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Automotive · 2025

Media Decision Engine

Redesigned a paid-media analytics platform planners had stopped using. Session time rose from under 10 minutes to over 30.

Context

Mercedes-Benz's Media Decision Engine is a paid-media analytics platform used by planners to track, measure, and optimise advertising performance. Built by OMD (Omnicom's media agency), it had grown over years without dedicated design input. I was lead product designer, working with a UX researcher and the platform's original builders at OMD.

Problem

Users gave up within ten minutes. The platform had roughly 15 tools, each requiring its own configuration: market, vehicle model, competitor, fuel type, timeframe. A planner running a single scenario had to re-enter the same parameters in every tool. Two to three people used it daily.

What I did

  • Information architecture. Regrouped the tools into three process stages, ordered by how planners actually work.
  • Global scenario settings. Consolidated shared parameters into one overlay reachable from anywhere, each setting entered once. Local parameters stayed in their tools, clearly labelled.
  • Onboarding. First-use guided tour, expert-pitched copy, empty states that guide rather than block.
The Market Opportunities stage, showing tools laid out in the order users move through them.
The Scenario Settings overlay. Adjusting any global parameter updates visualisations across every tool.
Channel Optimisation — spend versus impact across paid-media channels.
The first-use orientation, kept short because the IA had already done most of the work.
The login screen sets expectations for who the platform is for.

Impact

Within two weeks of test-market release, average session time rose from under 10 minutes to over 30 minutes. Daily active users grew from 2-3 to 40-50 across the account. (James Hutchinson, OMD Data Operations Manager.)

3× time-on-tool Average session under 10 to over 30 min Planners had been bouncing off slow loading and confusing navigation; now they stay and work in the tool.
40–50 daily users A near-abandoned platform became the team's default Adoption grew from a 2–3 person daily core to 40–50 people using the platform every day.
~80% Fewer settings to enter per scenario Each setting is entered once globally, rather than per tool — and visualisations update live as scenarios change.

The overhaul got a great reception from test markets. Mercedes are rolling it out across Europe, all very positive.

James Hutchinson
James Hutchinson Data Operations Manager, OMD