Ugly First Versions Win 

Today, 8 out of 10 users rate Moz’s onboarding as excellent, but it didn’t start there.

"We acknowledged it wasn't an ideal experience—it was text-based, no visuals, kind of short—but it was still effective." - Federico Engell, Lifecycle and Product Marketing Director at Moz

For Moz's marketing team, the path to an onboarding experience loved by 8 out of 10 users didn't start with a polished, perfect product experience. It began with what Federico Engell candidly describes as a basic, text-heavy guide that would make most designers cringe.

But it was the start of something. Instead of arguing for engineering hours or design assets, the team was on the path to improving its fee to paid conversion rate.

This is the story of how Moz's marketing team stopped waiting for permission, embraced the "ship now, perfect later" philosophy, and took control of their product onboarding—transforming both user experience and business results in the process.

Want to see the live version of this product onboarding? Sign up for a Moz Pro account: Start a Moz Pro Trial.

The Challenge: When Marketing Wants to Own Product Experiences

For the marketing team at Moz, a leading SEO platform, implementing in-app product experiences traditionally owned by product meant competing for engineering time. Every marketing idea—even seemingly small updates—had to compete against company-wide priorities.

"Before Candu, any marketing idea had to go through engineering, which required creating a brief and justifying it against other priorities that extend to an organization-wide list," said Federico. "Marketing experimentation could easily be deprioritized because some ideas were new things we'd never tested. Sometimes they lacked a clear business case compared to things that were clearly either problems or had a very strong foundation."

This process created a costly paradox: spending more time justifying ideas than it would take to test them, leaving potentially valuable concepts unexplored.

From Justification to Experimentation

With Candu, Moz's marketing team gained the freedom to experiment directly within the product. This seemingly simple change transformed their approach to marketing and product experiences.

"Post-Candu, we have the freedom to think about new ideas and concepts we want to try. We don't need to go into the prioritization work and backlog and see where that fits in the roadmap," Federico shares. "It's such a big difference." This shift in approach ultimately led to onboarding 9k+ accounts, with 80% satisfaction ratings.

Instead of beginning with fully matured concepts that could pass the engineering prioritization bar, Moz could now start with MVPs and improve through real user data:

"We're able to iterate with live data and capture more insights with prototypes. With engineering, we almost had to mature the concept to a point where it felt like it was the final state. Now we're able to iterate as we go."

ANTI-PATTERN: THE PRIORITIZATION TRAP

Federico identified a common trap that marketing teams fall into: spending more time justifying a feature than it would take to test it.

"We moved from spending a lot of time trying to build those pitches to engineering and to the entire organization, which for some very small experiments, was honestly quite disproportionate."

Even simple changes could get stuck in prioritization limbo, preventing rapid learning and iteration.

"We always try to pull some level of data from somewhere to justify ideas, but for new concepts, it's different. It's the classic situation where you need data to justify the experiment, but you can't get the data without running the experiment first."

From Text-Heavy to Visually Engaging

Moz's onboarding experience serves as a perfect example of this evolution. Starting with a basic text-based experience, they quickly launched their first version in just 60 days.

"We acknowledged it wasn't an ideal experience—it was text-based, there were no visuals, it was kind of short—but it was still effective. We felt we were conveying the message of helping users understand the tool or at least get started in specific workflows."

From that humble beginning, the onboarding experience evolved significantly over the next 18 months, transforming into a solution that would earn 8/10 satisfaction scores.

"After we were able to prove what we could do with it, we got design resources and subject matter expert resources to evaluate the content. It's been a very clear example of starting very small and basic and evolving to a much more comprehensive, visual, well-thought-out experience."

The Visual Proof: 18 Months of Evolution

The dramatic evolution of Moz's onboarding experience shows the power of starting with a minimal viable product and iterating based on user feedback. What began as simple text guides has transformed into an interactive, visually engaging experience that drives significantly better results.

Left: The initial version launched in 60 days – text-heavy with minimal styling

Right: The current version with clear navigation, visual elements, and interactive components

"It's been a journey, really, the onboarding experience for Moz. We've learned a lot through that process, through customer data as well. I don't think we would be at the state we are if it wasn't for the access we have to Candu."

When the 80/20 Rule Is Wrong

Moz identified six key workflows that new users typically want to accomplish:

• Finding high-value keywords
• Implementing a complete SEO strategy
• Building site authority with links
• Researching competitors
• Optimizing content
• Finding and fixing technical issues

Rather than funneling users into a single path, they created guides for each workflow and let users choose based on their specific needs. This approach challenges the conventional wisdom that you should just focus on the most popular use case.

"We're trying to shift from a one-off use case into helping users adopt the tool and make it their go-to SEO solution to monitor rankings and SEO performance over time."

MOZ’s INSIGHT: Built-in Feedback From Day One

Even before they had enough data to measure conversion impact, Moz incorporated a simple 1-10 rating system at the end of each guide. This allowed them to:

• Collect immediate feedback while waiting for longer-term metrics
• Establish a baseline satisfaction score (currently 8/10)
• Measure whether each iteration improved or worsened the experience

Federico explains: "We incorporated the element of users being able to rank the experience from one to ten... so we could measure whether any iteration we make is better or worse."

This approach meant they could validate improvements without waiting for extensive usage data—a crucial advantage when building a new feature.

The Impact: Clear Results and Actionable Feedback

The impact of these changes has been substantial and measurable:

• 8 out of 10 average satisfaction rating from users
• 9k accounts have been onboarded with the experience to date
• Meaningful improvements in free-to-paid conversion rates, including in some cohorts a 20% improvement in free-to-paid conversion
• Monthly experimentation cadence, with new experiences launching every month

Perhaps most importantly, the team can now continuously evolve their approach based on user feedback:

"We hear directly from users. They want to see something more visual, interactive, with videos and product demonstrations within the checklist. We also incorporated the element of users being able to rank the experience from one to ten, so we can measure whether any iteration we make is better or worse."

When Marketing Owns Onboarding

Federico's experience offers valuable insights for other marketing teams looking to take ownership of traditionally product-owned experiences like user onboarding:

1. Show, don’t tell

"What helps me a lot is always trying to visualize it for myself first. Marketing tends to be able to do that—to have a vision for a product solution. Candu allows me to bring that vision to reality very quickly, even just to show as an example: 'Here is what I'm thinking, see it in the product context.'"

2. Try a goal-based onboarding to help users discover all possibilities

Even knowing that most users come for keyword research, Moz deliberately exposes all six workflows in their onboarding. This creates awareness of the platform's full capabilities from the start.

"By opening up for everyone to decide what's best for them, we've seen users interacting with more than one guide."

3. Break down the marketing-product divide

The ability to directly implement and test ideas has transformed the traditional relationship between marketing and product teams:

"Marketing historically doesn't have that level of access to or ability to alter the product experience. It's a big responsibility. But once you've done it a few times, you build that skill and confidence. I think it brings marketing closer to product as well—you become a little bit more product-led."

This shift represents a significant evolution in how product onboarding can be owned and optimized by marketing teams who understand user needs and messaging but traditionally couldn't implement solutions directly within the product.

What's Next for Moz

The marketing team now operates at a faster pace, launching new experiments monthly across various use cases—from product rollouts to translation flows, onboarding, and marketplace features.

As they continue to iterate on their onboarding experience, they're focusing on three key areas:

1. Increasing the number of users who interact with the guides
2. Continuing to improve user satisfaction ratings
3. Adding more visual elements and interactivity

"When you don't have to prioritize against anything else, it removes a lot of pressure in terms of needing an immediate, direct impact to a KPI. It gives us time to build up a concept. We've learned a lot through this process, through customer data as well. I don't think we would be at the state we are if it wasn't for the access we have to Candu."

What's A Marketing Team To Do?

For ambitious marketing teams, Federico has some advice:

"Have a vision for yourself first, put it down on paper, and then seek validation from people you trust. Try to narrow it down to a vision and then see it contextually in the product. Sometimes your perception changes when you see it in context."

And for those who might be hesitant to take on the responsibility:

"We still have a process and cadence—we rarely go rogue with an experience without the product team and UX team having eyes on it. By getting consensus internally, we lower the risk and anxiety of going into the product as a marketing team."

About Moz
Moz is a leader in search engine optimization technology, providing software that helps companies improve their visibility in search results and drive qualified traffic to their websites. Their platform serves SEO and Marketing professionals with tools for keyword research, link building, site audits, and rank tracking.

About Candu
Candu is a no-code editor that enables marketing and product teams to create and modify in-app experiences without engineering support. With Candu, teams can build product tours, onboarding guides, feature announcements, and in-app messaging that drive user activation and adoption while reducing time-to-market for new initiatives.