Case Study: Sonos

A UX audit of the customer journey within the email marketing campaigns of a renowned sound experience company.

Client Background

Sonos is a leading sound experience company, focused on creating products and experiences that help the world listen better. Established in 2002, Sonos invented multi-room wireless audio and changed the way people listen at home, known for its premium sound, easy experience, and thoughtful design aesthetic. Sonos started working with Experiment Zone in January 2022 for a comprehensive website audit ahead of a big redesign project. Following 2 research studies for the website, their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team tapped into our services to identify opportunities to improve the customer journey of their email marketing efforts.


Challenge/Obstacle

The Sonos Client Relationship Management (CRM) program and specifically the email campaigns are essential to generating repeat traffic and growing revenue for Sonos.com by keeping customers engaged and supporting the messaging needs of the business.

Increased send volume started to show waning clicks. This, coupled with an expanded product offering and a brand identity refresh, underscored the need to uncover opportunities for personalization and to ensure communications were meeting customer expectations.


Our Strategy

We uncovered quick conversion wins by analyzing the in-app and email communication using a hybrid user experience and heuristic analysis.

We used two user personas - one of a prospective customer on desktop and one of a mobile customer. The user journeys focused on email campaigns triggered by the action of signing up for emails and on the email and in-app communication series after customer purchase of the product. Our goal was to empathize with these types of users and identify potential friction points in their interactions with the email campaigns.

We reviewed the CRM email templates and the in-app experience against a UX checklist, with focus on content hierarchy, visual elements, and copy. Our checklist included generalized UX heuristics, as well as ecommerce specific heuristics and accessibility guidelines.

We focused on visual elements of the email templates with actionable recommendations for improvements. In the readout deck we added an overview analysis of the email flow for the two scenarios, identifying new opportunities to engage more proactively with new customers.

The Results

The deliverables we produced, including a list of the most important design guidelines, are being used by the client to improve their email campaign strategy and the redesign of their email templates. Our work helped Sonos define a clear long term strategy to improve their subscribers’ experience when interacting with the email and in app templates.


“The audit really put us in the customer seat. It provided critical insights and served as a blueprint for creative updates and campaign optimization, ultimately driving toward a better customer experience. The level of detail is something I've never seen from a vendor”

- Rachel Dudley
Director of Global CRM at Sonos


Ready to get started?

Fill out the form with your contact information and any details you'd like to provide about your current challenges.

We'll be in touch to set up a time to discuss your goals and challenges.