How to Hack the User Journey using Zealy

The importance of community onboarding

Suiswap's 1.3 million strong Zealy Questboard community and the success stories of projects with the best ambassador squads worldwide have one common denominator - effective community onboarding on Zealy. In this article, we will explore the strategies used by these thriving communities, demonstrating how seamless onboarding experiences redefine community engagement. Data from the top 10 most successful Zealy communities in terms of Daily Quest Claims and Daily Active Users will serve as the basis for this case study. A summary of our findings on best practices:

1️⃣ Onboarding through the Discord Server
i. Add your Zealy Questboard as part of your official Links
ii. Give Discord Roles as Rewards based on Activity on Zealy
iii. Create a Zealy support channel or category
2️⃣ Onboarding through the Product (Website, Application)
i. Using a campaign banner
ii. Using a hyperlink to your Questboard
3️⃣ Onboarding through the Zealy API

Why do I have to onboard my community to Zealy?

Usually, the success of being at the top of the “Trendy” communities in Zealy is exhilarating but short-lived, unless you have a robust and active community waiting to support you by frequently checking your Zealy questboard. Many communities are jealous of the “unicorn runs” where a community gains 100,000 new members overnight and their Twitter Followers and Discord members 10x.

Example 1: No community onboarding
Below is an example of one such community but as you can see, a little over 1 month after the “unicorn run” this community went from 100,000 Daily Quest Claims to less than 5,000 and from 16,000 Daily Active Users (DAU) to less than 900. This translates to a retention of less than 5%.

That goes to show that Zealy is not purely a community acquisition platform, it’s a community engagement platform.

Example 2: Great community onboarding
Now, let’s see an example of a community with a great onboarding system. This community used Zealy to transform their community members into ambassadors with amazing results! They now have 5,000 hardcore ambassadors who in 3 months performed 1,785,000 actions beneficial to the project (from social tasks to on-chain actions) making this one of the best ambassador squads in the world!

We can see here that the community’s DAUs are extremely stable and the Daily Quest Claims only spike when there are new quests published by the community’s admins. The best news is that if a sudden “unicorn run” happens in this community the retention will be a lot better than 5% because the structure is already there to keep incentivizing the community members to be active contributors through Zealy.

Hacking the User Journey: Best Practices for Onboarding

We now know how important proper onboarding is so let’s now look into what are the best practices in onboarding your community. As we mentioned, three main avenues have seen the biggest success:

1️⃣ Discord Server: The easiest to implement, also the most fundamental. Necessary even when the other two methods are applied.
2️⃣ On Product (Website, Application): Relatively easy to implement, but the effects are great. Should be complemented with a Discord onboarding system.
3️⃣ The Zealy API: Moderate difficulty to implement, but the most powerful method. Should be complemented with a Discord onboarding system. If the Zealy API is used, the other on-product onboarding methods aren't necessary.

DISCORD

For most projects, this is the most active community hub. With 3 simple steps, you can transform your Discord server from a place of idle discussions to a purposeful hub for your ambassadors.

Step 1: Add your Zealy Questboard as part of your official Links
Adding your Zealy Questboard as part of your official links in the Discord Server and everywhere else like Link3, Linktree, etc helps your community know that you have a Zealy Questboard where they can contribute.
It also verifies that it is the official Questboard of your community and doesn't belong to scammers.

Step 2: Give Discord Roles as Rewards based on Activity on Zealy
After adding Zealy’s Discord bot to your server, it’s very easy to reward your community members with specific roles for completing actions that are important to you. Zealy works amazingly well as a gating mechanism for your community members as you can give special roles to your most active community members and segment your community based on activity.

Step 3: Create a Zealy support channel or category
If you have a big community consider creating a separate channel dedicated to User support specifically for your Zealy campaigns.

Braavos is taking this one step further by having an entire category on their Discord server dedicated to their community program, powered by Zealy.
In it, they have added support exclusively for people who participate in the Zealy campaigns as well as an faq section in the form of a forum.

These 3 simple steps increase will both improve the user experience and increase your chances of converting your Discord community members into active ambassadors.

ON-PRODUCT INTEGRATION

The two most successful ways projects have integrated their community programs powered by Zealy in their product are hyperlinks leading to their Zealy campaign, and banners announcing to the community the specific campaign happening for that period on Zealy. As we mentioned earlier, this onboarding method doesn't replace the Discord onboarding but it is complementary to it.

Questboard hyperlink
It's simple, it has very little friction, and its results are guaranteed. By adding an on-product hyperlink to your Questboard you are able to funnel curious individuals from your website traffic into your Questboard and from there into your ambassadors' hub, whether that is on Discord or somewhere else. It's no wonder how Suiswap has more than 1.3 million members on their Questboard.

Important: Remember to add “Zealy” instead of “Crew3”

Campaign Banner
As you can see in the following example there is a big banner leading people to the campaign of Magic Square in Zealy. You can make yours as bold or as minimal as you want as long as you get your message across to your community, and everyone else interested in participating!

THE ZEALY API

The API is the most elaborate onboarding method to implement. It’s also the most effective. It’s no wonder that communities using the API are usually the most successful in Zealy. These Data look similar to the “unicorn run” we saw in the beginning with one slight difference. They keep going. We see here that this community manages 40,000 Daily Quest Claims even almost two months after hitting the peak of their “unicorn run”, not to mention the smooth flow of more than 5,000 DAU.

The API is the most effective way to onboard your community as your community will be interacting very little or not at all with your Zealy questboard and the user experience is the smoothest possible. The great news is, that your Questboard is still active on Zealy and functions as a community acquisition funnel. And since you'll have one of the most active Questboards, you'll have a great score in the Zealy Search Engine Ranking.

API Example 1: Relative Finance
Relative Finance is using our API to pull their leaderboard in-real time and show everyone using the product who are their most dedicated ambassadors.

But they also pull their entire questboard in real-time so the users can complete quests by being redirected to the Zealy questboard on the specific quest link.

API Example 2: Metatime
For Metatime the experience is even smoother as you connect your Zealy account to the website and then you don’t have to leave in order to complete tasks.

There, using the API they invite their community members to complete tasks on their Questboard.

As a final perk, the XP that users gain is automatically transformed to its corresponding tokens shared in the coming airdrop.

Conclusion

In this case study, we've witnessed the transformative impact of proper community onboarding on Zealy and how to achieve it. Projects that embraced proper Discord onboarding, on-product solutions, and the Zealy API, have significant success in key metrics like Quest Claims, Daily Active Members, and Retention Rate.

These projects exemplify Zealy's potential in shaping the future of community engagement to various domains, from SaaS and tech products to brands, creators, and web3.Unlock the power of Zealy to elevate your community's journey and drive meaningful growth.