RentRewards

A targeted product experience on Rocket.com designed to engage, nurture and convert the renter audience.

Year
2025

My role
Senior Product Designer

Re-thinking the home buying journey for renters

How can Rocket Mortgage educate this audience on the process, provide a relevant incentive and show renters that home ownership is not only possible, but could be their best financial decision yet?

Target audience

Current renters who are renting for the flexibility it affords them in life, but are interested in home ownership

User feelings

Renters often feel overlooked and burdened by the home buying journey. Renting gives freedom they want right now, home ownership could help them reach financial and personal goals sooner

Project goals

Validate offer

Test the effectiveness of the incentive, a first of it’s kind offer in the industry

Clarify & educate

Provide education and resources to users that make home ownership feel within reach, gain awareness

Inspire to convert

In support of long-term nurturing, inspire users to take action when the time is right and apply, turning awareness into activation

Offer details

Renters would receive 10% of their yearly rent back towards closing costs, capped at $5,000.

(Monthly rent) X (12) X (10%) = closing credit

Target metrics

  • Time on site

  • Scroll depth

  • Click through rate

  • Conversion

Did you know?

Closing costs can range anywhere from 2-6% of the loan amount, on average around $7,000-$10,000 depending on the price of the home.

My role

Lead designer for the experience, with support from another designer. I led design from concept to launch, and post launch research & ideation

  • Defined user journey to create alignment

  • Designed landing page, offer graphics, site-wide placements

  • Product/design point of contact to stakeholders, thread connector throughout the project

  • Designed a user test after launch to get insights

  • Collected findings and presented opportunities and future ideas to stakeholders

Design process

Discovery

  • Worked with performance marketing and analytics to understand key renter behaviors and motivations

  • Mapped user journeys based on renter page traffic and engagement patterns

  • Identified high-impact page placements across the site where renters naturally visit, such as the purchase focused pages, calculators and educational articles 

Strategy and design

  • Designed a custom landing page focused on the offer, eligibility, and next steps

  • Applied brand-aligned, renter-focused visuals and messaging to build trust

  • Designed and tested promotional modules on pages with high renter traffic (e.g., affordability calculators, educational articles)

  • Ensured design consistency and relevance across different placements without interrupting core site flows

Launch and measurement

  • Worked with data analysts to track engagement and click-through rates

  • Launched a research study, in collaboration with design researchers, to understand how the offer was landing with users in the renter segment

  • Designed a series of questions to get the information we needed to make future iterations to the experience

  • Collected findings and recommendations to share with stakeholders and determine next steps 

Outcomes

  1. Launched a new campaign and landing experience specifically designed for renters

  2. Drove increased awareness of Rocket offerings among rental audiences

  3. Established a scalable framework for targeting emerging buyer segments on Rocket.com

  4. Supported campaign performance and audience expansion for the digital storefront team

  5. Increased engagement throughout the site, saw successful traffic on resources throughout the landing page

  6. Highest performing CTAs - Application link, Article about First time home buying programs, Rent vs buy calculator tool 

Laying the foundation for long-term engagement

Engagement

Site-wide placements received high click-through-rate to the landing page, based on data tags

Scroll depth

We know from user testing and data analytics, a majority of users made it at least 3/4 of the way down the page and interacted with resources like blog articles and calculators

Conversion

Longer term play, but we are seeing applications increase, all the way to clients who have closed on homes with the program