The infamous year in review feature started with Spotify Wrapped in 2016. Since then, 100s (more likely 1000s) of companies have followed suit. So much so that it feels like everyone does it now.

A big question on my mind is: is it worth it? How much dev and design time versus how much reward?

I don’t have the answer to that question here. But what I do have is three different examples of wrapped from top tech companies: Monzo, Strava & Depop. Similarly named:

Let’s dive into their unique take on Spotify Wrapped: the good, the not-so-bad and the ugly.

We’ll learn how year-in-reviews can be used to increase sharing, reiterate value propositions, and encourage users to get to the magic moment again and again into the new year.

We’ll also see some bugs, some missed opportunities and pointers for how to make your year-in-review feature go further next year.

And, we will see why my vote for favourite goes to the one that was in Beta (lol).

First stop, Fintech.

I’m not in the Monzo app so often, so for me, I jumped into my ‘Year in Monzo’ from an email:

Just dropped: your Year in Monzo 🔥

It’s a good start, the strong subject line drawing me in. Subject lines are the most important thing for open rates (as well as deliverability).

The email has bright, bold branding. Big colours that pop, just like Spotify.

My pet peeve is the lack of CTA in the email at the top of the fold. I had to scroll before being able to tap. There’s also a bug on the CTA, with the background colour being off-black and the text black it is pretty hard to see.

Here’s the app card too for those who are interested (from this thread):