How Certiflink gained buyer persona clarity and opened new avenues for growth.
The product worked. The website didn’t explain it. The differentiators already existed and no one saw them. Heatmaps, five interviews with paying customers and a new pricing table: how Certiflink found out who it sells to and where it could still grow.
A certificate is no longer a mere formality. It’s an engagement tool, a marketing tool, a sales tool.
What this case study shows
A product that worked. A website that didn’t explain it.
Certiflink wasn’t born from a business plan. It was born from the founder’s own problem: he organized free events at universities and needed to deliver certificates by email, with no printing costs and no logistics.
The tool became a product, and the product started bringing in revenue every month. Then it stalled. Revenue stopped growing. Conversion was inefficient: only 8.5% moved on to a trial, with minimal conversion into sales.
sales. Between April and May, Google Ads brought 594 clicks to the site. Of those, 155 reached the pricing page and 52 created an account and logged into the tool. None bought.
The site had traffic. What it didn’t have was a reason to stay.
Diagnosing the old website
Before writing a single word, we installed heatmaps and session recording on the old site. The idea is simple: see what people do instead of guessing.
The founder already knew something was wrong. He just didn’t know what to do about it: “The site is too technical, it doesn’t show benefits. We don’t talk about benefits, we only talk about the product’s characteristics and features.”
The diagnosis revealed three stacked problems.
Shallow visits, almost all on mobile
Over 80% of visits came from mobile, and engagement was shallow. Almost no one scrolled past the middle of the page. And clicks were concentrated on three buttons: “Log in”, “Free trial” and “See an example”.
Features instead of benefits
The copy explained what the tool does, but not who it serves or what problem it solves. A focus on technical features, without making clear who the tool was for.
Images that didn’t support the decision
A site with little information and generic visuals that didn’t make the platform’s differentiators clear and gave no support to the decision.
When a client comes to us, they rarely start from scratch. They come tired of trying. Serge had hired another company to build an alternative page and A/B tested both versions. It made no difference.
He had built his own system to measure every stage of the funnel. He had bought a SaaS copywriting course, planning to write it himself. And he kept investing in Google Ads all the while. He had already spent money, already spent time, and was about to spend more time learning. The problem was none of the three.
He was also honest about his concerns. Certiflink was the smallest of his projects, infrastructure costs ranged from US$ 60 to US$ 200 a month, and he had already paid for a page that changed nothing.
I didn’t have the strength, the creativity or the energy to try something different on my own.
Five conversations that changed how we understood the product
We interviewed real Certiflink customers using the Jobs to be Done format. Instead of asking what they think of the product, we rebuilt the purchase decision from the moment the problem appeared: what was happening, what they tried before, what made them look for a solution that week and not the one before.
We chose the five on purpose for being different from each other: scientific events, corporate retail training, an info-product launch, a digital professional course and a business mentoring group. When profiles are very different, whatever repeats across them is what really matters.
600 certificates in 5 minutes, versus 8 hours of manual work
Psychology conferences. They made certificates one by one, by hand. It worked while events had 100 people. The last one had 600.
Today those 600 go out in 5 minutes, with zero errors. And when a 2024 attendee complains they never got theirs, she opens the list, sees who received, who opened and who downloaded, and solves it on the spot.
“We used to do certificates one by one for small events, then all of a sudden it grew. I said: I can’t handle this.” — Pollyanna de Lima, Head of Marketing
The certificate was the reason people showed up
A large national retailer. Over 1,200 stores, more than 3,000 certificates issued, a QR Code on the last screen of in-person training. The person in charge won an internal award for the project.
There, the certificate wasn’t the end of the training. It was the reason people showed up.
“Issuing certificates was a big differentiator, because it was an incentive for people to take part in the training.” — Head of Training & Development
3,000 quiz responses, versus 1,000 before
A digital course launch. They already ran a quiz at the end of the free classes, but only used it to raffle prizes. They started giving the certificate to anyone who did well on the quiz.
Result: 3,000 quiz responses, versus 1,000 before.
“When they answer, they become a qualified lead for us. It worked! We hit our attendance goals every single day.” — Lucas, Launch Management
1,400 certificates issued at once, live
Mentoring programs and immersions. They switched platforms for a reason no competitor highlights: the previous one stored certificates in a Drive, and that Drive got lost. Every request for a copy became a support ticket.
Today they issue more than 1,400 certificates at the same time, live, with the QR Code on screen at the end of the immersion.
“It’s very important for us to know how many people are actually generating their certificate and to measure the event’s success. We call it the company’s PDCA.” — Thaiza, Relationship Analyst
The customer who uses 20% of the product and holds up revenue
Therapist training. Students who need the certificate to practice the profession. Weekly batch issuing, with no marketing intent at all. It’s the customer who uses 20% of the product: pays on time, never opens a ticket and doesn’t cancel.
In a small SaaS, this is the customer who holds up revenue between one peak and the next. What they gained was looking more structured to a demanding audience that compares programs before choosing.
“Students were asking and I wasn’t going to make a bunch of certificates in Canva, right? I signed up for the plan right away.” — Maurício Oliveira, Digital Marketing Strategist
Five reasons to pay. None of them is “issuing certificates”.
For conference organizers, the certificate is proof of attendance. For those training a store network, it’s the incentive that gets employees to take part. For launches, it’s a way to keep the audience watching and collect contacts. For those training therapists, it’s the professional license. For those whose students come back years later, it’s the record that can’t be lost.
The old site sold bulk issuing, QR Codes and validation codes. All of it is true. And none of it explains why anyone pays.
The best customer isn’t the biggest
It’s not the R$ 99 beginner who issues 20 certificates and cancels within six months. Nor the 20,000-student university that overloads the infrastructure at peaks and eats the margin. It’s the customer in the middle: a small or mid-sized institution, with training happening every month, with budget, a lean team and the problem already clear in their head. Someone who issues 500 to 1,000 certificates a month, every month.
That led to a decision almost no one writes into a brief: who the copy needs to turn away. The occasional beginner isn’t a small customer who will grow one day. They’re the source of churn and of support that doesn’t pay for itself. Writing for them costs twice: it attracts those who cancel and drives away those who would stay.
The real competitor isn’t a platform
Abroad, the category exists: platforms that position themselves as certifiers and treat the certificate as a verifiable credential. In Brazil there’s no direct competitor in that model. The most visible player works “done for you”: you ask, wait up to 72 hours and get the certificates ready. It’s more expensive, and anyone who wants to do it themselves can’t.
Searches for “certificate generator” show a few generators and, right after, a Canva blog post teaching how to make a certificate by hand. The result competing with Certiflink for the click is a tutorial on how not to use a tool. As the founder already said: “My biggest competitor is the manual process: dumb, bureaucratic and slow.”
International references served two purposes: they showed features Certiflink already had and didn’t highlight, and they gave a benchmark to rework the plans and pricing page, the weakest point of the old site.
What Serge didn’t want to be
Positioning is also deciding what stays out. He didn’t want to become a “done for you” service, which requires people handling request after request, and he runs it alone. He didn’t want to sell credits, which break recurring revenue and hand the same pain back to the corporate customer, who prefers a fixed amount in the budget.
And he didn’t want to become a flexible editor: “If I have too many controls on screen, people get lost.” The certificate is built with few choices. Small, medium or large font. Small, medium or large margin. QR Code on or off. That isn’t a lack of features, it’s the product’s design. But the old site didn’t explain it, so it looked like a poor version of Canva instead of a deliberate choice.
And he didn’t want to keep being seen as a micro SaaS. That was the sentence that organized the rest of the work.
The three decisions
The order mattered: first the product started to look like what it is. Only then did we touch pricing.
Positioning: from issuing to issuing and management
Certiflink stopped presenting itself as an issuing tool and started presenting itself as a certificate issuing and management platform. The promise moved from the task to the outcome, organized around three pillars that came straight from the interviews.
Timeliness: a certificate delivered on the spot, at the peak of motivation, makes the student proud and gets them posting on social media.
Engagement: the quiz turns the certificate into a learning resource and a reason for people to finish the training.
Professionalism: whoever issues it comes across as organized and trustworthy, to students, clients and auditors.
Site structure: by use case, not by feature
The home page started splitting by use case instead of listing features: corporate training, events and conferences, digital launches.
Within each one, the copy speaks to two people. To the person who uses the tool, about practicality, speed and an end to rework. And to the person who pays for it, about reputation, student participation and costs that disappear. We also added a “before and after” comparison and a table against the real alternatives: doing it by hand, Canva and done-for-you services.
The five interviews became five micro case studies, all with the same structure (audience, challenge, solution, result) next to the testimonial, photo and logo of the person who spoke. Not a generic testimonial praising the tool, but the story of a specific use with the number that use produced. Visitors don’t need to imagine whether the tool fits their case. They find their case right there.
We mapped 14 platform differentiators, and most of them already existed in the product without showing up on the site:
None of them is a new feature. The features were hidden.
Pricing: the research turned into revenue
Starter, the source of churn and of support that doesn’t pay for itself, remained as an entry point, but moved out of the center of the page so it wouldn’t attract those who shouldn’t arrive.
The ladder became visible and easy to climb. Pro at R$ 199 a month, for up to 300 certificates, with benefits highlighted instead of a bare feature list. Master at R$ 499, for up to 1,500 certificates, with quizzes and satisfaction surveys. Custom from R$ 999, with the features that justify the jump: digital signature, two-page certificates, webhook issuing. A plan for NGOs and charity events was added too.
Each plan got a line saying who it is for, not just what it includes. It’s the difference between “up to 1,500 certificates a month” and “for those with training running all year round”.
What the research delivered beyond the website
Customer interviews produce more material than fits on a page. Two documents were left over, delivered alongside.
The first maps what creates value: the benefits customers mention without being asked, the objections that come up before buying, and what makes someone decide now rather than six months from now. Every objection became an answer on the page. Lucas hesitated because he didn’t know whether the platform could handle bulk issuing. That’s why volume numbers are highlighted instead of a generic “scalable”.
The second is a list of product improvements, prioritized by impact and written from what customers complained about. We found that customers print and frame their certificates, and because generation lost resolution, the text came out pixelated on paper. And Pollyanna spent months thinking the platform was rejecting her files, because a red X appeared after upload. The X is the button to remove the image.
Neither is a feature problem. They’re friction points that only surface when someone asks the customer.
The transformation at a glance
The first effect wasn’t more visits. It was a different kind of visitor.
For a lean SaaS operation, this is the change that comes before all the others.
More qualified leads
Before, the site attracted the R$ 99 beginner who tries it, issues twenty certificates and disappears. Now it attracts people who already have a clear problem and training happening every month.
A brand that looks like what it is
The product no longer looks like a poor version of Canva. It now presents itself as an issuing and management platform, with differentiators and real cases in front of decision-makers.
New avenues for growth
The research uncovered markets the founder hadn’t considered: legally required training, digitally signed certificates, certificates with expiration and renewal. Markets Certiflink can already serve with today’s product, and that the old site didn’t reach because it never said it could serve them.
It came across as much more professional. I see more qualified people signing up. Since the new site went live, we’ve been getting far more qualified leads, an audience much closer to our ICP, and that’s giving us better results.
Questions that make us think, and we got to different places. It’s very different from doing it alone, because alone you can’t ask the right questions, let alone think about the answers.
The best differentiators already existed. They were hidden.
The old site didn’t have a button problem. It had a product that solved five different problems for five kinds of customer, and a page that didn’t name any of them.
That decision is almost impossible to make alone, looking at your own product from the inside.
What was missing wasn’t knowing how to write. It was deciding who the product is for and what it solves.
The next before and after could be yours
45 minutes. You leave with more clarity than you came in with.
Book your meeting ›A repeatable method for SaaS
What we did here works for any SaaS that already has paying customers and a website that doesn’t sell.
Measure before touching the copy
Funnel, heatmaps and session recording. Without the 594 → 155 → 52 → 0 and without seeing where the page dies, “the site doesn’t convert” is guesswork.
Interview people who already bought
Not people who might buy. Conversations with very different profiles: whatever repeats is what matters.
Find out what the customer hired the product for
And the context of the decision. Five customers gave five answers. None was “issuing certificates”.
Interview the founder about the business
Not about the product. Best customer, worst customer, real competitor and where they want to take the company.
Look at the market after listening to people
Not before. And ask what the founder doesn’t want to be: positioning is as much what stays out as what goes in.
Let the conversations set the price
If the entry plan is the source of churn, it doesn’t deserve the center of the page.
Give back to the client what was left over
The same interviews produce an improvement list prioritized by users themselves, plus plenty of rich material for marketing and sales.