COMPANY
YEAR
ROLE
Project description
After Oregon State University's College of Engineering launched a redesigned set of academic program pages, I noticed a concerning trend within our analytics data: key conversion actions were declining despite maintaining strong traffic levels.
Because historical performance benchmarks and event tracking were already in place, I was able to quickly identify that the issue was not traffic acquisition but rather a decline in visitor engagement with primary calls-to-action.
Rather than making large-scale design changes, I focused on a simple question:
What if our primary conversion CTA remained visible throughout the user experience without disrupting content consumption?
Working collaboratively with our UX designer and web development team, we implemented a persistent "sticky" call-to-action that remained accessible as users navigated program content.
The result was one of the most impactful website optimizations I have been involved with, producing an immediate and substantial increase in conversion performance.
Timeline
Summer 2025
Shortly after the launch of redesigned program pages, analytics revealed that conversion performance had fallen below historical benchmarks.
After analyzing user behavior and conversion pathways, I proposed testing a persistent CTA experience that would eliminate the need for users to scroll back through lengthy content sections to locate conversion opportunities.
The solution was designed, implemented, and monitored using existing web analytics and event-tracking infrastructure, allowing performance to be measured immediately following launch.
KPIs
Success was measured against several key objectives:
Increase User Key Event Rate
Improve year-over-year conversion performance
Increase total key events generated from program pages
Process
Identify the problem
My theory was simple:
Users were interested in the content but encountering unnecessary friction when attempting to take the next step.
Many program pages contain substantial information about careers, curriculum, faculty, student experiences, and outcomes. While valuable, the length of the content meant users often had to search for conversion opportunities after deciding to engage further.
To reduce this friction, I proposed implementing a sticky CTA that would remain visible as users navigated the page.
The goal was to create a more seamless experience by ensuring the next step was always available when visitors were ready to act.
Hypothesis development
I designed and launched the Discover Engineering Content Hub as a centralized destination for prospective student resources.
The content framework was organized around key recruitment themes:
Engineering career exploration
Engineering degree comparisons
Salary and career outcome content
Discipline-specific program information
Major selection guidance
Student-focused educational resources
Each article was developed using SEO best practices, including:
Search intent alignment
Strategic keyword targeting
Internal linking
Optimized metadata
Structured content hierarchy
Clear pathways into academic program pages
The hub was intentionally designed to serve both users and search engines, ensuring content remained valuable, discoverable, and aligned with recruitment goals.
Implementation
Working alongside our UX Designer Web Developer, we designed and implemented a persistent call-to-action experience across program pages.
The solution prioritized:
Constant CTA visibility
Minimal disruption to content consumption
Mobile and desktop usability
Improved accessibility of recruitment-focused actions
Clean integration within the existing page design
The implementation was intentionally lightweight, making it possible to test the impact of a single UX change without introducing other variables that could affect performance.
Measurement and optimization
Once deployed, performance was monitored through Google Analytics conversion tracking and historical benchmarking.
By comparing pre-implementation and post-implementation performance, I was able to isolate the impact of the sticky CTA and evaluate changes in user behavior over time.
The effects became visible almost immediately.
The chart below illustrates the sharp increase in user key event rate following implementation of the sticky CTA.
The user key event rate remained relatively stable around 2-3% prior to launch before increasing significantly after implementation. The uplift was sustained rather than temporary, suggesting the optimization addressed a meaningful user experience issue rather than producing a short-term anomaly.
Results
4.4x increase in User Key Event Rate
User Key Event Rate increased from 2.6% to 11.4%, representing a more than fourfold increase in conversion efficiency.
35% increase in total key events
Overall key events generated from program pages increased by 35% year-over-year, creating substantially more recruitment opportunities from existing website traffic.
Increased conversion efficiency
The most significant outcome was the dramatic improvement in conversion efficiency.
Rather than investing in additional traffic acquisition, the optimization improved the performance of existing visitors by reducing friction between content engagement and conversion actions.
This created more recruitment-focused interactions without increasing advertising spend or requiring additional content production.
DESERT FOX DIGITAL