Product design question
Design a loyalty program for a search engine that's competing with Google & Bing.
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What this question tests
Product design for a loyalty mechanism in a category, search, where user switching costs are usually very low.
How to approach it
- Clarify the challenge: search habits are sticky by default (Google's default status), so a loyalty program must overcome pure convenience.
- Identify what users would value: something Google does not offer, such as privacy rewards or tangible perks for repeated use.
- Prioritize a differentiated reward mechanic over copying generic points systems, since search users rarely think about 'earning points'.
- Propose a rewards model tied to the search engine's differentiator, for example privacy focused search giving small donations to causes per search.
- Consider habit formation: make rewards visible in a way that reinforces switching the default search engine, not just occasional use.
- Define success as default search engine share among enrolled users and program retention over 90 days.
What a strong answer includes
- Names the real underlying problem, search default stickiness, rather than treating this like a generic e-commerce loyalty program.
- Ties the loyalty mechanic to the engine's actual differentiator, for example privacy, rather than a generic points system disconnected from brand.
- Gives an illustrative number, e.g. assumes a $0.01 charitable donation per search could meaningfully differentiate without being a gimmick.
- Focuses on default switching as the real success metric, since occasional use with Google still as default is a weak win.
Common mistakes
- Proposing a generic points and rewards program with no connection to why users would actually switch from Google.
- Ignoring that changing default search engine behavior is a much higher bar than typical loyalty programs.
- No metric tied to actual default engine switching, just program signups.
Likely follow-up questions
- How do you get users to actually switch their default engine?
- Why would this work when Google is already the habitual default?
- How would you fund a rewards program at search's low margin per query?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop