Project Mercury & Customer Zero
Project Mercury was rooted in our commitment to operate on the leading edge of technology to ensure our internal platforms mirror the edge environments of our customers.
We established a model of continuous modernization, ensuring our digital presence remains as innovative as the products we sell. In addition, on the heels of Project Mercury, we kicked off an initiative we’re calling Customer Zero — which we’ll cover at the end of this case study.
But first, Project Mercury.
Why Project Mercury?
Project Mercury was a proactive modernization. We leveraged our 2026 rebranding effort as the catalyst to transition and implement a practice of constant modernization, from a legacy architecture to a state-of-the-art stack. This ensures we are keeping pace with technology updates and setting the standard for always-on evolution.
Technical foundation & rationale
Our technical leadership defined this shift as a natural progression of our 2022 move from Gatsby to Next.js. While our previous stack was functional and compatible with products like Personalize, the overall rebrand provided a unique architectural window from a technical point of view.
Architectural leap: We are moving from the Next.js Pages Router to the App Router. Technically, the shift from the Pages Router to the App Router is a move from Client-Side Rendering (CSR) dominance to a Server-First architecture using React Server Components (RSC).
This is a significant structural upgrade that is best implemented during a full-scale redesign rather than through fragmented, incremental updates. Could we have technically moved forward without this? Sure, but our goal is to always be at the edge of modernization.
Strategic timing: By aligning the platform upgrade with the visual rebrand, we eliminate the need for two separate "breaking" changes, allowing for a cleaner, more efficient adoption of the latest technology.
Compatibility by design: A core objective was and is to ensure our products remain framework-agnostic and compatible with modern, evolving customer architectures.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The following metrics track the success of Project Mercury across engagement, performance and operational efficiency.
Metric | Baseline (6-mo avg) | Target goal | Results (-180 days after) | Strategic driver |
Performance | 67 | 90+ | 85 | Image optimization via DAM and code-base modernization. |
Accessibility (WCAG 2.2) | 93 | 100 | 100 | ARIA cleanup and automated CMS validations. |
Best Practices | 90 | 100 | 100 | Best practices focus on optimizing performance, accessibility, SEO, and modern web standards. |
SEO | 92 | 100 | 100 | How well a webpage follows basic technical search engine optimization practices. |
Scroll depth | 7% at 40% depth | 15% at 40% depth | 18.3% reached 40% | Improved visual hierarchy and engaging micro-interactions. |
Conversion rate | 1.23% (Bot-filtered) | 1.35% – 1.45% | Pending | Standardized Aurora templates and optimized form design. |
Template adoption | Weeks (Dev-led) - 10-15 days | Days (Self-service) - From weeks to days | Days (Self-service) - From weeks to days | Use of Aurora templates to drive marketing autonomy. |
Customer Zero
Following the success of Project Mercury, the Digital Experience team at Contentstack instituted Customer Zero, an initiative that puts our marketing and digital team at the heart of product testing and roadmapping.
The Customer Zero initiative revolves around three pillars:
Influence and best practices: Following the success of Project Mercury, Customer Zero was established to synchronize our internal digital ecosystem with our product roadmap. It ensures that we are the first to experience our products, allowing us to refine the user journey and document best practices from an authentic practitioner’s perspective.
Product integration: We collaborate directly with Product Managers to provide real-time feedback. This partnership creates a continuous loop that informs future iterations and ensures our internal stack remains at the cutting edge by establishing the best standard for product release.
Promoting internal adoption: Post-release, we must be the best users of our product, fully utilizing all features and best practices. This deep commitment ensures we understand the user experience, proactively find improvements, and become credible internal advocates, ultimately boosting product quality and external adoption.
The goal
The main objective of Customer Zero is to serve as a rigorous "pre-release" environment for all of our products and main feature releases.
By acting as our most demanding customer, we identify optimization opportunities and validate performance at scale, ensuring a frictionless experience for our global user.
