Boosting Repeat Visits Through Saved Search Alerts
Hagerty Marketplace
Role & contributions
Lead Designer — concepting, end-to-end user flow, prototyping, gathering user feedback, email design
Impact
2,700+ opt-ins within the first 6 months; email open rates of 50%+ and click-through rates of 12%+
Early stage inventory made retention critical
Business problem: Limited early inventory after Hagerty Marketplace Auctions’ initial launch meant prospective buyers were leaving the site without finding what they wanted, and we were losing out on opportunities to engage high-intent purchasers.
User problem: Buyers searching for a specific vehicle had no reason to return to the site and had no way to know when a match became available.
Capturing intent at the moment of search
The save action surfaces directly within the search and filter experience because that is the moment of highest intent, where the user is already telling us what they’re looking for. Capturing that intent in the same action made saving feel like a natural next step.
Sold listings as a second save entry point
Many users discover Hagerty through organic search, landing on sold listings while researching prices or sales history for a specific vehicle. Adding a save prompt to these pages captured an additional set of high-intent users who might not have otherwise found their way into the active marketplace.
Search matches emailed daily
A daily email cadence was chosen as the right approach for the MVP since it was the most feasible to implement quickly and gave users a consistent, predictable touchpoint that could build the habit of returning to the site.
High intent with high returns
Within six months of launching the feature, it drove over 2,700 saved search opt-ins, with daily match emails achieving a 50%+ open rate and 12%+ click-through rate, which is well above industry standards. The feature continues to be a reliable driver of high-intent return visits, directly supporting engagement and sell-through rates as inventory grew.
2,700+
saved search subscriptions within first 6 months
50%+
email open rate
12%+
email click-through rate