Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar Land Rover
Case Study - “Turning every pound twice”
Case Study - “Turning every pound twice”
Case Study - “Turning every pound twice”
“Turning every pound twice”
How a five-person optimisation squad lifted Jaguar Land Rover UK conversion at programme-level scale - and shipped principles still live on the brand’s sites six years later.
“Turning every pound twice”
How a five-person optimisation squad lifted Jaguar Land Rover UK conversion at programme-level scale - and shipped principles still live on the brand’s sites six years later.
“Turning every pound twice”
How a five-person optimisation squad lifted Jaguar Land Rover UK conversion at programme-level scale - and shipped principles still live on the brand’s sites six years later.
Details
Details
Details
Client: Jaguar Land Rover UK
Programme: TEAM GAINS (Spark44 in-house optimisation team)
Period: 2019–2020
Role: Senior UX/UI Specialist
AT A GLANCE
At a glance
The headline outcomes of a three-month sprint across Jaguar and Land Rover's UK digital estate - a single test that lifted conversion 28%, an annualised commercial upside of £1.17M, and a programme that earned its own keep three times over inside the quarter.
At a glance
The headline outcomes of a three-month sprint across Jaguar and Land Rover’s UK digital estate - a single test that lifted conversion 28%, an annualised commercial upside of £1.17M, and a programme that earned its own keep three times over inside the quarter.
+27.69%
Active Engaged Users
AEU conversion lift on the Land Rover Defender (mobile +53.33%) - the headline single test.
£1.17M
Projected Profit
Annualised additional profit projected from stat-sig wins within the first three months.
+33.24%
Return On Interest
Programme ROI in two months — the work earned enough to cover sixteen months of the team's cost within twelve months of rollout.
Still visibly live in 2026 - principles survived a full post-2020 JLR site rebuild.
Still visibly live in 2026 - principles survived a full post-2020 JLR site rebuild.
brief
The brief
In late 2019 Felix Brautigam, then JLR Chief Commercial Officer, set the agency a deliberately blunt challenge: stop chasing new builds and make the existing JLR digital estate "work as hard as possible." Turn every pound twice.
Spark44 spun up Team GAINS - a dedicated five-person optimisation squad. The brief was to lift engagement, conversion and marketing efficiency across the Jaguar and Land Rover UK websites, week on week, by aggregating small wins rather than waiting for headline relaunches.
The brief
In late 2019 Felix Brautigam, then JLR Chief Commercial Officer, set the agency a deliberately blunt challenge: stop chasing new builds and make the existing JLR digital estate “work as hard as possible.” Turn every pound twice.
Spark44 spun up Team GAINS - a dedicated five-person optimisation squad. The brief was to lift engagement, conversion and marketing efficiency across the Jaguar and Land Rover UK websites, week on week, by aggregating small wins rather than waiting for headline relaunches.
approach
Approach
Heatmaps at scale (10,000+ sessions per nameplate) → hypothesis-driven A/B testing via AB Tasty → 95% statistical-significance discipline → cross-test learning. Wins on one nameplate became hypotheses on the next. Across the programme, 100+ A/B and multivariate tests across 12 nameplates.
Approach
Heatmaps at scale (10,000+ sessions per nameplate) → hypothesis-driven A/B testing via AB Tasty → 95% statistical-significance discipline → cross-test learning. Wins on one nameplate became hypotheses on the next. Across the programme, 100+ A/B and multivariate tests across 12 nameplates.
Results
Results
Results
Test
Test
Lift
Annualised profit
L663 Defender — page reduction
L663 Defender — page reduction
£457,420
+27.69% AEU
LR Homepage — vehicle costs surfaced
LR Homepage — vehicle costs surfaced
£293,300
+0.86 pp AEU
Range Rover Evoque
Range Rover Evoque
£257,380
+1.79 pp AEU
Storystream removal (loss avoided)
Storystream removal (loss avoided)
£442,940
+6.11% AEU
L663 was the headline. Cutting page length and switching the carousel CTA from "Build and Order" to the softer "Build Your Own" lifted AEU conversion 27.69% across all devices, 53.33% on mobile.
Storystream was the most counter-intuitive. Removing the editorial "magazine" module on the Jaguar homepage lifted AEU 6.11%. Users who were exposed to it but didn't interact converted 21.55% better than those who did - the module was actively pulling intent away from conversion.
L663 was the headline. Cutting page length and switching the carousel CTA from “Build and Order” to the softer “Build Your Own” lifted AEU conversion 27.69% across all devices, 53.33% on mobile.
Storystream was the most counter-intuitive. Removing the editorial “magazine” module on the Jaguar homepage lifted AEU 6.11%. Users who were exposed to it but didn’t interact converted 21.55% better than those who did - the module was actively pulling intent away from conversion.
L663 was the headline. Cutting page length and switching the carousel CTA from “Build and Order” to the softer “Build Your Own” lifted AEU conversion 27.69% across all devices, 53.33% on mobile.
Storystream was the most counter-intuitive. Removing the editorial “magazine” module on the Jaguar homepage lifted AEU 6.11%. Users who were exposed to it but didn’t interact converted 21.55% better than those who did - the module was actively pulling intent away from conversion.
Observations
The UX craft inside the numbers
Three observations I brought to the programme that shaped the variant designs across every nameplate:
Hierarchy beats length. The position of the "Key Features" module mattered more than the page's total length. Raising it lifted engagement at that module - and also lifted engagement with everything below it. Users who got the core information early stayed and explored; users who didn't, left.
Non-clickable headers as a demand signal. Across XE, XF and F-TYPE, heatmaps showed users clicking the static header text of the "Editions" module - type with no link behind it. My read: not a misclick, a demand the page wasn't satisfying.
Humans-in-frame outperform empty interiors. JLR's house style leaned on empty interior hero shots - beautifully lit, but inert. Where we tested imagery featuring a person in frame (hands on wheel, driver in seat), engagement rose. The principle was carried into the rebuilt Land Rover pages after the programme ended.
The UX craft inside the numbers
Three observations I brought to the programme that shaped the variant designs across every nameplate:
Hierarchy beats length. The position of the “Key Features” module mattered more than the page’s total length. Raising it lifted engagement at that module - and also lifted engagement with everything below it. Users who got the core information early stayed and explored; users who didn’t, left.
Non-clickable headers as a demand signal. Across XE, XF and F-TYPE, heatmaps showed users clicking the static header text of the “Editions” module - type with no link behind it. My read: not a misclick, a demand the page wasn’t satisfying.
Humans-in-frame outperform empty interiors. JLR’s house style leaned on empty interior hero shots - beautifully lit, but inert. Where we tested imagery featuring a person in frame (hands on wheel, driver in seat), engagement rose. The principle was carried into the rebuilt Land Rover pages after the programme ended.
results
What shipped, and what survived (May 2026)
Every workstream rolled out across the live Jaguar and Land Rover UK sites. When JLR rebuilt the brand sites in the post-2020 redesign cycle, the GAINS principles were treated as kept design rules - not legacy.
Verified against the live Land Rover site in May 2026:
"Build Your Own" is still the canonical configurator CTA - the L663 winning variant became the brand's standard wording.
The RTG widget bar has been evolved further - the four primary conversion paths (Build Your Own / Keep Me Informed / Book a Test Drive / Find Us Now) are now full clickable cards with descriptive sub-copy.
Imagery centres people, not empty cars - the human-in-frame principle is now standard for hero modules.
Page lengths are materially shorter - the cognitive-load-vs-engagement trade-off the team established is baked into the editorial brief.
The methodology - heatmap-led hypothesis design, stat-sig discipline, ROI-attribution at the test level - was adopted as a working framework by JLR's in-house product teams beyond the Spark44 engagement.
What shipped, and what survived (May 2026)
Every workstream rolled out across the live Jaguar and Land Rover UK sites. When JLR rebuilt the brand sites in the post-2020 redesign cycle, the GAINS principles were treated as kept design rules - not legacy.
Verified against the live Land Rover site in May 2026:
“Build Your Own” is still the canonical configurator CTA - the L663 winning variant became the brand’s standard wording.
The RTG widget bar has been evolved further - the four primary conversion paths (Build Your Own / Keep Me Informed / Book a Test Drive / Find Us Now) are now full clickable cards with descriptive sub-copy.
Imagery centres people, not empty cars - the human-in-frame principle is now standard for hero modules.
Page lengths are materially shorter - the cognitive-load-vs-engagement trade-off the team established is baked into the editorial brief.
The methodology - heatmap-led hypothesis design, stat-sig discipline, ROI-attribution at the test level - was adopted as a working framework by JLR’s in-house product teams beyond the Spark44 engagement.
A good heatmap is mostly a question about the user's intent. The clicks tell you what they wanted; the design tells you whether you met them there.
A good heatmap is mostly a question about the user’s intent. The clicks tell you what they wanted; the design tells you whether you met them there.
Reflection
Reflection
GAINS is the project I point to when someone asks me what consultancy-level UX practice means. It wasn't a redesign. It wasn't a brand refresh. It was the slow, evidence-based work of figuring out what was actually true on the page - and turning that into measurable commercial outcomes the business could read on a single line.
Two things stayed with me. First, the discipline of waiting for statistical significance instead of trusting a screenshot. Second, the satisfaction of building IP that outlasts the project.
For the companion deep-dive on the NCOS Checkout workstream - including the methodology, the user research, and a senior-designer reframing of the work - see "Cancel and go back".
Reflection
GAINS is the project I point to when someone asks me what consultancy-level UX practice means. It wasn’t a redesign. It wasn’t a brand refresh. It was the slow, evidence-based work of figuring out what was actually true on the page - and turning that into measurable commercial outcomes the business could read on a single line.
Two things stayed with me. First, the discipline of waiting for statistical significance instead of trusting a screenshot. Second, the satisfaction of building IP that outlasts the project.
For the companion deep-dive on the NCOS Checkout workstream - including the methodology, the user research, and a senior-designer reframing of the work - see “Cancel and go back”.
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Any comments or questions?
I’d love to hear from you.
Any comments or questions?
I’d love to hear from you.
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