UAD Spark
Democratizing access to UA’s coveted software through a subscription business.
In 2022, Universal Audio launched a SaaS product called UAD Spark, a subscription service for their plug-in platform that set out to disrupt their business model by offering a collection of their best software for a low monthly price. A highly requested feature, Spark also allowed these plug-ins to run natively on the user's computer for the first time, without the need for UA hardware, which up to that point had been required, lowering the barrier to entry and making a lot of aspiring users very happy.
Their ‘perpetual’ business was really strong, and there was a lot of fear of cannibalizing it. But as they say, “you either innovate and disrupt yourself or someone else will.”
Goals
Build a subscription service in Shopify.
Acquire 25k new customers.
Build a conversion engine to generate recurring revenue.
Allow users to run plug-ins natively in their host computers.
Expand into new markets by lowering the barrier to entry.
$6M
Forecasted Revenue Year 1
25k
New Subscribers
150%
YoY Growth
“
These plug-ins are so expensive, I wish UA offered a subscription service like other companies.”
— User
“
We need to grow our software business by 40% over the next 3 years. For the amount we invest in R&D we are not getting the ROI we need.”
— CEO
Information Architecture
We managed to make something very complex appear simple. We had multiple systems that all had to talk to each other: Magento, Shopify, and Appstle (subscriptions app). The cloud team worked on architecting an API that would share information to and from the different systems and keep them in sync, and we worked together to ensure the experience was as coherent and seamless as possible for the user.
Early Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes that we used early in the process to work through the messaging, conversion flow, and key challenges of the service in the existing ecosystem.
tips_and_updates FUN FACT: we were also in the process of evaluating Figma as a tool to help streamline the process. So our work took, ehem, a little extra long while we learnt it.
Sign up flow
We developed a self-serve flow for acquiring new customers that increased conversion by 40%.
Email Capture
We intentionally hid the price from the landing page to increase conversion, and this first step allowed us to retarget prospects who showed interest but weren’t quite ready to purchase. This proved very effective, with an over 40% conversion rate.
Plans Page
This page renders differently for different users depending on a number of variables, including their eligibility, special promotions, what hardware they own, and more. In other words, extremely simple on the front end but very complex on the back end.
Checkout Page Summary
At this key moment when the user is ready to convert, we are using UX writing to reinforce they are in control: that they won’t be charged today, and that they can cancel anytime. Obviously, we don’t want them to cancel, but we use reverse psychology here, to build trust and overcome resistance.
Account
Since we built this in Shopify, as somewhat of a micro-site, we had to create an entirely new account section where a user could manage their subscription (pause or cancel), see their invoices, change their credit card details, etc.
tips_and_updates FUN FACT: our Cloud team developed an API that would be the source of truth for all account management between Shopify and Magento to make the user experience as seamless as possible between both platforms.
Account UI
It's the little things...
Offboarding flow
Users can Pause or Cancel their subscription. We introduced a discounted price offer in the cancelation flow that reduced churn by over 30%. We’re also tracking the main reason customers are churning by asking them a couple of questions, which is informing the service’s roadmap.
Launch Campaign by Effixx Studio
We partnered with long-time collaborator Effixx to create the visual identity and launch campaign, which included altogether over 8 videos in multiple formats.
View case study on Effixx Studio arrow_outward
tips_and_updates FUN FACT: the initial brief ideas revolved around a complete color pallette for your music needs, so we focused heavily on color and a layered design language.
Key Results
We learned a ton, and are still learning...
The first year’s forecast was way off.
Our assumptions around yearly vs monthly were off.
Both of these trends are self-correcting to our initial assumptions in year 2.
Price is still high for most people, we acquired most new customers through a promotion that lowered it significantly.
Credit Card expiration amounted to 40% of our churn.
440k
Trending MRR
28k
Active Subscribers
45%
Retention Rate
Credits
Business, Strategy & PM
Dan Fulop (DRI)
Jason Schwartz (ex Spotify consultant)
Erica McDaniel (PM, Video)
Shawn Whitfield (PM)
Ryan Wardell (Director, Product)
Creative
Erik Hanson (VP, Marketing)
Effixx Studio (Creative Agency)
Ben Lindell (Director, Marketing)
Martin Lindhe (Creative Director)
Darrin Fox (Head Editor, Copywriter)
McCoy Tyler (Copywriter)
Morgan McKean (Visual Designer)
Development
Eric Schmitt (Head Architect)
Ryan Abraham (Lead Engineer)
Eli Triona (Web Dev Manager)
Dustin Roth (E-comm manager)