Case study 01 · Product portfolio transformation
How I led the evolution of a legacy content and commerce portfolio into a measurable, customer-centered system for acquisition, personalization, purchase, and retention.
Portfolio scale
16Msessions20%ecommerce conversionThe executive summary
Tarot.com had enormous audience reach and a deep catalog, but its value was constrained by legacy technology, fragmented journeys, and limited behavioral insight.
I set the portfolio strategy, directed experience and project scope, and oversaw execution across product, design, engineering, content, and marketing. The transformation centered on three moves: measure the journey, turn free content into a growth engine, and connect every customer interaction into a persistent ecosystem.
The starting point
Before
Legacy systems made basic changes expensive. High-reach content, self-guided readings, customer accounts, and commerce operated as separate destinations, so teams optimized isolated touchpoints with little visibility into what moved customers forward.
After
Shared identity, behavioral signals, recommendations, purchases, and saved insight connected discovery, daily engagement, signup, commerce, and return behavior into one measurable customer relationship.
Portfolio opportunities
I evaluated the portfolio across market demand, customer access, decision quality, and operating leverage. The sequence moves from the most distinctive opportunity to the capabilities required to deliver it.
U.S. psychic-services revenue reached an estimated $1.9 billion in 2014, growing 3.4% that year after five years of sustained growth. Continued expansion was forecast through 2019 as astrology, Tarot, and spiritual guidance gained broader consumer acceptance.
U.S. smartphone penetration rose from 69% to 76% during 2014. Capturing the expanding market required replacing legacy desktop experiences with responsive journeys that connected engagement, signup, and purchase.
Connect customer behavior, identity, and commercial signals so investment follows shared evidence rather than assumptions.
Replace large quarterly launches with reusable systems that support frequent improvements while reducing manual work and specialized engineering dependency.
Who we designed for
Frequent repeat visits
Age: 40–45
Occupation: Busy professional
Life stage: Divorced
Interests: Love predictions, astrology, and daily guidance
Problem: Navigating a major relationship transition and looking for frequent reassurance, perspective, and emotional clarity.
How they use the site: Returns frequently for horoscopes, free Tarot readings, and personally relevant daily content.
“I come back for guidance that feels relevant to what is happening in my life right now.”
High engagement and registration intent
Age: 18–23
Occupation: College student
Life stage: In a relationship
Interests: Relationships, self-discovery, and daily Tarot
Problem: Trying to understand their identity, relationships, and future while navigating an uncertain stage of life.
How they use the site: Creates a profile, explores topics, saves content, and considers deeper personalized readings.
“I want the site to remember what I have explored so I can continue instead of starting over.”
High commercial and retention value
Age: 30–35
Occupation: Career transition
Life stage: Married
Interests: Career guidance, money timing, luck, and prosperity
Problem: Facing consequential career and financial decisions and willing to pay for deeper, personalized guidance.
How they use the site: Purchases readings or reports, returns for additional insight, and may convert to VIP membership.
“When I am ready for a deeper reading, I want the next step to feel clear and connected.”
Search-led acquisition
Age: 25–34
Occupation: Early-career professional
Life stage: Single
Interests: Personality, zodiac signs, and free Tarot
Problem: Has a specific question about personality, compatibility, or the future and wants an immediate, accessible answer.
How they use the site: Arrives through search or social, samples free content, and decides whether the experience is relevant enough to continue.
“I usually arrive looking for one answer, then explore when the content feels relevant to me.”
High topical intent
Age: 35–44
Occupation: Working parent
Life stage: Married
Interests: Love compatibility, family dynamics, and wellness
Problem: Working through a meaningful love, family, or wellness issue and seeking guidance focused on that specific concern.
How they use the site: Returns during meaningful life moments and follows a focused topic from free guidance into deeper personalized insight.
“When something changes in my life, I want guidance that helps me understand that specific situation.”
Highest lifetime-value potential
Age: 45–55
Occupation: Established professional
Life stage: Long-term customer
Interests: Premium reports, saved readings, and VIP access
Problem: Wants ongoing guidance across multiple areas of life and values a trusted source that retains personal context over time.
How they use the site: Uses multiple product families and relies on saved history, recommendations, and membership benefits across repeat visits.
“I want everything I have purchased and explored to work together when I return.”
This working matrix maps the relative value of each product and member capability to the six behavior-based personas. Ratings are directional hypotheses to refine with behavioral and revenue data.
| Free product features | Daily Guidance User | Engaged Explorer | Purchaser | First-Time Discoverer | Topic-Focused Seeker | Loyal Power User |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Horoscopes | High | High | Medium | High | Medium | High |
| Daily Tarot Readings | High | High | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
| Monthly & Annual Forecasts | Medium | Medium | High | Medium | High | High |
| Self-Guided Tarot Readings | High | High | Medium | High | High | High |
| Personal Astrology Calculators | High | High | High | High | High | High |
| Educational Articles | Medium | High | Medium | High | High | Medium |
| Paid product features | ||||||
| Paid astrology reports | Medium | Medium | High | Medium | High | High |
| Paid love astrology reports | High | High | High | Medium | High | High |
| Paid Tarot readings | High | Medium | High | Medium | Medium | High |
| Paid love Tarot readings | High | High | High | Medium | High | High |
| Paid I Ching readings | Low | Low | Medium | Low | Low | High |
| Paid love I Ching readings | Low | Low | Medium | Low | Low | Medium |
| Paid numerology reports | Medium | Medium | High | Medium | Medium | High |
| Free member features | ||||||
| Virtual currency | Medium | Medium | High | Low | Medium | High |
| Personal Journal | High | High | High | Medium | High | High |
| Free birthday reading | High | High | Medium | High | Medium | High |
| Sun-sign logged-in experience | High | High | Medium | High | High | High |
| Transaction history | Medium | Medium | High | Low | Medium | High |
Customer pain points
Customers encountered friction across discovery, mobile use, personalization, purchase, and return. These pain points identified where the portfolio was failing to maintain context and build continuity.
Horoscopes, articles, readings, and reports felt like separate destinations without a clear next step.
Desktop-oriented experiences made reading, navigation, account creation, and checkout difficult on mobile.
Preferences, engagement, and purchase history did not consistently carry across products and channels.
Free content created interest, but inconsistent gateways and recommendations disrupted progression to paid value.
Customers received broad promotions instead of guidance informed by their interests, behavior, and history.
Customers lacked clear ways to save insight, revisit purchases, continue their journey, or find reasons to return.
Value assessment
Directional assessment used to compare opportunities across competing customer and commercial outcomes.
| Customer pain point | Portfolio implication | Customer value | Signup value | Ecommerce value | Organic value | Ad revenue value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Disconnected discovery | Reduced cross-product discovery and limited progression from content to commerce. | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Mobile friction | Constrained engagement, signup, and purchase across the portfolio’s growing mobile audience. | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
Lost customer context | Prevented experiences and recommendations from improving across visits. | 5 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 |
Unclear paths to value | Weakened conversion between free engagement, account creation, and paid products. | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
Limited personalization | Reduced the relevance of onsite recommendations and lifecycle marketing. | 5 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 |
Inconsistent return experiences | Limited habit formation, retention, and repeat purchase. | 5 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
Measurement at a glance
Six categories combined a range of metrics to evaluate performance and guide decisions.
The framework tracked a broader set of signals; the examples below show the metrics that most directly influenced portfolio investment and execution.
| Performance category | Metric | What it revealed | Decision enabled | What changed | Review cadence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acquire | Qualified engagement by source | Whether acquired visitors continued into meaningful content and product journeys. | Which acquisition channels deserved continued investment beyond initial reach. | Channel quality was evaluated by downstream behavior rather than visits alone. | Weekly |
| Engage | Content-to-next-step rate | Whether content led customers toward another relevant experience, signup, or product. | Where contextual pathways and recommendations should appear. | Content became an intentional bridge into deeper customer journeys. | Weekly |
| Identify | Signup conversion | Where customers abandoned account creation and whether the value exchange was clear. | How to improve signup gateways, messaging, and form completion. | Signup became a measured transition into a persistent customer relationship. | Weekly |
| Monetize | Revenue per session | How advertising and ecommerce value changed across journeys and content categories. | How to balance engagement, advertising inventory, and paid-product pathways. | Portfolio investment was evaluated against total session value. | Weekly |
| Retain | Repeat purchase rate | Whether product history, personalization, and lifecycle messaging extended value. | Where to invest in recommendations, saved context, and customer re-engagement. | Purchase history and lifecycle recommendations became product capabilities. | Monthly |
| Operate | Release frequency | Whether reusable systems and clearer requirements improved delivery velocity. | Where to standardize templates, requirements, and release practices. | Teams moved from large quarterly launches toward smaller weekly improvements. | Monthly |
Three portfolio-level decisions
Revenue and traffic were visible, but not the behaviors connecting discovery, signup, engagement, and purchase.
Instrument the full journey so priorities followed customer behavior—not campaign or design assumptions.
A shared view of conversion friction aligned product, engineering, and marketing investment.
High-intent free content attracted customers but operated as disconnected destinations.
Use free experiences to acquire customers, reveal intent, build habits, and lead naturally to paid value.
Audience traffic became a repeatable customer journey instead of isolated campaign activity.
Identity, content, purchases, email, and history lived across costly fragmented systems.
Connect the relationship so every interaction improved the next experience and commercial opportunity.
Established the foundation for persistent personalization, repeat purchase, and scalable delivery.
Transformation overview
Four connected areas defined the transformation. Each began with a focused MVP commitment, while broader capabilities remained deferred until customer and business value could be validated.
Migrate 50+ ecommerce products, modernize checkout and payments, and preserve fulfillment, balances, entitlements, and revenue continuity.
Create responsive content templates, improve publishing efficiency, strengthen discovery, and protect the engagement that supported advertising revenue.
Modernize signup and onboarding, migrate email capabilities, and connect lifecycle communication to customer behavior and value.
Modernize backend systems, establish reusable templates and behavioral data, connect identity, and enable faster, safer delivery.
The roadmap moves from establishing reusable foundations to measuring behavior, connecting customer context, expanding monetization, and scaling the complete operating system.
| Benchmarks | Establish | Measure | Connect | Monetize | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commerce modernization | Prioritize high-value purchase journeys Map payment and fulfillment dependencies | Instrument checkout and fulfillment | Connect identity, purchases, and entitlements Introduce persistent product history | Expand payments, VIP, and recommendations Test responsive checkout improvements | Complete portfolio migration and optimization |
| Content & advertising | Launch responsive content foundations Standardize high-volume templates | Measure discovery, depth, and ad yield Balance inventory with engagement | Use context to improve relevance | Connect content to commercial pathways | Scale templates, publishing, and optimization Automate repeatable content operations |
| Lifecycle & marketing | Simplify signup and onboarding | Measure acquisition and signup quality Define lifecycle conversion signals | Migrate email and activate segments Launch birthday and return journeys | Build personalized lifecycle programs | Automate retention and growth journeys |
| Technical & data foundation | Establish reusable systems and delivery standards Move toward smaller releases | Standardize events, QA, and reporting | Unify identity and customer context Connect customer-management tools | Modernize backend commerce capabilities | Scale cloud systems, tools, and automation Operationalize portfolio monitoring |
| Capability unlocked | Shared delivery standards | Evidence-led decisions | Persistent identity | Revenue optimization | Faster portfolio rollout |
Operating Realities
Modernizing a live portfolio meant working within revenue-critical systems, shared technical dependencies, incomplete data, competing priorities, and established customer habits.
Business ImpactRevenue, cost, growth, or operational consequences
Customer ImpactTrust, usability, continuity, or behavior
System & DeliveryTechnology, data, dependencies, or team execution
Risks were evaluated against customer impact, revenue continuity, delivery confidence, and the organization’s ability to operate the new system.
| RISK | Revenue disruption | Legacy-system instability | Unreliable behavioral data | Stakeholder misalignment | Mobile experience regressions | Customer confusion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Likelihood | ||||||
| Impact | ||||||
| Early warning signals | Conversion decline, payment failures, checkout abandonment, or fulfillment errors. | Elevated error rates, blocked releases, regressions, or unexpected cross-product effects. | Missing or duplicate events, reporting discrepancies, or implausible behavioral changes. | Scope churn, delayed approvals, conflicting requirements, or repeated decision reversals. | Lower mobile completion, device-level conversion gaps, usability issues, or increased support contacts. | Increased abandonment, lower return engagement, repeated support questions, or declining repeat purchase. |
| Mitigation strategy | Use phased releases, protect proven payment paths, and monitor conversion throughout rollout. | Introduce reusable responsive foundations incrementally instead of replacing the entire platform at once. | Define event standards, validate reporting against known outcomes, and reconcile discrepancies before decisions. | Create shared requirements, decision criteria, delivery checkpoints, and one view of portfolio performance. | Use reusable templates, device-level quality assurance, and controlled product-by-product rollout. | Preserve familiar cues, introduce changes progressively, and use behavior and support feedback to refine them. |
| Success signal | Stable transactions and conversion during migration. | Fewer regressions and faster, repeatable releases. | Shared metrics trusted across product, marketing, and leadership. | Faster approvals and fewer late-stage scope changes. | Consistent completion and conversion across devices. | Stable engagement with reduced abandonment and support friction. |
Risks were evaluated against customer impact, revenue continuity, delivery confidence, and the organization’s ability to operate the new system.
The criteria show what had to be demonstrably true—not simply delivered—for the transformation to create durable customer, commercial, and operating value.
| Focus area | Acceptance criteria | Evidence of completion | Business guardrail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commerce modernization | Customers can discover, purchase, receive, and revisit products across devices. | Checkout QA, fulfillment, reconciliation, entitlement, and conversion reporting. | Protect revenue, payment accuracy, and fulfillment during migration. |
| Content & advertising | Teams can publish responsive content without sacrificing discovery, engagement, or ad inventory. | Template adoption, publishing effort, engagement, and stable ad impressions. | Maintain organic traffic and advertising yield during rollout. |
| Lifecycle & marketing | Signup, onboarding, and messaging respond to identity, behavior, and value. | Signup, deliverability, segment activation, conversion, and return behavior. | Preserve consent, deliverability, and customer trust. |
| Technical & data foundation | Reusable systems support frequent releases and trustworthy data. | Event QA, reporting integrity, persistent identity, and releases per week. | Increase speed without compromising reliability or data integrity. |
| Cross-system standard | Maintain revenue and customer context throughout migration. | Changes require less engineering and inform the next decision. | No phase disrupts the live business or existing customer value. |
Growth leadership
I directed how the portfolio was built, positioned, and brought to market—connecting the customer experience to shared growth priorities and measurable business outcomes.
Created a shared foundation for how the portfolio communicated and behaved, giving product experiences, editorial content, and campaigns one recognizable customer promise.
Turned growth into a coordinated portfolio discipline by connecting lifecycle opportunities to customer behavior, commercial priorities, and product capabilities.
Directed how portfolio initiatives reached customers by defining the audience, value proposition, offer, channel mix, journey, and sequence behind each launch.
Established the shared planning and decision practices required for product, design, content, marketing, engineering, and leadership to execute as one system.
My impact as Director of Product
I held broad ownership across portfolio strategy, customer experience, roadmap, product definition, delivery priorities, data requirements, and commercial performance. I set the direction and remained accountable for the business outcome while cross-functional partners brought the work to life.
I translated customer behavior, business performance, and technical constraints into a cohesive product strategy. I determined where to invest, what to simplify, and how free content, personalization, commerce, and retention should work together.
I defined the roadmap, scoped initiatives, established requirements, and balanced customer value against revenue, engineering capacity, delivery risk, and long-term platform needs.
I led designers directly and aligned engineering, content, marketing, analytics, finance, support, and executive stakeholders around shared outcomes, realistic deliverables, and clear measures of success.
I introduced reusable responsive foundations, behavioral measurement, clearer product requirements, and an operating rhythm that helped the organization move from quarterly launches to releasing improvements two or three times per week.
Product experience gallery
Reflection
“The hardest part was not identifying a better experience—it was changing how the organization decided what was true.”
Early on, I challenged assumptions that campaign volume and immersive presentation were the primary growth levers. I first used product reasoning and customer context, then introduced behavioral events iteratively to create stronger evidence and focus engineering resources.
If starting again, I would establish the measurement foundation earlier. It shortened debates, revealed the distinct role of each product family, and made the customer journey a shared business system.