UNCLE Living

In August 2019 UNCLE asked us to see if we could increase their conversion rate. We began by looking at how people interacted with the building and apartment pages on UNCLE within Google Analytics. We found that the Gallery was the most clicked link on the page.

We knew that if someone was already keen on viewing one of the UNCLE apartments, they would be more likely to look at the gallery. But we were curious to see what could sway people who were less motivated; what might tip them over. So we set up some tracking to see how conversions compared between people who did interact with the Gallery and those who didn’t. Those who did converted at around 60%, whereas those who didn’t converted at around 5%.

We hypothesised that by increasing the prominence of the gallery (by moving it up the page), we might be able to increase views, and therefore conversions.

We did an A/B test of this hypothesis, which resulted in a 43% increase in conversions against the existing site. We then rolled out this change across all property pages to increase bookings at all UNCLE sites.

This also contradicts what people tell you if you ask them about their priorities when finding somewhere new to live. They will tell you the most important factor is price. However, by observing UNCLE users on the site using heatmaps, videos and analytics, we could see this wasn’t the case, and adjusted the site accordingly.

In January 2019 we began a full site redesign. This was to refresh the brand; create individual pages for each of the apartment types; and to allow the site to be adapted and extended for the two additional buildings coming up in 2020. As part of this, we carried out research on:

•  Boutique hotels, and how they sell rooms. They often take a similar approach to UNCLE, but in their case they sell on a daily basis.
•  Interviews with the building managers – they show the customers around every day and answer their questions. They gave us a wealth of information about what prospective tenants are interested in and what they need, from their direct experience.
• Google Analytics on how the existing site was being used, and what people thought was important.

The new site went live in July 2019, with a 237% conversion increase for the Manchester building, and a general increase of 112%. The new site also allows for greater data gathering, measurement across A/B sites and multivariate testing – something which we continue to work with UNCLE on, on a retained basis.

In 2018 the majority of our work for UNCLE was in design; reworking pages and clarifying the brand messaging; work on internal branding and collateral.

Although we are a results-focused agency, we know how much great design contributes to conversion rates. We don’t have Lubalin posters on our office wall for nothing; beautiful design communicates status, attention to detail and an empathy for the user experience like nothing else.

UNCLE came to us via recommendation in August 2017. Essentially, they wanted greater cohesion. Their existing site had been built across two different CMS (and some wasn’t in a CMS at all, so couldn’t be edited); they wanted to focus their brand messaging; and they were keen to increase and accelerate conversion from the home page to the specific building pages.

We redesigned and rebuilt the site in about four months, to hit the launch date of the UNCLE’s new Elephant & Castle building. As part of that work we also produced OOH advertising including 48 sheet and tube ads, along with building illustrations and a whole host of design work. We also screen printed some of the work as beautiful handmade posters.