Product category:
Web design and development
News Release from: speed-trap | Subject: Web traffic conversion
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 02 May 2007
Converting lookers to bookers
Success in the online world might start with traffic generation but it is conversion to sales that is the Holy Grail and analysis of visitor behaviour can help to reach it.
Is traffic enough? While we all recognise that success in the online world might start with traffic generation, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), PPC (Pay Per Click), banner advertising and so on, that IS only the start If organisations want their online presence to be financially successful then they need to convert this traffic from individuals "looking" around their website into individuals who decide to buy something: "bookers"
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 22 Mar 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
HotelConnect uses speed-trap to track site visits
Hotel booking agency HotelConnect has used e-business intelligence company speed-trap's web measurement and user journey analysis tool to track how visitors are using its website.
Campaign Intelligence offers clear business view
Today's online marketing mix usually includes many components, and it's important that each is earning a return on the investment, argues online campaign intelligence expert speed-trap.
The good news is that some current technologies can provide the insights needed to understand the factors that are most important in making this happen on websites - and spot the elephant traps that get in the way.
Speed-trap, based in Newbury, Berkshire, provides solutions that capture and analyse the behaviour of website visitors and turn this into the insight needed to understand this conversion from looker to booker.
As one of speed-trap's customers said: "Apart from the insight you provide, the biggest benefit to the organisation is that you cut short the debate.
Further reading
Measuring and countering click fraud
Speed-trap explains the best ways to avoid click fraud, the process of an individual clicking on search or affiliate adverts on the web with fraudulent intent.
Online customer analysis boosts gambling revenues
Paddy Power, Ireland's biggest and most successful bookmaker, has extended its contracts with online customer experience analyst Speed-Trap.
Complex e-commerce platform deploys Speed-Trap
Customer insight software from Speed-Trap has been selected by Betfair to monitor and dynamically manage the content of the Betfair website.
"You provide us with hard facts on behaviour on which we can base solid, data-driven decision-making processes." Speed-trap does this by capturing raw data from each and every visitor to an organisation's website.
Once it has accurate raw data on behaviour and user experience then the analysis processes can progress and will provide the insight required to make changes that are guaranteed to make a difference.
The important enabling factor here is that computing technology and storage have reached the point where it is possible to economically collect and analyse hundreds of millions of items of information about how websites and visitors are behaving, and armed with this broad statistical base, derive answers that have the weight of fact behind them.
So instead of basing decisions on the opinion of the design team, the marketing director or a group of "expert consultants", organisations start paying attention to the only people who really matter in the process - the customers.
This analysis might be to tell you which campaign delivers the best bookers, which page design converts best, which products the customers are seeking, whether the checkout process needs redesign or if the new special offers are actually making or losing customers.
To undertake an analysis of this type you need to bring some formalism to the process.
Speed-trap came to the conclusion that something simple was appropriate, so they split the process into three areas: visitor acquisition - the process of finding potential customers and delivering them to the site; then product promotion - the art and science of getting them to select a product; then purchase process - the mechanical process of getting the booking confirmed.
Each of these phases has to be considered discretely, each has its own metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and each provides the opportunity for blinding success or crashing failure.
Today there are well-defined techniques for driving traffic to websites, but organisations need to know if the people arriving from their SEO and banner or email campaigns are even potential customers.
It is not uncommon to see 80% of visitors from some campaigns hit the site and bounce off again in less than 15 seconds - counting these people into the conversion rates will just leave people tearing their hair out; they need to figure out why people are leaving so soon or at the very least stop spending money on the campaigns in question.
Conversely some campaigns might only generate a relative handful of bookers, but these might be the most valuable customers, more than justifying the expense of the campaigns.
Sadly there are also the click-fraud issues to contend with - it's easy to watch an entire advertising budget go up in a cloud of fraudulent clickers...or just be paying bills delivered by agencies and affiliates without any real confidence that they are delivering the figures they quote.
The bottom line is that if you can attach every visitor and visit back to the campaign that generated them, and then attach the actual life-time value of that customer to the business, you might stand a chance of really making your marketing budget punch above its weight.
Speed-trap has seen customers who pay attention to their campaigns and manage them on a daily (or even hourly) basis see 100% improvements in return for every pound spent in advertising as a result of thorough data analysis.
The other issue to consider is that it just may be the website that is the problem - or more usually the page landed on.
Analysis of the pages that really grip people versus those that send them packing can be very insightful; sometimes the slightest adjustment can transform a dog of a page to a star - and experience tells us that the effectiveness of a page may not be related to what the design gurus tell you.
Sometimes pages that break every rule just work.
Modern solutions can even tell you what images and links on the page get clicked or even just rolled-over - with this kind of insight A/B testing is a breeze.
However, sometimes the site really is the problem: speed-trap has seen airline websites that deny they fly to their home airport, but only for a specific community of external users, or a form that caused them to select invalid destinations and get "no seats available" hundreds of times a day.
The real point here is that it's possible to transform a poorly working site into a functional and effective one by just focusing on the issues that are actually impacting on customers.
Speed-trap persuaded one company to undertake this kind of analysis before they dumped their existing site and redeveloped from scratch.
The analysis showed that there were a handful of issues that were really getting in the way of customers finding the product they were searching for (like an in-page web search engine which sent their customers to their competitors - ouch) and making people abandon the checkout process.
It took a few days to sort these and some other fixes, with the result that the conversion rate rose by 500%.
With these kinds of results and with the insight needed to fix the rest of the site, they concluded there was no need to rebuild the site and they saved thousands of pounds.
Learn from the people who really know.
The real message is that organisations that want to optimise their websites have a fantastic test team out there.
• speed-trap: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Marketingservicestalk email newsletter
• Marketingservicestalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
