Invisible Steps!Behavioral Economics Driving Design

Vince Maniago!@uvince!SXSW 2014

Overview!• Scale and reach of our experiments

• Behavioral Economics / Psychology as it applies to Mint

• Financial Literacy and how it makes experiments so important

• A deep look at experiments, including some surprises

• Applying our learning to your work & questions

Mint by the Numbers!• 14 Million Registered users

• 5 Billion transactions tracked & categorized last year

• Mint sees over 2% of the value of GDP annually (US)

“People typically intend to forfeit small, immediate gains for larger rewards in the future, but they often fail to make

the optimal choice at decision time.” - Kirby and Herrnstein 1995

“"Our emotional brain wants to max out the credit card, order dessert and smoke a cigarette. Our logical brain knows we should save for retirement, go for a jog and quit smoking”

- McClure et al

Jump$tart Coalition!• Testing exiting high school & college students each year

• Goal is to measure and improve financial literacy

• 50% of college and 68% of HS failed a basic financial survey

There was no difference in the responses between users who had exhibited either good or bad financial behavior.

We experiment because facepalm.!

Problem!Users can get stuck in the Mint registration process when it comes to adding their 1st bank

Hypothesis!Users who get an email from me will be more likely to complete their sign-up and become an active user.

Test!

Hypothesis!“We can use the loss-aversion tendency to increase the number of users that setup and link an emergency fund in Mint”

Hypothesis!Additionally: “Users are more likely to engage with Mint if we help them setup an Emergency fund.”

Test!

Optimize your A/B before you test with crowdsourcing.

Rainy Days & Emergencies Can Happen. Here's How We Can Help. !

vs. !

Start Investing in Your Future. Here's How We Can Help.

Results!!

Rainy Days: 18.1% open, 0.8% click !

!

Start Investing: 16.3% open, 0.7% click

But!!

Rainy Days: less accounts linked + users returned !

!

Start Investing: 2/3rd’s of users became active again

Hypothesis!“Users can be persuaded to update their bank credentials depending on their promotion or prevention focus.”

This intrigued everyone…except the experts.

Test!Email users with accounts that won’t connect and measure the open and login rate. Users received either a promotion or prevention centric message.

Account Alert: Don’t miss a transaction, update your Mint account today.!!

vs!!

Get your full financial picture from Mint – fix your broken account today.

Account Alert: Don’t miss a transaction, update your Mint account today.!!

vs!!

Get your full financial picture from Mint – fix your broken account today.

Prevention beats Promotion nearly 3-to-1

How!Can you use Behavioral Psychology to make your product better?

Broadly applicable learnings

Gear up!Arm yourself with mailchimp,optimizely, google analytics, mixpanel, omniture, etc.

Capture!Measure everything. Analyze just what matters.

Don’t!Leave it all to the experts.

• Dan Ariely professor of psychology and behavioral economics, the author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality

• Nir Eyal author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

• BJ Fogg creator of the Behavior Model and Tiny Habits

Read Up

How can we use! to {goal}?!

Takeaways!• Figure out how to test fast, “Done is better than perfect”

• Capture everything, it will save you test cycles in the long run

• Don’t leave it all to the experts, educate yourself and your team

• What we plan to do is not what we ultimately do.

Feedback/Download!http://bit.ly/mintsxsw14

Discuss!!

@uvince!http://bit.ly/mintsxsw14

Thank you!!

@uvince!http://bit.ly/mintsxsw14

"Our emotional brain wants to max out the credit card, order dessert and smoke a cigarette. Our

logical brain knows we should save for retirement, go for a jog and quit smoking” (McClure et al).