SecretRoomz is an affiliate content site that offers a personal curation of home decor products.
In this solo project, I designed and built a responsive Wordpress+e-commerce platform focusing on process efficiency and content monetization.
To design a content strategy that created value out of personal product curations and a content management system that was efficient and easy to maintain.
To design and set up a Wordpress+e-commerce site that allowed me to manage a big product inventory in a cheap and fast way.
SecretRoomz was launched in January 2018 and made profitable after only three months. The site is a living project open to future improvements, but the great funnel conversion rate and the growth trend showed during its first year have validated the initial idea.
The wishlist feature was key in user retention. By allowing the user to store a list of their favorite products the chances of retaining the user were boosted.
To better understand the affiliate marketing industry and explore opportunities for content monetization, I researched thoroughly the dynamics of the industry and its major players.
Once I knew the kind of site I wanted to create I started working on the information architecture. I designed a sitemap and the product category tree. This information helped me moved forward in the design of user flows and their screens and interactions
I researched relevant keywords related to the niche and I chose 15 topics to write about. I did a careful curation of products to include in each article and I completed the selection with relevant products in different home decor styles.
I put care on SEO aspects and advertised the content through social media campaigns. The strategy proved a big success on Pinterest, with campaigns that resulted in a growing community of followers and an average of 450k viewers per month.
I kept in mind at all times that I was going to start with small or zero paid marketing campaigns. I chose Pinterest as the primary social media channel because of the similar target audience.
In addition to that, I decided to be very honest about the purpose of the site to avoid a spammy feeling. I validated this approach through casual user research in social events.
I implemented a responsive layout that helped boost the mobile conversion, currently around 60% of the total.
In order to maintain the project’s budget as low as possible, I went for a WordPress instance in AWS cloud servers. The final version runs about 30 extra Wordpress plugins that have various administrative and aesthetic purposes, including related products, wishlist, and the product inventory that runs under an e-commerce extension.
I launched the MVP in January 2018 and iterated the site based on user feedback and Google Analytics data. I realized that maintaining the prices up to date was going to be an expensive process. I originally had set up a full e-commerce check out process that finalized in the Amazon shopping cart. I realized that the conversion was better if I prompted the users to check the real price in Amazon and finalize the purchase with them.
SecretRoomz is a living project that started as a personal experiment and grew thanks to the feedback I collected through casual user interviews. I validated my ideas with friends and family before deciding how to solve the puzzle, and the numbers today are a clear success.