This visitor flow of an older Zimana website reveals how people can even skip over a page to get to a conversion point (contact page)
"Drop off" reflects the page on which visitor left an identified "Visitors Flow" - the intended flow of your traffic - and went down a path different than the Visitors Flow. In taking this action, the visitor either clicked a link on your website that doesn't correspond with your Visitors Flow or they left your site altogether. The point is that they diverged from the "Visitors Path" as visualized and presented in GA (goals).
The takeaway from this detail is that a "drop off" indicate where your Visitor's Flow has holes through which people are "dropping off". The business value depends on how the site content is arranged. You may have some content on a page that visitors are not reaching because they exit the site before reaching it.
There is no set number, but consider common sense when determining if too many visitors are leaving the page. A small percentage is an inevitable, but if a large percentage is dropping off, the content or pages should be rearranged to make important information more prominent and more visible.
Many businesses understandably believe that web analytics solution only address the functionality of a website. However this is no longer true in most cases. Why? Because consumers and vendors alike rely on the web in the same manner as any other utility - electricity, water, television. Online has become the first place where people search for information, be it the products and services you offer to your business.
Analytics does impact revenue when analyze correctly. Google Analytics reported how Amari Hotels used mull-channel reports to increase revenue by 44%. Yet not every business invests in analytics well. An eConsultancy report in July 2013 indicated that 26% of surveyed firms did not have a dedicated person conducting the analysis .
Add this all up, and the end result is that a website becomes the face of a business and demand the proper investment to drive results.
As a further result a business must understand the benefits possible. Read about how those benefits affect the bottom line.
1. Analytics prevents deploying your online marketing too thinly
Marketing is an important activity for building customer awareness of products and services. But advertising on multiple networks can cost money and effort. Because when you only advertise a little bit on one media, a smidgeon on another, the message will have little chance of customers finding it. You end up paying a lot for advertising that will vary rarely pay off. Instead, you might want to consider focusing more of your efforts on a smaller number of communities and networks first and build core sources of traffic. Analytics can show which media are trending to warrant further investment.
2. Analytic results can guide the budget for your offline resources
When Ford introduced its subcompact car Fiesta, the automaker was able to shift its advertising budget to social media. This resulted in a 90% budget savings. Netflix used analytics to focus its movie delivery on its most profitable segments. Omniture (now part of Adobe) created a case study that indicates that Dave Ramsey site experienced a 55% increase in online sales and even a 20% increase in offline sales. All of these results were possible with an analytic process in place.
3. Analytics can prevent unnecessary website repairs
One activity that can end up costing you money is constantly trying to fix website features that may nit be the true cause of client dissatisfaction. To determine fixes many businesses uses a heatmap to understand what a visitor sees, then confirms the success of the change through A/B and multivariate testing. Monitoring your site performance can also give an overview to what steps .
4. Analytics prevent overspending through ignoring data
Ignoring data can also make you poor for the simple fact that the metrics contain valuable information about your business performance. The data trends indicate what internet marketing strategies are effective and what strategies are not working. Failing to act on the data you might misdirect the business on activities that are unrelated to business goals. A business can discover if an offering online is not effective simply by examining the conversion rate for the product page.
5. A data-based business drives a faster response to money-making activities
Another costly mistake that often puts internet marketers in the poor house is not creating points where customers can complete transactions faster. Creating faster transactions permits more revenue and recommendations to come into the business, creating more opportunities to focus on strategic opportunities.
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of joining John "ColderICE" Lawson, CEO of ColderICE Media, for a terrific Google Hangout on analytics and E-commerce. John is a master expert in E-commerce, having conducted programs and seminars across the world to help small businesses improved their e-commerce sites. He has hosted a number of hangouts features some of the most adored and respected digital professionals today.
The hangout you see below featured an overview of Google Analytics relative to an e-commerce application - what to expect when setting up an analytics profile and what reports are valuable to best monitor conversion traffic. Watch as we cover some terrific basics to make your e-commerce site more successful. You can learn more about John Lawson and the terrific ColderICE media team at their website colderice.com - and make sure you catch John's hangouts via his Google Plus page for other great e-commerce information.
- Pierre DeBois
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idOhUa3a8Ew
Katherine Griwert, Head of Marketing Content & Communications at Brafton shared some tips and ideas on video at the 2013 Search Engine Strategies Expo in Chicago. The presentation is prelude to a presentation of 7 tips on video, which can be seen here.
Griwert notes that people are seduced by video without tying to results. Businesses do not map out what do they want the video to achieve. "The focus is get this done, put it up there - what does this map to?"
The end result is that many videos are not tailored to an audience to provide a real return. This is significant given that one in 10 people watch web clips before make a business or personal purchase decision, as noted on the SES Expo description for this presentation.
Video content should be "form driven rather than results driven." Some formats, like Vine and Instagram, lend to short formats, obviously, but the timing also means that business should highlight specific features. Thus businesses do not have to "pigeonhole video into one result." There are a number of ways to make nuanced subject video that speaks to a particular audience. For example, Griwert explained how Brafton provided a news format to better convey its message to its audience.
Check this video for a snippet of what Griwert shared with the audience.
One metric tip that is worth noting is examining the average time on the page against the length of the video. Griwert noted it in the Brafton case example, but I'll share the detail here: If the average time on page exceeds the length of the video, it is an indicator that you've engaged the page visitor with the video content. The opposite occurrence indicates that the video is not drawing visitors to review other content on the page.
Another mentioned metric tip addresses the length of engagement. If the video is a YouTube embed, you can use the analytics tool to see if there is a specific drop off point at which viewers stop watching the video.
Customer testimonials are also valuable for encouraging engagement. Having a customer to sit down and talk about what they liked about your business or service provide validation that the customer appreciates.
A major culprit in video engagement is having no measurement in place. Griwert noted that many clients come in with a notion such as "I want traffic and want people to know about my brand" or "I want to engage customers with my video". But to do so, the effort needs to demonstrate a measurement strategy to determine what is creating engagement. Griwert asks "What are you doing to measure?"
190.4 seconds.
A while back KISSMetrics in their infographic set that time period as the benchmark average amount of time a website visitor spends on a site. In short a business needs to develop site elements tailored to short visit online. Doing so can improve conversions and crate your website as a working asset for your business.
Here are a few simple tips that can be incorporated into any site with a minimal cost impact to a digital budget.
One last tip: Avoid feeding your web design or design staff singular changes at a time. One changes which requires modification to a code can easily escalate. Changes can require many coding changes, so making singular request can complicate implementation, lead to error, and add unnecessary cost for a website development. Instead group tasks together, to make implementation easier.
Why do I need an analytics professional or consultancy if my data is free?
That question comes up whenever I discuss Google Analytics with small and medium sized businesses. They've added the tag and feel that they have too little traffic to analyze. But they miss the point of what they are spending when planning a digital presence.
Analytics data alone reveals what has happened, but cannot fully explain what your business needs to do, what actions are the most valuable in your given status. Thus your business need someone or a team to explore those actions and connect them to the purpose of your business.
Moreover, many analytic tools report basic metrics - not compound metrics such as lifetime value. Compound metrics are valuable, since they often incorporate metrics important to the business. Furthermore, dashboards need to be improved to collect the desired metrics. Delivering metrics and dashboards tailored to your business requires an investment in the right talent that will understand what metrics reflect how your business operations. That understanding is key for making analytics work as a valuable asset - a instrument for connecting with customers and determining the right support from your business.
So to derive true value from analytics, have someone (or a team) who understands marketing and website development help tie your website and digital marketing elements together.
Analytics professionals embody a good combination of marketing and internet functionality. That strengths makes its possible to extract the best ideas that offer the best ROI for the marketing strategy involved.
