Show, Don't Tell: Architecting an Exploratory Acquisition Engine for PrizePicks

1.2 million passive visitors means you have their attention, but not their context. Here is how we engineered the bridge between a high-traffic homepage and active gameplay.

PrizePicks commanded 1.2 million monthly website visitors. During the initial discovery and UX strategy phase, we uncovered a massive missed opportunity in their funnel. The prevailing industry logic dictated targeting the "high-brow" bettor with complex, text-heavy instructions. However, research proved the true growth engine was the casual fan: someone who wants to place a few lineups a week and elevate their Sunday watch party.

To capture this audience, we had to stop explaining the game and start letting them play it. Here is the technical and strategic breakdown of how we completely restructured the PrizePicks Information Architecture, engineered a live-data conversion engine, and drove an immediate 99% Month-over-Month increase in organic First-Time Depositors (FTDs).

Rebuilding the Foundation: Information Architecture & Decision Fatigue

Before introducing dynamic new interactions, a platform must have a structurally sound foundation. Our initial audit of the legacy PrizePicks site revealed a deeply fragmented Information Architecture (IA). Help resources, support documents, and how-to articles were scattered across multiple disparate sections, creating a labyrinthine user flow and an administrative nightmare for content management.

More critically, this fragmented IA was actively causing decision fatigue. When a casual fan landed on the site, they were immediately forced to choose between complex game modes—Player Picks, Team Picks, Culture Picks, and Free2Play—without any contextual understanding of how those mechanics functioned.

Consolidating the User Journey

‍To eliminate this cognitive friction, we completely restructured the site's hierarchy. We consolidated the scattered help resources into a dedicated, frictionless Support hub. To streamline the acquisition funnel, we merged all the disparate gameplay pages into a single, unified "Ways to Pick" destination.

Within this new hub, we introduced a crucial piece of content design: a comparative UI chart. Rather than forcing users to click through multiple pages to understand the platform, this single chart visually breaks down the exact differences between Player Picks and Team/Culture Picks. It instantly clarifies payouts (like Power Play vs. Flex Pay) and contrasts the different pick styles (such as More/Less), drastically lowering the barrier to entry for the casual fan.

The UX Shift: From "How-To" to "Hands-On"

Once the foundational IA was cleaned up and the user's decision fatigue was minimized, we created the perfect environment to rethink how people actually learn the game.

Our UX motion studies and brand explorations revealed a critical flaw in the legacy design: PrizePicks was saying too much. They were trying to convince users the game was easy by forcing them to read daunting, text-heavy 1-2-3-4 step tutorials.

We adopted a new core product philosophy: "Learn by exploration, not explanation."

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We scrapped the static tutorials entirely and built the mechanics of creating a lineup directly into the UI exploration. Instead of reading a paragraph about what a player prop is, the user now interacts with a live player card. Within that seamless micro-interaction, they intuitively learn the rules—like discovering they need to pick two or more players, or realizing that selecting an underdog yields a higher multiplier.

The System: A 4-Template Architecture

To manage the massive scale of the PrizePicks ecosystem—and ensure the internal marketing teams could scale without breaking the design—we developed a strict, four-template wireframe system that governed the entire platform.

• Template 1: The Showcase – Visual-heavy and persuasive. Designed to show off the product, marketing, and high-impact promotions.
• Template 2: The Reader – Prioritizes comprehension and readability over flashiness for long-form content.
• Template 3: The Index – The Hub or Directory. Like a gallery, it aggregates smaller items into a master view.
• Template 4: The Canvas – Used to attract and direct. Flexible, custom-feeling layouts reserved for high-traffic entry points like the homepage and "How to Play" pages.

Contextual Conversion: Engineering the Homepage & "Playbook"

A massive theme for this redesign was: "All things lead to the app." Previously, users could occasionally find answers on the site, but they couldn't take action. We eliminated all dead ends by engineering a custom backend system to surface live gameplay throughout the entire marketing site.

The current crown jewel of this integration lives right on the homepage. By pulling the app’s hottest, real-time player props directly into the main exploratory sections, we instantly hook casual fans with live action. They can explore the mechanics and build a board before they ever hit a download button.

While the homepage drives immediate acquisition today, the future crown jewel of this ecosystem is the upgrade to "Playbook," PrizePicks' high-traffic research and news hub. When an article is written about an upcoming golf tournament, the standard industry practice is to hope the reader eventually opens their phone and places an entry. We removed that friction entirely.

Collaborating alongside the project's lone engineer, we introduced a live pick selector component that injects real-time player props directly into the editorial content. If a fan is reading a breakdown of a specific player, they can interact with that exact player's live pick right there inside the paragraph, meeting the user at their absolute highest point of intent.

To manage the immense volume of daily content produced by the Playbook team, we also introduced a clustered Information Architecture. This allows the editorial team to feature curated clusters of related articles and pin evergreen content—like injury reports and draft news—to a persistent top bar, ensuring high-value resources are never buried beneath the daily news cycle.

Scaling Operations, Trust, and Compliance

Enterprise-level design requires anticipating backend operations and legal constraints. We upgraded the site's foundational structure to support the company's rapid growth across several key areas:

• Omnichannel Promo Design: Previously, promotions lacked a dedicated home and explanation before pushing users to the app. We created specific detail pages for promos and streamlined the content design pipeline so the web platform now utilizes the exact same promotional assets as the social media teams. We built a layered template system that dynamically scales to fit all screen sizes without requiring unique, web-specific artwork.
• Establishing Authority: We built dedicated "About" and "Careers" hubs. By featuring a company timeline, a history of evolution, and industry awards, we built immediate trust and legitimacy with a mainstream audience while properly showcasing the culture for prospective hires.
• State-by-State CMS Engineering: Because prediction markets and sports betting face strict, state-level regulations, the engineering side of this project was incredibly complex. Individual state, game, and pick pages were built within a dynamic CMS collection. This allowed parameters and filters to be toggled instantly based on local geolocation laws, ensuring full compliance.

The Bottom Line: Reverse Influence

The ultimate measure of a marketing site's success is its impact on the core product and the bottom line. By transforming the PrizePicks website from a static brochure into an interactive product preview, the results were staggering:

• +66% YoY increase in Organic First Time Depositors (FTDs).
• +99% MoM increase in Organic FTDs.

But the most compelling outcome was the platform's reverse influence. The web experience we designed was so effective at onboarding casual fans that it became a testing ground for the core app itself. Today, the website's UI—from card styles to athlete research layouts—actively influences and shapes the PrizePicks mobile app roadmap.

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