Dusq
Building Trust With No Reviews, and a 5.6% Reserve Rate to Show for It
Role:
Web Designer
Scope:
Information Architecture & Website Design
Team:
Founders, Marketing Team, Developer
Live:
https://dusq.com/
Scope note:
This started as just the landing page, the pre-booking site covered in most of this case study, built in 4 weeks ahead of launch. After the pre-launch campaign ran, the engagement expanded into the complete website, including the e-commerce build the site runs on today. Metrics below are attributed to whichever phase they actually measure.
Timeline:
8 Weeks total
Marketing Website Conversion Design Pre-launch
Dusq is a sleep-tech startup built on real science. Pre-launch, they had no product in market, no customers, no track record, the site had to carry the entire case alone
DURATION | PLATFORM | MY ROLE |
8 Weeks, 2 phases | Marketing Website, Shopify | Product & Web Designer |
Scope note: Started as a 4-week landing page ahead of launch. After the pre-launch campaign ran, the engagement expanded into the complete website, the e-commerce build the site runs on today. Metrics below are tagged to whichever phase they measure.
Impact
5.6% | 2,000+ | 35.3% |
reserve CTA tap rate, the clearest conversion signal | sessions on the science pages alone | of all homepage taps went to the plan picker, the single most-interacted element |
PHASE 1 OF 5
Discover
Understand the actual constraint before designing anything.
The problem, stated plainly
No product in market. No customers. No track record. The site had to do two things that work against each other.
Too much teaching, it's a lecture that never asks for anything. Too much selling, it's another wellness product making claims, exactly what this audience already distrusted.
Teach enough science that the product's premise makes sense ·
Sell a pre-booking from people who'd never tried anything
PHASE 2 OF 5
Define
Diagnose what specifically made this hard, not just that it was hard.
If testimonials couldn't earn trust, science had to. That's what pushed the site toward explanation-led instead of proof-led.
No strong proof only a small friends-and-family pilot, the weakest kind, leaning on it would cost credibility ·
No strong proof only a small friends-and-family pilot, the weakest kind, leaning on it would cost credibility ·
Mobile-first was a bet no analytics existed pre-launch, this was the launch plan, not data
PHASE 3 OF 5
Design
Three decisions, sequenced so each made the next easier.
01. A hero with five seconds to land the premise
Led with the problem, not the product. A visitor who doesn't believe their sleep is fixable has no reason to care what's for sale.
02. A science section built to compress without flattening
Led with the felt benefit, then the mechanism behind it, not the reverse. Visual hierarchy did the compression work, so depth stayed available without gatekeeping the casual reader.
03. A pre-booking flow that earned the ask
Teach → Build confidence → Restate value → Ask.
Product Section Visual.
No countdown timers, no interruption. Pressure would have undone the credibility the page just built.
PHASE 4 OF 5
Validate
What the real usage data says about each bet.
Decision | Evidence |
Explanation-led over proof-led | Science pages pulled 2,000+ sessions, highest-traffic content outside the homepage |
Teach before ask | FAQ elements are 19.4% of all homepage taps, second only to the plan picker |
Plan picker placed before the ask | 35.3% of all taps go to comparing plans, the single most-interacted element on the page |
Mobile-first layout | 86% of sessions on mobile browsers or FB/IG in-app browsers |
Science Page Section Visuals.
PHASE 5 OF 5
Result & Learnings
Phase 1. Landing page (Microsoft Clarity, last 120 days)
Metric | Value |
Sessions / Unique users | 98,197 / 82,909 |
Avg. scroll depth | 51.69% |
Avg. active time per session | 1.2 min |
Reserve CTA tap rate | 5.6% (5,058 taps) |
Phase 2. Complete website, after the pre-launch campaign
Checkout funnel: 32% product-view-to-cart, 16% cart-to-checkout, from the full e-commerce build.
Campaign context: 10,000+ pre-bookings during the pre-launch campaign, mix of paid and organic, split not broken out. Reflects the campaign as a whole, not either phase of the site alone.
What this taught me:
When there's nothing to vouch for you, restraint reads as credibility, cutting a claim you can't back does more for trust than including it ever would
Content built to earn trust, not to convert, still deserves real measurement, tap and scroll data can validate it long before there's a business outcome to point to
A design call made on assumption instead of data isn't reckless if it's built to be checked later, the discipline is in measuring it once the data exists, not in waiting for data before deciding anything