Revolutionizing DoorDash Marketing: A Summarized Engineering Success Story

The following article is a summarized version of the original case study by Doordash’s engineering team.

1. Background:

• Challenge: Balancing engineering and marketing in a multi-faceted marketplace.

• DoorDash's Marketing Scenario: Multiple disjointed websites affecting quality and consistency.

2. Initiating Change:

• Thesis: Emphasizing speed, performance, and unification in marketing.

• Objective: Build a scalable, unified platform for marketers without constant engineering support.

• Legacy CMS Challenges: Lack of templates, inconsistent UI, and translation issues.

3. Choosing the Tech Stack:

• React & TypeScript Stack: DoorDash's preferred stack.

• Static Site Generation: Chose Next.js for its alignment with React, large community support, and TypeScript compatibility.

4. Content Management System:

• Choice: Contentful - meeting security, compliance, and localization requirements.

• Focus: Centralizing content management across various marketing web properties.

5. Technical Project Goals:

• Objectives: Multi-tenancy, standardized UI/UX components, performance optimization, analytics standardization, and accessibility focus.

• Global Expansion: Emphasizing inclusiveness in internationalization efforts.

6. CI/CD & Hosting:

• Challenge: Simplifying deployment without extensive DevOps involvement.

• Solution: Leveraging Cloudflare Pages for automated deployment directly to the edge network.

7. Performance Monitoring:

• Measurement: Using Segment.io and Amplitude to monitor Web Vitals and track performance improvements.

• Results: Significant enhancements in user experience metrics post-migration.

8. A/B Testing & Traffic Splitting:

• Approach: Utilizing Cloudflare Workers for A/B testing between old and new platforms.

• Results: Demonstrated a substantial increase in conversion rates and improved user engagement metrics.

9. Platform Scalability:

• Achievements: Expanding the platform to different verticals and international markets.

• Focus Areas: Analytics, forms, performance optimization, internationalization, accessibility, and A/B testing.

10. Future Steps:

• Expansion: Empowering other teams to utilize the established infrastructure.

• Team Growth: Growing the Marketing Engineering team to support global scaling initiatives.

This case study showcases how DoorDash addressed its marketing challenges by integrating engineering principles, standardizing platforms, optimizing performance, and scaling globally with a focus on user experience and inclusivity.