Website design: Hertz and agency teams · Content, templates and marketing banners created in InDesign: Anthea Economides.
Details
The Hertz.com Digital Transformation project was a major effort to modernize and consolidate Hertz’s website and mobile apps. The goal was to improve the online experience by transitioning away from old, outdated legacy systems. This required a total revamp of both the Hertz website and mobile app to boost their functionality, user experience, and reliability.
company
Hertz / The Hertz Corporation
E-commerce Marketing Analyst
year
2017–2020
Design & production credits
My work: Managing content migration and optimization, developing content and design templates and creating marketing banners in InDesign, alongside work in Photoshop, Adobe XD and Adobe Experience Manager. Collaborating with IBM, UX, loyalty, analytics, marketing and global stakeholders on testing and launch delivery.
A digital reset
Hertz.com was a 2,000+ page site (6,000+ including translations) living on multiple platforms, lacking page ownership, using multiple design systems with content that was time consuming to maintain. It was time for an update. As one of the lead marketing analysts on the project, I helped migrate and optimize the content moving to the new CMS platform.
The brief
A central aspect of this was transitioning all digital content to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), a new content management system. This transition aimed to overhaul Hertz’s branding and website layout, ease content updates, boost site performance, and establish a more flexible and responsive digital presence. This transition also aimed to streamline the process of updating and managing content, making it more straightforward and efficient.
One of the most daunting tasks was migrating and optimizing over 2,000 pages of content (including translations), ensuring the new content was brand-compliant, SEO-optimized, and accessible while keeping the brand voice consistent across all platforms. On top of this, while we focused on refreshing the new site, we also had the responsibility of maintaining the operational integrity of the existing legacy site, balancing the need for progress with ongoing functionality. High-traffic and evergreen pages needed to be identified and prioritized, while pages with high bounce rates required content restructuring. This process involved collaboration with stakeholders and SEO experts to ensure the content remained relevant and engaging.
From a design perspective, a significant challenge was updating the visual branding to a modern look while finding imagery and designs that aligned with the new brand aesthetics without compromising accessibility. The black, white, and yellow color scheme, along with text overlays on image backgrounds, posed particular difficulties in achieving this balance.
Website design: Hertz and agency teams · Content, templates and marketing banners created in InDesign: Anthea Economides.
What to keep
We used Gather Content to organize the legacy site into locations, special offers and marketing landing pages. Google Analytics informed migration priorities: high-traffic pages were retained; evergreen and essential content—including FAQs, partner information and legal pages—was protected; high-bounce pages were reviewed for restructuring with the SEO agency; and low-traffic pages were considered for 301 redirects.
Working with stakeholders and the SEO agency, I helped reorganize, rewrite and restructure content for the new site. I maintained the migration log, tracking which pages would move, be redirected or need an SEO rewrite, while checking relevance and consistency with the brand voice.
Who we built for
A brand-positioning workshop expanded our focus beyond business travel, identifying three high-growth audiences and their priorities.
Leisure travelers: making memories, relieving stress and feeling revitalized.
Young, college-educated travelers: feeling informed, avoiding wasted time or money, and getting something extra.
Delivery drivers earning from the road: reliability.
These insights helped shape existing content and new assets. The young-driver page received a content refresh and SEO improvements, supported by homepage banners aimed at younger renters.
The starting point
Website design: Hertz and agency teams · Content, templates and marketing banners created in InDesign: Anthea Economides.
Building in stages
We embraced an agile development process, prioritizing iterative design to break down the website and mobile app launches into manageable sections. Initially, the new Hertz mobile app was launched, followed by the reservation flow for the US and Canadian markets. The thinking was that in deploying the mobile app first, it could be developed more quickly and could be used as a tool to gather customer feedback. This direct insight enabled ongoing enhancements to the new website, ensuring the digital platforms met the evolving needs and expectations of Hertz’s customers.
Jira and Confluence were used to keep track of all the work that went into the weekly sprints. The backlog was re-prioritized every week in order to focus on impactful project work.
My contribution
As E-Commerce Analyst, I coordinated with IBM development, UX, and marketing teams daily. My responsibilities included a broad range of tasks, including overseeing the migration of the pages to AEM, in addition to collaborating with teams responsible for A/B testing to refine content and design based on feedback. I was actively involved in the mobile app’s redesign and brand positioning workshops. My contributions here included providing content and design templates and creating web banners and landing pages to promote the app’s launch. In addition, I was deeply committed to revamping legacy pages, aiming to not just improve the user experience on the existing site but also to boost e-commerce revenue.
Website design: Hertz and agency teams · Content, templates and marketing banners created in InDesign: Anthea Economides.
Test. Refine. Release.
A/B testing and user feedback informed design iterations and content updates as sections were released. Through Clicktale sessions, the analytics team identified site structure and search as key customer pain points. The team shortened main-navigation titles and added search, chat and contact information in the header to make the site easier to navigate. I collaborated with the teams responsible for testing and translated the findings into content improvements.
Website design: Hertz and agency teams · Content, templates and marketing banners created in InDesign: Anthea Economides.
A faster foundation
The redesigned Hertz reservation flow launched in the U.S. and Canada in March 2020, coinciding with the COVID-19 shutdowns. While the pandemic made it difficult to measure its impact on conversions and revenue, page load times improved by approximately 45%, dropping from 6 seconds to 3–4 seconds.
I contributed to the development and launch of new features, streamlined the checkout experience and optimized landing pages. I also led the creation of reusable templates, accelerating landing page development by 70%, and established a more efficient digital asset management process across the Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty websites and mobile apps.
