AdTech products are built for engineers and sold to traders, analysts, and publishers who never see the value buried three menus deep. Real product design and research closes the gap between what your product can do and what users actually adopt.
The Problem
Your interface was built for engineers, not the traders who live in it
AdTech platforms accrete features faster than they get designed, so the people who run campaigns – traders, ad ops, yield managers – end up navigating a UI that mirrors the data model instead of their workflow. Power users build spreadsheets to work around your own product because the in-platform path is too slow. That workaround is a churn signal and a competitive opening, because every hour spent fighting your UI is an hour they question the renewal. Adoption stalls not because the product is weak but because the experience hides its strength.
Signal loss changed the job and your product still assumes cookies
Cookie deprecation, clean rooms, and first-party data shifted how traders and analysts actually do their work, but most AdTech products still front-load workflows built for a third-party-data world. Users now operate across clean rooms, alternative IDs, and contextual signals, and a product designed for last-click attribution feels a generation behind. When the interface assumes a buying motion the industry abandoned, even strong infrastructure reads as stale. The roadmap drifts because nobody mapped how the post-cookie job to be done actually changed.
You build for three users with opposite workflows and serve none well
AdTech products frequently serve brands, agencies, and publishers inside one platform, and each has a fundamentally different job. A programmatic trader optimizing spend, an analyst building measurement, and a publisher managing yield need different defaults, different data, and different surfaces. A single generic interface forces all three to wade through controls that are not theirs, which slows everyone and trains them to use only a sliver of the product. Without research that separates these jobs, the roadmap chases features instead of fixing the workflow that actually drives renewals.
Roadmap decisions get made on the loudest customer, not on evidence
Without a research practice, AdTech roadmaps get steered by whichever enterprise account complained most recently or whichever feature a competitor announced. Engineering ships requests instead of solving the underlying job, so the product grows in surface area without getting easier to use. The result is a backlog of one-off features, a UI that gets more crowded every quarter, and a team that cannot say why a given thing was built. Decisions made on anecdote instead of evidence compound into a product strategy nobody can defend to a board.
How We Help
We start with a research and usability audit grounded in how your users actually do the job, not in the feature list you ship against. In the first 30 days we run sessions with real traders, analysts, and publishers, watch them complete core workflows in your product, and map where they drop out, work around the UI, or never find the value you built. We separate the jobs to be done by user type and identify where the post-cookie workflow has outrun the interface. We come out with the friction that is actually costing you adoption and renewals.
Strategy development turns that research into a design direction and a prioritized roadmap. We define the primary workflows for each user type, redesign the surfaces that decide whether a feature gets adopted, and rank the roadmap by impact on the jobs that drive retention rather than by who shouted loudest. We make a clear call on which user the core experience leads with and how the others get served without crowding the interface. This is where product design connects directly to product strategy, because a roadmap that is not grounded in the user's job is just a list.
Execution embeds design into the build instead of throwing comps over a wall. We produce the flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity designs for the priority workflows, write the interaction specs engineering needs, and sit with the product and engineering teams as it ships. We design for the realities of clean rooms, signal loss, and three-sided data so the new surfaces fit the current job rather than the old one. The goal is that a trader, an analyst, and a publisher each open the product to a surface built for their work.
Measurement tracks whether the design is doing work. We watch feature adoption, task completion and time-on-task for the core workflows, support-ticket volume on the redesigned surfaces, and qualitative signal from follow-up research. A product design and research engagement is working when users stop building spreadsheets to escape your UI, adoption of the features you invested in climbs, and the roadmap can be defended with evidence instead of anecdote.
What makes this different is that we run it as operators, not as a design studio that delivers a polished prototype and walks. We sit inside the product motion, fractionally, and own the research-to-shipped-design loop until it is producing in adoption. We have built and grown products, so we design for the metrics that matter and the workflows that drive renewals.
What we deliver
- User research across traders, analysts, and publishers with jobs-to-be-done mapping
- Usability audit of core workflows with drop-off and workaround analysis
- Redesigned flows and high-fidelity designs for the priority retention-driving workflows
- Evidence-ranked product roadmap tied to adoption and renewal impact
- Adoption dashboard tracking feature usage, task completion, and support load
In AdTech, your biggest competitor is the spreadsheet your power users build to escape your own UI. Every workaround is a feature you paid to build and they refuse to use – and a renewal you are quietly putting at risk.
Our Methodology
Our product design and research build for AdTech runs as a 90-day sprint, not an open-ended discovery loop. Phase one is the research and usability audit: moderated sessions with real users across all three user types, workflow observation, and a teardown of where the interface assumes a pre-signal-loss job. We come out of phase one with the jobs to be done and the friction that is actually costing adoption and retention.
Phase two builds the design direction and the prioritized roadmap. We define the lead workflows for each user type, redesign the surfaces that decide adoption, and rank the roadmap by impact on retention-driving jobs. Every design decision maps back to a research finding, so the roadmap survives a skeptical product review and a board question about why a thing got built.
Phase three ships the priority designs and installs the research cadence. We produce the flows and high-fidelity designs, write the specs engineering needs, sit with the build as it ships, and stand up the dashboard that tracks adoption and task completion. Unlike a design studio that delivers a prototype and leaves, we stay embedded until the redesigned workflows are producing measurable adoption gains.
How We Work
Initial engagements run 3 to 6 months because design changes only prove themselves once users have lived in them across real campaigns. The first 30 days are the research and usability audit: moderated sessions, workflow observation, and friction mapping. Days 31 to 60 produce the design direction, the redesigned priority flows, and the evidence-ranked roadmap. Days 61 to 90 ship the priority designs alongside engineering and stand up the measurement.
Our team includes a product designer who owns the flows and high-fidelity work, a researcher who runs the user sessions and synthesis, and a product operator who connects design to roadmap and engineering. From your side we need product leadership for roadmap decisions, engineering for build collaboration, and access to real users across your buyer types for research. We handle the research, the design, the specs, and the rollout support.
The cadence is a weekly working session during the build and a monthly review once the redesigned surfaces ship. Weekly sessions move research and design forward; monthly reviews tie design work to feature adoption, task completion, and support load. Most AdTech companies see usability signal from research within the first 30 days and measurable adoption movement within a full release cycle.
- Higher adoption of the features you already built but users could not find
- Faster task completion for traders, analysts, and publishers in core workflows
- Lower support load as redesigned surfaces remove recurring friction
- A roadmap defensible with research evidence ahead of a board or buyer review
If your adtech company needs product design & research leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does a product design and research engagement cost for an AdTech company?
Most AdTech product design and research engagements run between $20K and $50K per month depending on how many user types you serve and how much design ships in the window. That is less than a full-time design lead plus a research vendor plus a separate UX agency, and it comes with operators accountable to adoption, not just deliverables.
How long before we see results from a product design and research engagement?
Research surfaces actionable usability findings within the first 30 days, often before any new design ships. Adoption and task-completion movement shows up across the next full release cycle as the redesigned surfaces reach users.
How does the product design and research team integrate with our product and engineering staff?
We embed in your product motion rather than working as an outside studio. We run weekly working sessions with product leadership and engineering during the build, share research findings as they emerge, and write the specs engineering needs to ship.
What makes Winston Francois different from a traditional product design agency?
Design agencies deliver a polished prototype and a handoff file, then leave you to ship it alone. We treat design as an adoption problem and stay embedded through the build until the workflow changes how users behave.
How do you measure ROI from a product design and research engagement?
We measure feature adoption, task completion and time-on-task on the redesigned workflows, support-ticket volume, and qualitative signal from follow-up research. The headline metric is adoption of the workflows that drive retention, tied back to renewal risk. Most AdTech companies see usability ROI within the first month and adoption impact within a full release cycle.
What type of AdTech company is the right fit for this service?
Series A through growth-stage AdTech companies between $5M and $100M ARR whose product has outgrown its original UX, serves multiple user types poorly, or still assumes a pre-signal-loss workflow. The strongest fit is a company with strong infrastructure that users cannot fully access through the interface. The first step is a research and usability audit to find where the product is losing adoption to its own friction.
