From a site the founder couldn't look at to a 35% lift in conversion, how a redesign let HappyDog cut ad spend by 79% without losing a single lead. Spending $70,000 a month on Google Ads to send people to a site that didn't reflect the brand, the values, or what made the company different. One redesign fixed that, and the results outpaced the ad spend cut.

The situation

HappyDog was spending $70,000 a month on Google Ads. The site those ads pointed to didn't reflect the brand, the values, or the thing that actually made the company different from every other home loan business, that it's built specifically for public employees through CELP, the California Employee Loan Program, an audience most lenders don't even think to serve differently. On an early call, the founder was, in his own words, actively repulsed to even look at his own site. That's a hard thing to admit about something you're paying real money to send traffic to every single day.

What we did

Sited's process combines conversion psychology with industry and ICP research, then translates that into design that looks, feels, and sounds like the actual brand, not a generic mortgage template. The goal isn't decoration. It's resonance, emotional, logical, and aesthetic, working together to move someone from browsing to acting.

A few specific decisions drove the result.

We led with the unique value proposition instead of burying it. CELP is exclusive to public employees, a genuinely differentiated offer that got lost in typical mortgage site noise. We built the site to make that the first thing anyone sees.

We addressed distrust before it could form. Home loans is an industry where people expect their phone number to get handed off to a call center and spammed the moment they submit a form. We built credibility directly into the moments that matter most, above the fold, and again right under the CTA button and at every form fill, not just on an About page nobody reads.

We translated complexity into plain language. Mortgage products are confusing by nature. We distilled a usually overwhelming topic down to language a first time buyer could actually follow without feeling talked down to.

We rebuilt the visual identity to convey warmth instead of institution. Updated fonts, icons, and imagery pulled the brand away from a cold, corporate feel toward something that felt like it actually cared about the person on the other side of the form.

The results

"It's been crazy," Natalie said. "Not only our click through rates, but our actual conversions have skyrocketed."

Conversion rate rose 35% on the flagship campaign. Cost per conversion across the account dropped 21%. And the ad spend story is the one that says the most: HappyDog cut monthly Google Ads spend from $70,000 to $15,000, not because performance dropped, but because the funnel got so efficient the sales team couldn't keep up with the leads it was already generating.

"When the market was really busy, it was upwards of like 70 grand a month," Natalie explained. "Right now we're right at about 15 a month for CELP, because our loan officers are so busy with leads and deals that we've had to scale back the spend."

That efficiency showed up beyond the ad account too. Chris confirmed hiring two new loan officers in a two week span following the redesign, with a goal of one to two new hires a month for the rest of the year, a pace directly tied to lead volume the new site was generating. The site itself became a recruiting tool as much as a sales one. "I've had these recruits, they go to our website," Chris said. "That's another great reason to have that be so much better."

The design itself earned unprompted praise internally too. "You absolutely killed it," Natalie said. "Everyone that sees it, our design, our developer, the entire agency, they're like, oh my gosh, this design is beautiful."