Amazon Quest
A gamified campaign that encouraged customers to complete tasks to boost user engagement and purchases.
Lead Product Designer — Sebastien Chery
Product Manager — Wooda Goshen-Seo
Background
Our Japanese customers did not frequently purchase digital content. Despite engaging with Kindle's platform, they were often passive, browsing content without converting to active buyers. Research indicated a lack of structured incentives and engaging UI contributed to low purchasing behavior. Our Japanese-based team created Amazon Quest to address these concerns, a campaign that sent customers on a quest. This quest encouraged customers to buy certain books to receive a final sum of Amazon points at the end, which can then be used to purchase other products.
Problem
Collaborating with the team's PM, I designed the quest to integrate a progress bar and rewards system. This allowed customers to track their journey from visiting titles to purchasing. The campaign homepage prioritized clear and accessible goals, providing step-by-step guidance to help users earn rewards effortlessly. A countdown timer added urgency, emphasizing the time-sensitive nature of the rewards and encouraging quicker actions.
For the ingress points, the PM and I believed we could not rely on those used in other campaigns to reach our Japanese cohorts. We needed buy-in from teams outside our immediate organization to place our campaign in different parts of Amazon.
Situation
For this portion of the project, we proposed adding a new ingress point to the campaign on Amazon's global "Thank You page" (TYP). This critical touchpoint had strict technical constraints, which Amazon's Percolate framework managed. The challenge was integrating the new card without disrupting the page's performance or conflicting with existing promotions and campaigns set by the global team.
Task
As the Lead Product Designer, I was tasked with:
1. Designing a lightweight ingress card that adhered to Percolate’s modular framework while achieving campaign visibility and engagement goals.
2. Resolving performance concerns raised by the global team, including load-time optimization and global content prioritization.
3. Demonstrating to the Japanese-based team how the design aligned with the campaign’s creative and functional mechanics.
Action
Collaboration with Engineers:
To ensure seamless integration with Percolate's card architecture, I worked closely with engineers to understand its asynchronous loading behavior and modular design. This collaboration extended to the global team engineers, who were particularly concerned that our integration might reduce the visibility of their team's promotional content.
To ensure seamless integration with Percolate's card architecture, I worked closely with engineers to understand its asynchronous loading behavior and modular design. This collaboration extended to the global team engineers, who were particularly concerned that our integration might reduce the visibility of their team's promotional content.
Iterative Design Process:
Two design options were proposed for the ingress: a visually rich approach and a minimalistic design focused on performance and content prioritization. After receiving stakeholder feedback, we moved forward with the minimalistic option.
Two design options were proposed for the ingress: a visually rich approach and a minimalistic design focused on performance and content prioritization. After receiving stakeholder feedback, we moved forward with the minimalistic option.
Although we moved forward with the minimalistic option, I presented both iterative solutions aligned with TYP's modular design to address the global team's card placement and performance impact concerns. Adjustments, such as reducing card height, ensured global promotions remained visible above the fold to balance the campaign and overall Amazon business goals. These final options emerged from that collaborative process where minimalistic option was maintained as the main option:
Testing and Validation:
The testing process involved collaboration with engineers to validate the ingress integration. Technical tests revealed areas where design adjustments were needed to meet the performance benchmarks and ensure other promotions remained above the fold.
The testing process involved collaboration with engineers to validate the ingress integration. Technical tests revealed areas where design adjustments were needed to meet the performance benchmarks and ensure other promotions remained above the fold.
Results
1. Successfully integrated the ingress card without impacting global "Thank You" page performance.
2. Gained the global team's full approval during negotiations, securing a dedicated space for future campaigns to streamline future collaborations.
3. Amazon Japan's Quest delivered impressive statistical results, showcasing the power of gamification to drive digital purchases. In March and April, 29,000 customers enrolled in the quest, highlighting strong participation. The impact on purchasing behavior was striking: for those who engaged with or completed the quest, the monthly average of paid units per customer increased significantly compared to February. Cohorts with low purchasing behaviour were targeted, where Cohort 1 saw a remarkable +2279% jump, reaching 6.9 units per customer, while Cohort 2 experienced a +662% rise, reaching 8.39 units per customer.
These results demonstrate that the quest mechanics effectively turned customers from browsing to buying, driving customer activity and sustained engagement.
Pitfalls
Outside of the ingress point situation, to keep customers motivated, we added "Add to Wishlist" as a free, intermediate step to break up the journey to purchasing into smaller, manageable goals. However, data showed that 43% of customers in Cohort 1 and 33% in Cohort 2 who completed a purchase skipped the Wishlist step. This indicated that the "Add to Wishlist" feature may not have been as intuitive or noticeable as intended.
As next steps, removing this wishlist step or refining its customer experience could improve progression through the quest and better support purchase completion.
