and request tracking
9. Standard Reusable Templates (FigJam) -- Templates for SUS, SEQ, personas, journeys, interviews, and workshops
10. Solution Consultant Feedback Loop -- Dedicated Slack channel with auto-logging intake form
11. Training Team Feedback Loop -- Weekly rotating meetings across 6 product areas
12. Quarterly UX Research Newsletter -- Organizational insight distribution
13. Research Phases Framework -- 4-phase Discover/Define/Develop/Optimize methodology

Alongside this infrastructure, I delivered product-specific research and design across every major product line: the 60-page Loyalty UX Foundation, the Liveclicker success criteria evaluation, two rounds of Sailthru Folders usability testing, analytics dashboard research, cross-product integration workshops, and A/B usability testing for Loyalty Segments.

Results & Impact

Usability Outcomes

• Sailthru Folders achieved a SUS score of 90 (best-in-class) from external users after research-driven iteration
• Task success improved from 86.3% to 96.9% between testing rounds -- a 12.3 percentage point improvement driven directly by research findings
• Users described the Folders feature as "intuitive, clean, and directionally strong"
• User quote: "Overall smooth -- I knew very little going in and could do it on my own"

Research-Driven Risk Reduction

• Loyalty Foundation discovered that 60% of first-time users failed the core "Creating an Offer" task -- a finding that fundamentally redirected the product roadmap
• Liveclicker success criteria evaluation revealed a 49-point gap between prototype (93%) and live (44%) task completion, preventing a premature launch
• Cheetah analytics survey found that only 31% of users agreed dashboards "provide value", informing the real-time dashboard consolidation strategy

Research Volume

• 100+ users engaged across all research activities in 4 months
• 45+ hours of direct user research
• 5 interview studies, 3 structured user tests, 8 facilitated workshops

Organizational Impact

• 13 process infrastructure artifacts built and deployed, creating a sustainable research operations practice
• Zero missed deadlines during the acquisition and rebrand
• 6 product designers supported through structured 1:1s, career development framework, and design governance
• UX Research positioned as "a strategic partner to Product, not just a service function"

Team Development

• 69-skill assessment matrix deployed across the design team
• 4-level career framework (Junior Designer through Design Director) established
• Structured feedback loops connecting Solution Consultants and Training teams to design decisions for the first time

Reflections

This was the most demanding and most rewarding period of my career so far. Building a research practice from scratch is hard. Building it during an acquisition -- while also leading a team and conducting hands-on research across three products -- requires a level of parallel execution that I had not been tested on before.

What I learned is that infrastructure is the ultimate multiplier. The 13 process artifacts I built were not overhead -- they were what made it possible to maintain quality and velocity across every product line simultaneously. When a new research need emerged, there was already an intake form to capture it, a methodology guide to plan it, templates to execute it, and a repository to store the findings. The system worked because it was designed to scale beyond me.

If I were to do this again, I would invest even earlier in the cross-functional feedback loops. The Solution Consultant and Training team connections produced some of the most actionable insights in my tenure -- and I wish I had built those bridges in month one rather than month two.

Core patterns this project demonstrates

• Infrastructure Building: 13 process artifacts constituting a complete research operations practice -- the most comprehensive infrastructure evidence in my career
• Territory Mapping: The 60-page Loyalty Foundation and Liveclicker success criteria framework exemplify systematic mapping before designing
• Silo Bridging: Feedback loops connecting Solution Consultants, Training, and design teams for the first time; cross-product workshops bridging Sailthru, Selligent, and Cheetah
• Scaling Through Teaching: The numbered document series, skills matrix, and research portal enable the team to sustain research-informed design independently
• Operating Above Title: Building Director-level career infrastructure, establishing organization-wide research operations, and leading through an acquisition -- all as an Interim Lead

This is the work I am most proud of: not any single finding or design, but the organizational capability I built. The research practice, the templates, the feedback loops, the career framework -- these persist beyond any individual project. They change how the organization makes decisions. That is the kind of impact I want to keep building.

Key Artifacts