The State of Digital Experience and Conversion in 2020

2

Executive summary

Digital experience management remains tactical for most businesses

As digital media becomes ever more central to people’s lives, the quality of the digital experience an organization provides for its customers becomes more central to its success.

However, the research carried out for this report – produced in partnership with Decibel – found that most companies continue to address their digital experience either purely reactively, solving problems as they arise, or in a short-term way based on tactical optimization.

• Only two-fifths of more than 300 companies who responded to the survey adopt a strategic approach based on a deep understanding of their customers’ paths to purchase.

Historically, there have been a number of barriers to thinking and acting strategically. These include:

• The difficulty of understanding what’s going on due to the complexity of most companies’ customer journeys

• The fact that those journeys cross multiple areas of responsibility in highly siloed organizations

• Insufficient resources in terms of budgets, staff and technology

• A lack of comprehension and therefore buy-in at the top of the business

This picture is changing though. According to this report, nearly three-quarters (72%) of companies now agree their senior leadership understands the impact of digital experience on conversion, and two-thirds agree they are able to quantify the quality of digital experiences accurately. There is also greater understanding that silos need to be broken.

• The research found that just over half of companies feel that web development, marketing, customer insight or customer experience and analytics teams all have a considerable impact on optimizing digital experiences.

Problems with measurement and analytics are the main barriers to a strategic approach

The main issues in taking a strategic approach to digital experience now seem to be in the areas of measurement and analytics; in assembling the suite of tools necessary to measure customer behavior at scale, and in establishing the most appropriate metrics to allow for analysis of that behavior at micro and macro levels.

• No tool is used by more than 69% of respondents, suggesting many businesses still have items on their measurement shopping list. Behavior detection, the tool rated very effective by the most companies (60%), is one of the least used (47%).

• Less than half of respondents use metrics that provide a closer view of digital experience quality than satisfaction and loyalty levels, while only 15% measure customer effort scores and 38% have developed their own digital experience scoring.

3

Companies must understand user experiences at scale to move the needle on revenue

It’s crucial for organizations to be able to quantify the quality of user experiences at scale so they can see how digital experience improvements impact conversion rates and revenue.

• Progress has been made in objectively assessing the impact of user experience initiatives, with 29% of respondents strongly agreeing they are accurately able to quantify the quality of the digital experience, and 38% somewhat agreeing.

• A truly strategic approach remains an aspiration for most businesses, with only 32% strongly agreeing they are strategic and proactive in their approach to conversion rate optimization, not just tactical and reactive.

4

Section 1: Digital experience and conversion maturityWith 95% of consumers claiming they leave a website whenever they have a frustrating digital experience1, ensuring that experiences deliver against their ever-growing needs and requirements has become the mainstay of business success.

Linking the efficacy of digital experience (DX) programs to business value, such as improvements in revenue or brand loyalty, has long been the hallmark of leading organizations. Quantified outcomes are particularly important when trying to secure buy-in and build internal momentum for DX initiatives, but they can also provide a clear view of the customer behaviors that underpin value.

While most organizations are very much aware of the importance of DX optimization in a broad sense, few have fully grasped what a superior experience is actually worth to their business. Understanding that data should form the backbone of digital customer experience programs is key. While adopting a robust, analytical approach early in the process helps ensure that those programs generate positive results in terms of both customer outcomes and business value.

As seen in Figure 1, the vast majority of organizations surveyed acknowledge the importance of their overall digital customer experience and quality of the app experience, with only 2% saying these are not important to the success of their business. Nearly half (47%) view the digital experience they provide as ‘critical’, while around a third give the same weight to maximizing conversions, either for their apps (37%) or websites (33%).

Figure 1: Importance for success of organization

Respondents: 338

1 https://www.decibelinsight.com/resources/reports/customer-experience-survey-2019-digital-boiling-point

5

A strategic approach to data underpins business successAcknowledging the importance of digital experiences doesn’t automatically equate to business success. Without clear direction and a structured, strategic approach to digital experience optimization, the commercial outcomes envisioned by companies will be out of reach. Our research shows that almost half of organizations are in this position. Just over a quarter (26%) focus on short-term results, while a similar proportion (22%) are more reactive, fixing issues as they arise instead of aiming to prevent them (Figure 2).

Figure 2: How would you describe your organization’s (or your client’s) approach to optimizing your (or their) websites and apps?

Respondents: 342

Perhaps more worryingly, only two in five (41%) organizations say they have ‘a deep understanding of customer journeys’. This is probably due to the fact that customer journeys are notoriously difficult to understand and track, let alone predict. With so many behaviors and factors at play, a joined-up view of data can be the difference between business success and frustration. Having a framework in place to map customer journeys and drive insight-led improvements across their entirety is essential to creating a frictionless digital experience.

A minority of companies are in that highly coveted position of using technology to advance their optimization game. One in ten (11%) respondents claim their approach is fully automated, powered by machine learning (ML) to deliver highly personalized experiences that tie back to measurable commercial benefits.

Delivering highly personalized experiences, reliably and at scale, is no longer a pipe dream thanks to automation capabilities. ML algorithms that work in the background to analyze customers’ digital body language, understand their state of mind and detect problem areas on websites and in apps are transforming the way digital experiences are optimized. Based on the right data, this behind-the-scenes work can result in personalized experiences that will keep customers coming back.

6

Section 2: Tools and techniquesBusinesses have a wide array of tools at their disposal to help them keep a close eye on their digital experience. However, Figure 3 indicates many of these are not yet in wide usage – and therefore, many businesses need to add them to their measurement shopping list.

This suggests many organizations have not yet fully matured their approach to digital experience improvement. To maximize the value of their digital assets, things need to be approached holistically and portfolio gaps indicate not all businesses are doing so.

Web analytics dashboards are the most widely adopted tool (although strikingly, 31% of respondents are still not using them). Anecdotal comments suggest many businesses use analytics data as a first port of call for tracking digital asset performance. A common practice is to track conversion or bounce rates and then dig deeper into user pathways (particularly pages visited and time spent) when something looks amiss. This suggests a reactive, tactical approach to site and app optimization, rather than a considered, strategy-led model. “We rely on cart abandonment surveys and hope they tell us the reasoning behind no conversion”, was one response.

User experience testing is also relatively widely used, with 64% conducting it. While coming in different forms, it’s generally seen as a good way to gain insight into how people interact with websites and apps (Figure 4). However, it has numerous limitations, such as scalability, and on its own cannot provide a real-time picture of digital experience progression.

Figure 3: What tools and techniques does your organization (or your clients) use to measure online experiences and increase conversions?

Respondents: 342

7

A sum-of-parts game It’s clear that many businesses could form a better picture of the digital experience they’re delivering to customers by updating their technology.

All the tools and techniques featured in Figure 4 are broadly seen as effective. However, none represents a universal catchall for digital experience improvement and no individual tool can provide the depth or breadth of feedback required to build a consistent, seamless experience. Companies therefore need to approach digital experience strategically, carefully considering their objectives and investing in a targeted mix of tools, within the bounds of resource and budget. The research demonstrates the potential for a more holistic approach. Two of the sets of measurement tools discussed show a significant gap between the proportion of adopters and those rating them highly.

• Behavior detection is only used by a minority of organizations (47%), but a majority see it as a ‘very effective’ tool (60%). This would suggest the 17% of organizations that are not even planning to adopt behavior detection are missing a trick. The technology is a real-time warning system, alerting teams to quirks in user behavior such as abnormal levels of clicking or scrolling.

• Heat maps and session recording tools are the least widely adopted (43%), but 48% of respondents rate them as ‘very effective’.

Figure 4: How do you rate the effectiveness of the following tools & techniques for measuring online experiences and increasing conversions?

Respondents: 234

Section 3: Metrics and KPIs

If many companies are struggling with a partial set of tools for measuring digital experience, their ability to understand what’s going on is often further compromised by their choice of what to measure. Few are using metrics specific to the digital experience itself.

8

Broad-brush KPIs such as customer satisfaction and brand loyalty (i.e. repeat visits) are in comparatively common usage, with 58% and 53% adoption levels, respectively (Figure 5). Many practitioners imply that they use surveys to track satisfaction and/or monitor repeat visits as a starting point for investigating where they need to make digital experience changes.

However, these indicators are not always specific to digital experience and can be influenced by a range of other factors. They also do not provide a granular level of insight into how users are interacting with digital properties. Customer journeys take many forms, and to be able to understand and optimize them requires a more holistic tracking strategy.

• Less than half of respondents use metrics that provide a closer view of digital experience quality than satisfaction and loyalty levels, such as conversion rate (49%), retention rate (46%), time on site (39%) and abandonment rate (36%). While useful, these indicators only support a reactive approach to digital experience improvement.

• Only 15% of organizations survey users to ascertain customer effort scores, in order to monitor quality.

• Only 38% of companies have developed digital experience scores in-house.

Figure 5: How do you (or your clients) measure the quality of the digital customer experience?

Respondents: 342

9

Knowledge gaps are there to be filledFigure 6 emphasizes there is a lot of low-hanging fruit out there for businesses seeking to get a better handle on digital experience quality, and that many organizations would benefit from a more in-depth and holistic approach.

A majority of respondents track levels of engagement with their websites (58%) and apps (52%). However, other aspects of digital performance are often being ignored. It’s particularly striking that only a minority of organizations say they measure the technical performance of digital properties, whether for their websites (44%) or apps (48%).

Other responses suggest there are many businesses out there that are not monitoring performance at the level required to ensure they are maximizing digital return on investment.

• Half (50%) of respondents report that they measure the quality of navigation in their apps. However, this drops to only 44% in relation to websites.

• Only around a third of companies measure the quality of interaction with forms in their apps (35%), although this rises to 41% on websites.

• Significantly more organizations look at the level of happiness than at the level of frustration (39% vs. 25% for websites and 43% vs. 32% for apps).

Figure 6: Do you (or your clients) measure any of the following aspects of the digital experience across your (or their) website properties and apps? 

Respondents: 342

10

Section 4: Overcoming technology and other challengesMany companies have still to embrace digital transformation, and this is having a direct impact on their ability to improve their conversion rates. As the results in Figure 7 show, a quarter (25%) of respondents report that legacy technology is the greatest barrier to increasing conversions, with antiquated software preventing many companies from driving more customers through the funnel.

Technology is by no means a silver bullet for boosting conversion rates, but updating existing legacy platforms can arm companies with vital tools to enhance the digital experience. Technology can aid marketers by enabling greater personalization and adapting the path to purchase to target individual customers.

Companies that are lumbered with outdated IT risk losing out when it comes to providing an engaging customer experience. Shifting customer behavior is driven by technology and therefore companies need to be agile in order to respond to evolving customer trends. The ability to understand customer behavior is a huge opportunity, but a fifth (20%) of companies report that the inability to understand online behavior at scale is holding them back.

Figure 7: What do you see as the greatest barrier to increasing conversions on your website or app?

Respondents: 342

11

Keeping track of customer behavior can help marketers plug the gaps and understand how they can keep customers moving through the funnel. The ability to understand customer behavior allows companies to respond to key trends and adapt marketing strategies accordingly. Improving the digital experience has a direct effect on the customer’s path to purchase, increasing the likelihood of a successful conversion.

In a freeform question, respondents were asked about the challenges they face when optimizing the mobile app experience. Many respondents cited a lack of resources, difficulty acquiring buy-in from senior management and a lack of budgets/investment in the channel. Some companies struggle to provide an engaging experience on mobile: “The small screen size of most phones makes it difficult to create apps that provide a detailed experience in a convenient way”.

It’s clear that companies understand that enhancing the digital experience has an impact on conversions, as Figure 8 highlights. More than three-quarters (76%) ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ agree that improving the digital experience impacts conversions, ultimately pushing more customers down the funnel. However, while just over two-thirds (69%) say they are strategic in their approach to optimization, almost the same number (70%) report that optimizing website and apps for conversion is a top priority.

Rather than simply reacting to customer trends, conversion rate optimization needs to be woven into top-level strategy. It is important for companies to be able to react to customer trends, but a proactive approach also helps to pull more customers into the pipeline in the first place, and to make sure they complete their journey to the point of sale.

Improving conversion goes hand in hand with measurement and analytics, as marketers can only see the impact of the changes they have made through tangible metrics and benchmarks. Ultimately there needs to be a marriage between UX insights and commercial numbers. It is crucial for companies to understandhow improvements in the digital experience lead to increased revenue and profitability. This research shows that progress has been made in understanding the impact of user experience initiatives, with 29% of respondents strongly agreeing they are accurately able to quantify the quality of the digital experience, and 38% somewhat agreeing.

Further evidence of this progress comes from attitudes at the top of the organization. Historically, a key challenge for digital marketers has been getting buy-in from senior management, but Figure 8 also shows over seven in ten (72%) reporting that their leadership teams understand how improving the digital experience impacts conversion. This is more than likely to be due to marketers being better able to relate their activities to the overall performance of the business.

TUI Group is a great example of an organization that has been able to tie better user experiences to increased revenue. The tourism group used a digital experience KPI to benchmark and measure customer experience improvements. TUI was able to ascertain that a one-point improvement in its digital experience metric translated into more than $30 million in annualized revenue2.

2 https://www.decibelinsight.com/hubfs/Content/White_Papers/TUI_Decibel_Station10/TUI_DXS_White_Paper.pdf

12

Figure 8: Proportion of respondents agreeing with statements relating to conversion optimization.

Respondents: 292

13

Section 5: Ownership and responsibility within the organizationShould one person in the organization be responsible for conversion rate optimization, or should this fall under the remit of multiple teams or departments? This is a key question for companies aiming to optimize conversion and enhance the digital experience. Structuring teams in a way that encourages collaboration and agility is a vital step on the road to successfully cultivating a customer-centric culture.

If companies want to boost sales, leaders must give one person primary responsibility for digital experience and conversion rate optimization, as well as the authority and accountability to make website improvements.

For nearly three in ten (28%) organizations surveyed, this person is the marketing director or CMO (Figure 9). A quarter (25%) report that the CTO or CIO is responsible, while 19% say the responsibility falls to the head of customer experience.

While one person within the organization may be ultimately responsible for pushing through the changes that improve conversion rates, a high-impact optimization program may involve many different teams, contributing at all levels of the organization.

14

Figure 9: Who within your (or your clients’) organization is primarily responsible for optimizing conversions and digital experiences?

Respondents: 337

It’s a team effortLooking at the process of optimizing digital experiences and improving conversion rates from end to end, Figure 10 shows web development, marketing and customer insight or customer experience teams are considered to have a similar impact on optimizing digital experiences, with over half (57%) of companies reporting they have a ‘considerable’ impact. A similar proportion (53%) claim analytics teams have the same effect.

The reality is that it’s most likely the web or IT team that is implementing changes to the website, even though the responsibility for conversion rate optimization may actually fall on the shoulders of the marketing team. Meanwhile the impact of changes in strategy can only be benchmarked through clear and well-defined metrics. This means structuring and setting up a dedicated CRO team with inputs from different business functions is crucial to improving the website’s performance, and to driving home the message to senior management that conversion rate optimization is having a concrete and substantial impact on organizational performance.

15

Figure 10: Please rate the impact of the following functions when it comes to making changes aimed at optimizing online conversion and experiences.

Respondents: 370

16

Concluding takeawaysi) Adopt a strategic approach. True conversion rate optimization begins the moment a customer

starts their journey with your business. That means having a joined-up view of that journey and an understanding of what happens at each step to persuade the customer to move on to the next one. That, in turn, requires assembling a suite of tools that allow you to measure and analyze the customer’s digital experience in its entirety.

ii) Quantify the value of your digital experience. Alongside the tools, you need to establish a set of metrics that allow you to understand how your customers are behaving at the most granular level possible, but also to link the value of digital experience optimization to better conversion rates and therefore improved business performance.

iii) Assemble a multi-functional CRO team. While there should always be a single individual with ultimate responsibility for digital experience and conversion rate optimization, they need to draw their team from across the business. Web development/IT, marketing, customer insight/experience and analytics should all be represented.

iv) Win backing from the company leadership. Although this is less of a problem than it once was, a sizable proportion of companies still struggle to convince senior management of the value of optimizing the digital experience. Without this buy-in, however, adopting a strategic, cross-functional approach supported by the appropriate technology is all but impossible. This is why it’s so important to link the results of optimization to the overall KPIs of the business.