Grow My App with Google
● Google / BYND
Design Director / UX / UI
3 Months / 6ppl Team
Figma / Miro
Whether you’re launching a new app or looking to grow an existing one, this is your guide to mastering App campaigns.
The "Grow My App" initiative by Google Ads exemplifies a UX-driven approach to empowering app developers and marketers. By focusing on user needs and leveraging Google's ecosystem, the project aims to simplify app promotion and growth strategies.
Recognizing the challenges faced by app developers, such as limited marketing expertise and resources, Google conducted user research to understand these pain points. Insights revealed a need for a centralized platform offering guidance, tools, and support for app promotion.
● 01
Defining the Problem
For app developers, Google's marketing tools were powerful but practically invisible — scattered, jargon-heavy, and with no clear place to start.
Our primary users spanned a wide spectrum: indie developers building their first app with no marketing background, and marketing teams at established companies looking to scale. What they shared was a common frustration, the tools they needed existed within Google's ecosystem, but were distributed across multiple products with no unified entry point. First-time users had nowhere to begin, and experienced users had to context-switch constantly to manage campaigns.
The core design challenge was to consolidate this fragmented landscape into a single, coherent surface that felt approachable to beginners without sacrificing the depth that more experienced users needed.
● 02
Ideation and Solution Design
One surface, one starting point. Designed to meet users wherever they were.
The most impactful decision we made was to unify the campaign setup experience across Google's advertising channels into a single guided flow. Rather than asking users to navigate between tools, we brought the relevant touchpoints together and structured them around user goals, not Google's internal product architecture.
Working closely with the UX and product team, I collaborated on wireframes and prototypes that mapped the user journey from first visit through campaign launch. The emphasis throughout was on reducing cognitive load at each step, using plain language over ad tech terminology, and making the path forward always clear.
● 03
Prototyping and User Testing
Testing revealed the flow was still asking too much, too soon.
Interactive prototypes were tested with app developers across experience levels. The most consistent piece of feedback was friction, the setup flow had too many steps, and users were losing confidence before completing it. This was a valuable signal: even with the right information present, the sequencing and pacing of decisions was creating unnecessary drop-off points.
We used this feedback to restructure the flow, reducing the number of decisions required upfront and progressively revealing more advanced options as users gained context. Each iteration brought us closer to a setup experience that felt guided rather than demanding.
● 04
Outcomes
Grow My App launched as a consolidated platform within the Google Ads ecosystem, giving app developers and marketing teams a unified starting point for campaign creation, performance tracking, and optimization. The platform brought together tools that had previously required navigating multiple Google products, reducing the barrier to entry for developers with limited marketing experience.
● 05
What I learned
Simplicity for one user is complexity for another. Getting that balance right starts with information architecture.
The hardest problem on this project wasn't visual, it was figuring out how to serve two very different users with the same interface. Beginners needed guidance and reassurance at every step. Advanced users needed control and efficiency. Designing for both without compromising either required constant negotiation between depth and clarity.
Looking back, I'd invest more time upfront on information architecture and audience definition before moving into flows and wireframes. We had solid research, but the range of our user base was wider than our early IA reflected. A more deliberate mapping of beginner versus advanced needs at the structural level would have reduced the iteration cycles we needed during testing.
The lesson I've carried forward: when your audience spans experience levels, the architecture is the UX. Getting it wrong early costs significantly more than getting it right before a single screen is designed.