Top tips: 5 ways to boost e-commerce performance with web analytics

In January of this year, the IMRG Interactive Media In Retail Group reported that online shopping growth figures had hit a record low Monthly growth dropped 22% from December 2009 to January 2010 and, whilst this is in line with typical seasonal trends, the drop is more severe than usual, suggesting there may be significant factors at play. 

One element intrinsic to online success is the effectiveness of a retailer’s website. As increasingly web-savvy consumers, our tolerance toward slow loading pages, complicated payment processes and long winded forms, to name but a few, is very limited.  In fact, recent neurological research by customer experience consultant Foviance, shows that poor performing websites cause stress; unsurprising research when considering personal frustrating online experiences.

With the online retail market expected to double in the next five years according to a recent report by Forrester[3], retailers need to ensure their website is performing at its peak to take hold of this opportunity.

To achieve this, knowledge of the customer is key.  Individual needs and preferences must be met and relies on access to behavioural, attitudinal and demographic site visitor and buyer data.  Website usability can then be refined to reflect the needs of consumers more effectively and weaknesses in the customers purchasing journey can be identified and improved. 

To ensure their share of the anticipated €40 billion by 2014 that the online shopping industry is predicted to be worth by 2014[4], retailers need not only to remove the chance of “web stress” through better website design but also go one step further and anticipate the needs of a potential customer through better segmentation and targeting.

With this in mind, Coremetrics have put together some tips on how to improve web site performance.

1.       Develop a cross-functional organisational structure that promotes collaboration

Before a website can be brought to its full potential, the organisational structure must facilitate its success. Often it is the case that teams work independently from each other, so for example, the sales team looks at ways to maximise conversions, whereas the site designers focus on improving the customer journey.  By working in this way, the marketing process can become fragmented and lose consistency of thought.  In comparison, by working in cross functional teams, information and learning’s are shared and a greater understanding of the customer is gained. For example, by merchants and site designers collaborating, it ensures low selling products are placed prominently to encourage customers to buy.

2.       Establishing and monitoring a variety of key performance metrics

Often, online retailers focus too heavily on one metric: optimising the site around that single Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Conversion, for example, compares buying sessions against overall sessions. Used alone, this KPI doesn’t provide a thorough picture when problems occur. Consequently, the retailer may believe the issue is price and consider lowering prices or offering discount promotions to increase conversion. This can mask the underlying issues, which might be related to the quality of traffic, navigation, creative display, content relevancy or price.

The reality is that many factors play a role in getting the visitor to complete a conversion. Successful retailers should establish a framework of appropriate KPIs, set targets for each one based both on their goals and a comparative benchmark, and review them on a regular basis to make sure targets are being met. Once again, web analytics can be used to monitor and analyse these.

Furthermore the cross functional approach should be applied to analysis, for example marketing and merchandise performance should not be performed in isolation, it is important to understand what marketing activity is driving product sales.

3.       Analyse the customer journey to determine website weaknesses

Analysing funnel/paths is a key step in identifying drop off points, including abandoned transactions, onsite searches and registration completions, which in turn can help identify problems with the website. By using behavioural segmentation to slice and dice the data, retailers can delve even deeper to establish the reasons why this may be happening.

If the retailer wanted to look at onsite search performance with respect to the customer journey for example, they could analyse which search terms were being used, the number of results returned, how deep the visitor navigated into the search results, what additional filters were used on the search results, product conversion and departures from the site within the search path. These insights could then be used to improve the relevancy of popular searches, inform product placement on the results page and the recommendation of cross sell products for searches that would normally lead to zero results.

Retailers should also examine segments of new versus repeat visitors, traffics sources and more advanced segments such as serial abandoners and one page visitors. These insights can then be used to improve search engine optimisation, adding new content, optimising online forms, creating more relevant content to improve the site’s stickiness and ultimately increasing basket sizes and sales.  

4.       Organising the site and analysis around the customer

If done right, online merchandising leads people past the home page to view products and services. It entices them with cross-sell and up-sell offers to drive up average order value. It ensures that pricing is inline with the competition and helps visitors move effortlessly through shopping and checkout processes. However, this is a complex process, and is by no means a case of ‘one size fits all’. 

It is important to remember that product and service categories represent internal product and service groupings, not necessarily how people buy. Products and services must be grouped on the site according to multiple consumer preferences. In retail, products may be grouped into key trends that appeal to your target consumer such as ‘Gothic’ or ‘Bohemian’ as well as classic groupings such as brand and size.

Similarly when putting together promotional offers, these must appeal to the target audience.  On a generation Y female fashion site for example, they may choose to do a promotion around ‘festival’ gear, understanding their target consumer is likely to attend these events.  Other techniques such as ‘You might also like’ encourage cross and up-selling and are a great way of making the customer journey easier by selecting garments on their behalf. 

The starting point for organising the site around the customer is, of course, detailed behavioural data about the customer. Merchandising reporting and analysis around the product and promotional categories that customers use must then take place.  Reporting must allow merchants to understand behaviour related to categories and items and to identify appropriate cross-sell items. It also needs to provide insight into the navigational categories customers use to find products, so merchants and site designers can determine which paths are used most. This information guides them in placing products and promotion effectively and thereby creating a more personalised customer experience. 

Retailers need to employ visitor profiling methods, which will enable them to analyse the visitor lifecycle, the potential to acquire, convert and importantly retain the visitor so they engage and become a repeat purchaser.

This includes tracking repeat visitors, visitors who view multiple content - not just in the same session but across multiple sessions and content affinities - where combinations of product are viewed and the analysis of conversion attribution to understand the marketing mix that leads to a successful sale.

5.       Constantly review and adapt

·          Regularly review

·          Benchmark

·          Constantly update and question everything

·          Marketing, site developers and sales working together to continuously improve

·          Consider a web analytics specialist

Fundamentally, all of these tips are dependent on deep understanding of the customer.  By using web analytics, retailers can effectively put this advice into action and perhaps more importantly, continue to adapt their offering in response to their customers and potential customer needs.

By Craig Whiston

Head of Client Services

Coremetrics

www.coremetrics.com

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