Web analytics can tell us a lot about how our users behave online. This helps us to improve our online experiences.
The first thing I do when I start working with a new client is get my hands on every piece of digital data they have. I want to see all of their website analytics. I want to see their email reports. I want to see their mobile app downloads and usage. I want to know how they rank in search engines (particularly Google – because they have 95% market share in Australia) and what they’re paying as a cost per click in paid search. But most of all I want to see the revenue and conversion data. The hard part is then aligning the online data to the offline data.
What the data can tell you
Ideally we’re hoping to see the online and offline databases housed in the same Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) – but I’ve only come across that once or twice in my career. So the first piece of data management you want to do is to understand how many of your users:
– buy/ transact offline only
– buy online only
– buy/ transact both online and offline
– buy/ transact online via mobile
– what type of purchases/ actions are they making
– have provided an email address (and opted in to receive communications)
– have provided a mobile number
– have provided you with their email address, a mobile number as well as their physical address
– engage in other online activities (such as surveys or using any games or tools that you may have built into your website)
– engage in online activities and buy/ transact.
I think you get the idea. Your ability to get access to this information will depend on how well the data has been managed and the skills or budget you can acquire. This is incredibly rich information.
If you are able to gain most of the data above into a report, you then will want to know when was their last purchase, what was the average value of the sales from each of these segments.
What campaigns get the best results?
You’re also going to want to know which campaigns, themes or product lines your customers respond to? What channels deliver the greater return on investment (ROI)? What combination of content and promotions were most effective?
Once you know what converts best, you then need to review your online content and web analytics to see if the straight online behavioural data matches the conversion data.
Identify the content that is working, analyse why it works so well and try to replicate it in other areas. What type of content is included? What are the topics? What call to actions were used? What was the language like, or the message? If you can see issues that convert well but are a bit thin on content, start padding out these areas. The easiest way to improve your conversion results is to expand a dialogue that is already working. This will give your organisation an opportunity to test and watch and grow – without reinventing the wheel.