Conversion Report Summary 2009

Conversion Report 2009

in association with RedEyehttp://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-report

Linus Gregoriadis, Research Director,

Econsultancy

Email:

[email protected]

Website:

http://econsultancy.com

Twitter:

@LinusGreg

@Econsultancy

mailto:[email protected]

http://econsultancy.com/

Summary

Many companies are dissatisfied with conversion rates, though there has been industry improvement in last 12 months. The more segmentation and testing, the better performance.Certain practices strongly correlate with higher conversion satisfaction.Lack of ownership is a major issue. Those with someone responsible for conversion rates are more likely to have experienced improved performance.

| Conversion Report 2009 || 2

Overview

Methodology

Findings

Types of conversion and measurement

Tools and strategies

Best practice

Segmentation

People and processes

Questions


MethodologyOnline survey in July and August 2009

Over 700 respondents, including

384 client-side organisations

344 agency / supplier-side respondents

Majority of respondents UK based

Biggest sectors: Retail, FS, publishing

| 4 | Conversion Report 2009 |

| Course Title| 5

Type of conversion and measurement

Types of conversion

| 6

Sales 73%

Sign-ups / registrations 70%

Page views 43%

Downloads 39%

Information / brochure requests 38%

Video views 19%

| Conversion Report 2009 |

Types of conversion rates measured


68%

54%

44%

35%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Overall site conversion to sale

Overall site conversion to response

Lead conversion rate Basket conversion rate

Methods used to measure conversion


58%

45%

26%

23%

17%15%

5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Number of sales visits

Number of key actions visits

Sales leads Sales number of started

baskets

Number of key actions (visit -

bounced)

Number of sales (visit -

bounced)

We don't measure

conversion rates

Satisfaction with online conversion rates


Very satisfied 2%

Satisfied 23%

Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 36%

Dissatisfied 31%

Very dissatisfied 8%

39% of companies are not satisfied with their online conversion rates, but 70% report an improvement in the last 12 months.

| Course Title| 10


Improving online conversion


Customer journey analysis 48% 39%

Copy optimisation 47% 38%

Online surveys / customer feedback 42% 43%

Cart abandonment analysis 34% 24%

A/B testing 32% 46%

Event-triggered / behavioural email 30% 35%

User testing 30% 32%

Segmentation 27% 34%

Expert usability reviews / consultancy 23% 27%

Multivariate testing 17% 39%

Pinchpoint analysis 5% 10%

Methods currently used Methods planned

How valuable do you find the following methods for improving conversion rates?


A/B testing 53%

Customer journey analysis 49%

Multivariate testing 48%

User testing 47%

Cart abandonment analysis 46%

Segmentation 39%

Event-triggered / behavioural email 35%

Online surveys / customer feedback 33%

Copy optimisation 32%

Pinchpoint analysis 26%

Expert usability reviews / consultancy 25%

Proportion of respondents saying

“highly valuable”

Testing is a key factor for improving conversion


Company respondents who said they were “very satisfied” with their conversion rates carried out more than four times as many tests per month on their web properties as those who were “very dissatisfied” with their conversion rates.

Are your chosen technologies in the following areas a help or a hindrance in your attempts to improve conversion rates?


80%

60%59%

56% 55%

48%

44% 44% 43%

39%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Proportion of companies saying “positive impact”


Proportion of companies saying “negative impact”

24%23%

22%

17%

12%

9%8%

6% 6% 6%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Are your chosen technologies in the following areas a help or a hindrance in your attempts to improve conversion rates?

| Course Title| 16

Best practice


Identifying key performance indicators 38% 56%

Compelling and effective calls to action 26% 66%

Align keywords, calls to action and landing pages 23% 58%

Integrate email and web analytics 21% 52%

Benchmark competitors 21% 55%

Funnel analysis 19% 55%

Mine internal search data 15% 56%

Journey analysis 14% 60%

Integrate user testing and web analytics 14% 53%

Remove bottlenecks and blockages to conversion 13% 69%

Systematic testing of what we are doing 12% 60%

Test multiple landing pages 10% 52%

We do this well We need to improve

Which of the following best practices do you carry out?

Respondents are most proficient at “identifying key performance indicators,” with 38% of respondents saying they do this well and only 5% saying they don’t do this.

Four practices most strongly correlated with conversion rate satisfaction


•Removing bottlenecks and blockages •Identifying KPIs•Using compelling and effective CTAs•Aligning keywords, CTAs and landing pages

Most effective technique for improving online conversion rates

“Reduce 'death by landing

pages' i.e. keep landing pages

to a minimum and instead link

leads straight into the

relevant sales journey or

actionable journey e.g. to

enable user to analyse their

portfolio, assess their risk

profile or use another type of

tool”.

• Use of A/B testing • Testing landing pages• Building a new website • Using analytics to optimise the copy / layout• Redesigning page layouts • Changing email providers to implement a new email campaign• Simplifying and revamping the checkout process

“Completely re-

design and build of

website to aid

customer ease of

use and purchase”.

“Track user data and

behaviour on the

website. Due to budget

limitations, we have a

hard time improving the

methods to increase

conversion rates”.

“Segmentation of our

audience into usable and

measurable profiles - work

out who needs to see what

and when. Serve relevant

messages at the right time

and conversion rates

increase... what a

surprise!”

“A/B testing and

performing journey

analysis to ensure

call-to-actions are

clear and effective

throughout particular

user journeys”.

“Start measuring the

journeys and funnels

for key transactions, to

understand the actual

rather than perceived

behaviour”.

“Remove the

number of steps

involved to get

the conversion”.

How do you measure the effectiveness of changes made to your website?


82%

33%

30% 30%

22%19%

5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Review web analytics data

Review e-commerce /

CMS data

Internal data Testing by colleagues in

the company

Online surveys / customer

feedback

User testing Expert reviews


Subject line 50%

Creative 39%

Timing 35%

Segmentation and targeting 33%

Frequency of contact 31%

Offer 30%

We don’t test email marketing 22%

We don’t do email marketing 6%

Specifically for email marketing, which of the following do you test?

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://topendsports.com/clipart/pics/albums/other/target_practice.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.topendsports.com/clipart/pics/other/target_practice&usg=__Mc00VjdKchOrSniPVQlp2iO9ugI=&h=237&w=252&sz=9&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=FPFcLepIg0kg3M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=111&prev=/images?q=target+practice&hl=en&rlz=1T4DKUK_en-GBGB307GB307&um=1

| Course Title| 22

Segmentation

In what ways do you segment your customers and visitors?


Demographic 39%

Geographic 36%

Behavioural 33%

Customer engagement 28%

Transactional (RFM) 21%

Preferences / interests / hobbies 20%

Propensity models 10%

Media interaction 8%

Psychographic / attitude / satisfaction 6%

We don’t do any segmentation 13%

Uses of segmentation


56%

50%

32%

21%20%

19%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Customer analysis Email personalisation

Search marketing Website personalisation

Offline follow-up (e.g. direct mail /

call centres)

Email dynamic content

Segmentation improves conversion


Organisations whose online conversion performance had improved over the previous 12 months looked at twice the number of segments as those organisations whose online conversion rates have not improved.

What types of transactional segmentation do you carry out?


71%

64%

59%57%

45%

12%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Items purchased Frequency of purchase

Recency of purchase

Value of purchase Customer lifetime value

Profit

What types of behavioural segmentation do you carry out?


61%

49%47%

40%39%

38%

33%

25%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Email opens / clicks

Links clicked Campaigns arrived from

Pages seen Channels arrived from

Search terms used

Responses clicked

Banners seen

What types of media interaction segmentation do you carry out?


48% 48%

43%

29%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Clicks from multiple campaigns

Interaction between different media channels

Interaction with various search terms

Viewed multiple campaigns

| Course Title| 29


Conversion rates are hindered by a lack of ownership


If an organisation has someone directly responsible for conversion they are more than twice as likely to have experienced improved conversion rates in the last 12 months.

Yet 40% of client side companies said they didn’t have anyone directly responsible for conversion.

Do you have anyone in your organisation who is directly responsible for improving conversion rates?


Yes, one person 40%

Yes, more than one person 20%

No 40%

How much control do you feel your organisation has over conversion rates?


5%

36%

46%

13%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

No control Very little control Quite a lot of control A great deal of control

Barriers to improving conversion rates


47%

39%

25%24% 23%

20%18% 18%

14%12%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Biggest factor in improving conversion rates

| 34

“Assign real

ownership of this and

not have it blocked by

IT and other

departments”.

“Creating more

resource dedicated to

improving conversion

rates and owning the

testing/measurement

strategy around to

keep things

consistent”.

“Dedicated team

focused on

regular analysis

and reporting”.

The client being aware of

the importance of

conversion rates in

terms of how it affects

their bottom line -

otherwise it is not

important to them if it

does not make financial

sense”.

“Business awareness of

what true conversion is &

the difference between a

'micro' & a 'macro'

conversion, i.e. unique

visitors/add to cart is a

'micro conversion' & a truer

reflection on site

performance”.

“Trained staff

who understand

what to do and

who are

motivated”.

“Proof that the

changes made do

improve conversion

rates so that they are

open to doing more

changes/ testing in

the future”.

“Having a clear strategy

and integrated systems

and processes that

clients can control and

update themselves, and

employing or training

someone to do so

properly is absolutely

key”.

| Conversion Report 2009 |

Conversion maturity model


Starting Out

Identify KPI’s

Benchmark

Competitors

No segmentation

Defined

Processes

Test multiple

landing pages

Funnel

Analysis

Preference

segmentation

Managed

Processes

Systematic testing

of what we

are doing

Compelling

& effective

calls to action

A/B &

multivariate testing

Online surveys

Customer

engagement

segmentation

Optimised

Processes

Structured

approach

to improving

conversion

Align keywords,

calls to action

& landing pages

Customer

journey analysis

Event triggered/

behavioural email

Behavioural

segmentation

£

TimeBasic Intermediate Advanced Optimised

Increasing number of tests and segments

Dissatisfied Neither Satisfied Very satisfied

Q. How satisfied are you with your conversion rates?

Source: Econsultancy / RedEye Conversion Report

Summary

Many companies are dissatisfied with conversion rates, though there has been industry improvement in last 12 months. The more segmentation and testing, the better performance.Certain practices strongly correlate with higher conversion satisfaction.Lack of ownership is a major issue. Those with someone responsible for conversion rates are more likely to have experienced improved performance.


Questions?

All rights reserved. No part of this presentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2009.

Download the full report:

http://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-report


http://econsultancy.com/reports/online-measurement-and-strategy-report




http://www.adestra.co.uk/pages/best_practice_census.html

Making best use of theConversion Report 2009

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

in association with RedEyehttp://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-report

Mark Patron, CEO,

RedEye

Email:

[email protected]

Website:

http://www.redeye.com

mailto:[email protected]



Improving conversion by 10% can be a lot cheaper

than spending 10% more with Google…

Retention•Email•Website•Usability•Soc. network•Offline media

Conversion•Website•Email•Usability

Lead Gen.•SEO/PPC •Affiliates•Banner ads•Soc. network•Offline media

Average conversionis only 2%, efficiency

is poor

Google is very efficient here

Customer retention will become more

important

…but it is more complex, hence this report

| Course Title| 40

Type of conversion and measurement

Importance of clear objectives

As they say in the army: “it’s difficult to fulfill your mission if you are not clear about your objective”.

Importance of good KPIs

To measure conversion, best practice is to remove bounces from conversion rate, and monitor and improve bounce rates at a campaign level.

58%

45%

26%

23%

17%15%

5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Number of sales visits

Number of key actions visits

Sales leads Sales number of started

baskets

Number of key actions (visit -

bounced)

Number of sales (visit -

bounced)

We don't measure

conversion rates

| Course Title| 43




A/B testing 53%



User testing 47%


Segmentation 39%






Proportion of respondents saying “highly valuable”

Note 3 of top 4involve testing

Testing

• One of the best investments you can make.

• Test the big things.

• Brainstorm and prioritise possible tests.

• Without properly constructed tests nolearning is reliable.

• Use a control where campaign value is high, otherwise use champion/challenger.

• Valid sample size - check confidence limits.

• Test one thing at a time and compare like with like.

• Order of importance: targeting/segmentation,

•offer, timing, creative…


Subject line 50%

Creative - 4th 39%

Timing - 3rd 35%

Segmentation and targeting - 1st 33%

Frequency of contact 31%

Offer - 2nd 30%

We don’t test email marketing 22%

We don’t do email marketing 6%

Specifically for email marketing, which of the following do you test?

Report findings almost oppositeof perceived best practice!

This is probablybecause easier to test creative

Therefore needto simplify morecomplex things

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://topendsports.com/clipart/pics/albums/other/target_practice.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.topendsports.com/clipart/pics/other/target_practice&usg=__Mc00VjdKchOrSniPVQlp2iO9ugI=&h=237&w=252&sz=9&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=FPFcLepIg0kg3M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=111&prev=/images?q=target+practice&hl=en&rlz=1T4DKUK_en-GBGB307GB307&um=1

| Course Title| 47

Segmentation

Segmentation makes communications more relevant

• KISS. Use a simple segmentation schema to start with. For example a product or interest based segmentation and then develop to a more behaviouralview and financial view of your customers and prospects.

• Make it actionable. Don't segment unless you have a great hypothesis to test against and some thoughts on how to build action around these.

• Use product segmentation to measure variances in performance, and behavioural segmentation for triggers and action plans.

• Make sure segment sizes are significant and meaningful.

Segment sales funnel to improve conversion

1,000

100

10

1

Impressions

Click throughs

Landing Pages

Call to Action

Align keywords, calls to action &landing pages for best results.

Requires flexible segmentation

| Course Title| 50


Improving conversion requires both technology and people

“…a computer can tell you down to the last dime what you’ve sold. But it can never tell you how much you could have sold”.

Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart

“If you have $1,000 to spend on an analytics solution, spend $100 on the tool and $900 on the people”.

Avinash Kaushik’s 90/10 rule

Improving conversion is a continuous process. There is no magic bullet.

Set Goals

& KPI’s

Test

Measure

& Optimise

Analyse

There are many ways to improve conversion.

• Segmentation• Multivariate testing• Cart abandonment analysis• Pinch point analysis• Segment conversion analysis• Segment navigation analysis• Event triggered emails• Segmented emails• Online surveying• Benchmarking

The problem for the marketeris that choice can be bewildering.

If it was easy, everybodywould be doing it!

Improving conversion is like eating the proverbial elephant. You cannot do it in one go.

Companies’ “lack of resources” is cited in the report as the biggest barrier to improving conversion.

This report shows how to prioritise that lean resource to get the biggest bang for your buck.

How to prioritise?...



A/B testing 53%



User testing 47%


Segmentation 39%






Proportion of respondents saying

“highly valuable”

Conversion maturity model - complexity


Starting Out

Identify KPI’s

Benchmark

Competitors

No segmentation

Defined

Processes

Test multiple

landing pages

Funnel

Analysis

Preference

segmentation

Managed

Processes

Systematic testing

of what we

are doing

Compelling

& effective

calls to action

A/B &

multivariate testing

Online surveys

Customer

engagement

segmentation

Optimised

Processes

Structured

approach

to improving

conversion

Align keywords,

calls to action

& landing pages

Customer

journey analysis

Event triggered/

behavioural email

Behavioural

segmentation

£

TimeBasic Intermediate Advanced Optimised

Increasing number of tests and segments

Dissatisfied Neither Satisfied Very satisfied

Q. How satisfied are you with your conversion rates?

Source: Econsultancy / RedEye Conversion Report

How to prioritise

Complexity

from Maturity model

Ho

w v

alu

ab

le

Low High

High

Easy wins Do these next

Do these later Don’t do

Aggregation of marginal gains

Months 0-12Deliverability Strategy

Design & Creative OverhaulSubject Line + Creative Testing

Segment by engagementCRM review eg Welcome

emails

Months 1-12Set online KPI’sSet up database

Report on trends and KPI’sIdentify pain points

Make recommendations andmonitor effectiveness of change

Months 12-24Build customer lifecycle

Test contact points + frequency

Focus on conversionBehavioural Triggers

Video Email

Months 24-36Segmentation Triggers

Web UsabilityContent Value Analysis

Benchmarking

Months 24-36Target all communications

based on preferenceand behaviour.

Predictive modellingCombine online

and offline comms

0 24126 18Timeline(Months)

3630

Turn process into timeline

Months 12-24Develop Online Behavioural

AnalysisOnline Customer

SegmentationCustomer Surveys

Email

Analytics

Online data is like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.

Online, we have access to so much data, it is like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.

We are only scratching the surface.

This report helps understand how to start to leverage the power of that data, and prioritise the many opportunities for improvement.

Summary

Prioritise

Simplify

Test

Segment

Ownership

Remove bottlenecks & blockages

Finally, let’s put all this in perspective

Internet e-commerce is little over ten years old.

Compared to, say, TV advertising online marketing has a long way to go.

Yet, the Internet is potentially the media that can provide the richest user experience of all.

It is up to all of us to make that happen.

Questions?

All rights reserved. No part of this presentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2009.

Download the full report:

http://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-report






http://www.adestra.co.uk/pages/best_practice_census.html

Documents

Conversion Report Summary 2009