| In recent years, website marketers
were concerned with increasing 'hits' and the 'stickiness'
of their sites. They were concerned with increasing page
views and the amount of time spent on the site. This is
definitely a hold over from the paper based businesses
of the past, and has proved to not be of much use in the
fast moving internet world. As
a result, hits and views are no longer considered useful
metrics for evaluating website success. They simply
don't provide the right kind of information needed by
online marketers. Now they look at conversions, drop-out
rates, return on investment and revenue per visitor.
Internet marketers of today
want to make more money. To do this, they must understand
their visitors, their motives, where they came from,
what they were looking for, and how they found the site.
And most important of all: what made them make the decision
to buy or what made them abandon the purchase.
In order to accomplish this,
they need a powerful new set of web analytics tools;
tools that are fast, accurate and easy to use. And most
important, these tools must be able to measure performance
over time. That is, the marketer needs to be able to
set a baseline for any metric and then measure a percentage
of increase or decrease at a later time. And the time
frame needs to be long enough to show meaningful results
- usually 30 days or more.
Here are a few
common problems solved by the proper use of web analytics:
Good traffic,
but a high Bounce Rate
A 'Bounce' is
a visitor who comes to your site and leaves without
looking at any other pages. The number of bounces is
compared to those who visit more than one page to give
a 'Bounce Rate'. All websites have a bounce rate. Whether
it is high or not is relative to the site. Only numbers
taken over a period of time will show an average for
any particular site.
There are two
main problems that lead to a high bounce rate: Attracting
the wrong kind of traffic and not giving the visitor
what they were looking for.
To identify the
first case, open the New Visitors report. This report
should contain a list of unique, first-time visitors.
The report should also show the first page visited and
where they came from. The origin may be empty, due to
a number of reasons outside the control of the web analytic
package. Select a visitor that came from a search engine.
Now 'Drill Down' by clicking on the selected line and
opening a detail view of this visitor. The detail page
will show the search term used to find your site.
Was the search
term relative to the subject matter of the landing page?
Were they only looking for something free? Looking at
a number of search terms will reveal if the wrong kind
of traffic is coming in.
If the search
terms are appropriate, then the searches are driving
qualified traffic to the site. If this is the case,
the high bounce rate is due to the page content not
properly addressing the visitor expectations.
High Drop-Out
Rate
According to Jupiter
Research, 71 percent of sites do not analyze customer
drop-out rates, even though 66 percent of consumers
reported having abandoned a purchase while on a website.
The drop-out rate
will show an increase, or hopefully, a decrease with
time. A properly designed buying process will capture
personal contact information before continuing with
the checkout process. This contact information can be
used to contact the lost sale and discuss the reasons.
The Drop-Out report
should show the visitor, the product and date and time
of sale. Select one line in the report and drill down
to view the contact information, if available. Call
or email the visitor to learn the reasons for abandoning
the sale.
Also, the internet
marketer should discuss the buying process with current
customers. This is an excellent method of increasing
customer loyalty. It also provides an opportunity to
gather testimonials. Most buyers will have visited several
times before they bought. Ask why they didn't buy the
first time they visited the site. Also, ask why they
came back and what motivated them to buy.
Poor Return
On Investment
Probably the most
difficult challenge faced by internet marketers is controlling
costs. Traffic acquisition can be an expensive proposition,
so it is important to get the most out of every click.
The best marketing
reports reveal where the money comes from, who the money
comes from, and what marketers can do to improve revenues.
Marketers can use this information to increase advertisements
on sites that reach the most interested parties, provide
a better selection of products for different types of
visitors, or offer better service to their most valuable
visitors.
The marketing
reports should show sales grouped by campaign or affiliate.
At a minimum, they should show units of sales by product
and product options, and preferably revenue.
Compare advertising
costs with revenues to identify the most profitable
campaigns. Often the marketer will find that one campaign
may bring in more visitors, but conversion is low, whereas
another might bring in fewer, but more qualified visitors
who purchase more.
The use of A/B
testing to increase pulling power of ads is vital to
keeping ad costs down and attracting qualified visitors.
Here, the marketer will find it easy to measure changes
and evaluate overall performance. Instead of taking
months to identify and understand the effect of a change,
it will often show in hours or a few days. This agility
means that even smaller e-commerce sites can succeed
on limited budgets.
Path Analysis
/ Clickstream Analysis – Understanding visitors
Not really a problem,
but vital to keeping a healthy web business running
smoothly. The marketer is also able to identify new
trends and opportunities by evaluating the visitors'
interest in various content available on the site.
The ideal path
through the site should go from the landing page to
the products page to the orders page, from there to
the checkout and finally to a 'Thank You' page.
Deviations might
include paths to tutorials, articles and other information
pages, but these should be kept to a minimum and always
lead back to the main path.
Again, the marketer
can select a particular visitor, buyer or drop-out and
then drill down to the detail page to reveal every page
visited and path taken, as well as the amount of time
spent viewing each page. Knowing how long it takes to
actually read the page will reveal the amount of interest
in the subject matter. Combining this information with
keyword searches will reveal how appropriate the content
of each page is to the visitor's interests.
In Summary
The value of the
analysis far exceeds the nominal cost of the web analytics
service. Indeed, it may spell the difference between
success and failure. Good web analytics packages can
be hard to find, but need not be expensive. Increasingly,
more and more comprehensive reports are available at
better prices.
To be effective,
the marketer must understand what to look for and how
to apply the knowledge revealed by the analysis. The
learning curve is not steep, and the rewards can be
significant.
About
the author - WG Moore is a web analytics specialist
with over 20 years of hardware, software and web development
experience. Visit Web Stats Gold
for more articles and information on web analytics.
You may contact him at will@webstatsgold.com |
