MARKETING
INTERNAL ONBOARDING MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Capital One
Email marketing campaign consisting of various articles and information that help guide recently onboarded associates through the world of Capital One Financial Services.
RESULTS
Increased engagement scores 62 points, 31% to 93%, on the quarterly All Associate Survey, at a 97% average open rate
ROLE
UX DESIGN, EMAIL DESIGN, MARKETING
We launched a new email campaign for newly onboarded associates to address low engagement scores. Combining personalized content and gamification revitalized the onboarding experience. Successfully navigating branding and security constraints within a tight timeline, the initiative significantly improved engagement, achieving a 97% open rate and boosting new associate engagement from 31% to 93%. This strategic approach marked a pivotal shift in our internal communications by enhancing associate integration through a personalized script, setting a new standard for employee engagement within the company.
Identifying Low Engagement Scores & Transitioning to Hybrid
In Q4 of 2022 our engagement scores across the division were at an all-time low, and one of the major demographics was newly onboarded associates. Coming out of the pandemic and still being a WFH company meant a lot of the resources Capital One had to offer had pivoted to virtual resources. Campus activities had all but stopped, and on-campus amenities had been closed for some time. With a refresh on the way with how Capital One would handle remote work and transitioning to a hybrid work environment, my team was tasked with helping those new to the company have a solid foundation of information available to them after their onboarding process. The initiative focused on enhancing the onboarding experience for new associates at Capital One through a personalized, episodic email campaign. We found that new associates were feeling overwhelmed and disconnected due to a lack of engaging communication after their initial onboarding — which made sense given that previously, the only communication they received was a weekly Financial Services newsletter, which did not sufficiently cover key yearly strategy highlights, initiatives, or how to utilize the benefits offered by Capital One.
Exploring the Use of Personalization
Something that came up during our research was exploring a way to personalize each email in order to develop a more engaging and exciting experience for new associates to learn about the opportunities and resources available to them within the company. We needed to dive deep into our company’s security protocols and develop a secure script that could pull employees’ personal information without making their data vulnerable. We worked with the Chief of Staff’s data team on how to pull this information into Poppulo, our email platform. With a custom script that our developer and data team created, we were able to secure the data utilizing the Poppulo API. The result was personalized emails that used each new associate’s preferred name, and one came from the President of Financial Services himself.
Gamifying the Experience & Managing Constraints
A notable feature I implemented was a visual timeline in each email, employing gamification techniques to guide users through the campaign in an engaging manner and to keep audiences aware of what to look forward to next. I tested two methods, and the response favored the one shown here — a depiction of a car moving to different map pins marking how many days it had been since they started.
The campaign was also launched in alignment with the transition from a work-from-home to a hybrid work model in Q1 2023. This allowed only three months to gain approval of concepts and complete the designs so that we could aim at establishing a new baseline for future onboarding processes. The necessity to adhere to Capital One’s core branding and Financial Services’ design guidelines while working with high-level stakeholders — including the VP of Communications and the SVP, Chief of Staff, both required to approve all communications — was a major constraint.
New Associate Engagement
One of the major pieces of feedback we got from associates was that they felt very disconnected from the President and his current strategy for the division, so we had the President kick things off with an email of his own, speaking to them directly. We sent a total of eight emails over the course of six months. New associates sent comments through a separate survey, thanking us for the great information, and they told us that the more personalized emails, and seeing each step in the process of the campaign, made them look forward to the ones to come. It was an incredibly rewarding campaign, knowing that new associates felt more connected than ever despite the challenge of moving from remote to hybrid.
Increasing Engagement by 62 points
We were able to achieve remarkable success, evidenced by a 97% average open rate and a significant 62-point increase in engagement scores, reaching 93% by the end of Q3 2023, according to the quarterly All Associate Survey. Feedback from new associates was overwhelmingly positive, with many expressing appreciation for the personalized, informative, easy-to-navigate content. Overall, the onboarding marketing campaign not only improved engagement among new associates but also set a new standard for personalized and effective communication within Capital One. We were able to utilize this new approach in other areas of our marketing and communications.
© 2026 Drue Davis