Customer Experience Analytics

Basic conversion funnel reports, user navigation or pathing reports are now outdated and least used methods to measure customer experience. 

Analyse the customer journey across devices and across channels before they converted. Understand which digital properties (website, mobile website or mobile app) are high performers and which are laggards in terms of customer experience. Which devices (tablets, mobiles etc), platforms (iOS, Andriod, windows), networks, cities the customers are on. Set up multi-channel funnel reports to understand the online sales cycle, understand how each channel in the funnel path contributed to conversion. 

Use pages, app screens, events, goals, e-commerce events and transactions to set up and analyze custom funnels. Where do the customers enter the journey and where do they drop off or loopback to previous stage.

Test multiple versions of landing pages, different ad content, different copies of articles (content marketing), different social media posts etc. using A/B or MVT tests before releasing the most effective content copy or landing page to each segment. 

Test multiple versions of goal funnel flows, understand and implement the funnels which have the least drop offs or loopbacks and highest goal completions. 

Target multiple versions of pages, promos, content across multiple customer segments to enable personalized customer experiences. 


Signature: Roopkumar T.V.

Big Data Architectures are a Big Boon for Online Marketing

Like discussed in the previous posts, Big Data Architectures are a big boon for Online Marketing, and provide us capabilities to develop innumerable applications for 

1. Web UI Analytics or Web Analytics.
2. Online Marketing Analytics and Optimization.
3. Web UI Testing and Optimization.
4. Web Visitor Segmentation 
5. Customer Segmentation and Customer Analytics
6. Sentiment Analysis
7. etc.

However the use cases provided above are just a sample list. Big Data Architectures benefit in developing applications which in turn provides benefits across industries ranging from Agriculture to Medicine & Healthcare to Defense & Intelligence to Internet eCommerce. 

One important point is, Online Marketing was the earliest domain which benefited from Big Data Architectures, as Online companies like Yahoo and Google were the original pioneers in using Big Data Architectures and are also the biggest contributors of Frameworks (Hadoop), Tools (PIG, HIVE), Programming Methods (Map-Reduce Method)  and even Infrastructure (Amazon Web Services) needed for developing applications on Big Data Architectures. 

Provided below are small tutorials on using using Big Data Architectures for applications in Online Marketing and Web Analytics domains. 

The original videos below are from HortonWorks, a pioneering start-up in Big Data Applications Development.

Signature: Roopkumar T.V.

Web UI Testing and Optimization

In the previous posts, I wrote about 

• Always delivering Relevant Landing Pages to Visitors coming from Search Engines and also about 
• How to optimize Conversion Ratio(%) of Website Conversion Funnels.

One important missing piece which was not discussed was Web UI Testing and Optimization. I had however mentioned about the necessity to extensively execute UI optimization tests in a previous post.


When do we need to do UI optimization for the Online Marketing Campaigns? 

1. To optimize page effectiveness of specific pages like Home page, Landing page, Sale page, Product Listings page etc.
2. Optimize Lead Generation Conversion Funnel performance
3. Optimize Cart-Checkout performance
4. Optimize effectiveness and usage of Web Forms.
5. Optimize eCommerce Purchase Funnels.
6. Optimize Search Effectiveness on the site
7. and many more

As seen there are many innumerable number of opportunities to optimize the performance of Web UI through continuous user testing. 


Why do we need to do UI optimization for the Online Marketing Campaigns? 

An optimized UI will benefit Online Marketing Campaigns on many dimensions like

• Increased Conversion Rate(%) of Clicks to Leads, Purchases etc.
• Increased traffic dispersion across the site. Improved Conversion(%) performance of Micro-conversions and mini-goals on the site.
• Improved customer engagement with the Web channel.
• Higher RPVs (Revenue per Visit) and higher RPUs(Revenue per Unique Visitor).
• Increased Share of Customer Wallet. Increase in Average Order Size, Product Attach Rates etc.
• Reduced Customer Churn Rate.
• Overall higher ROI from Marketing Campaigns due to increased Conversions.

The methodology for UI optimization testing, involves both Qualitative and Quantitative Analytics. 

More details on each of above methodologies for executing UI Optimization Testing, will be discussed in future posts.

1 Big Data Mining for UI Optimization Testing involves generating insights on the user experiences, by data mining of Call Center Transcripts, Email Messages, Social Media Messages etc. using Big Data Analytics platforms.

2 Design of Experiments for UI Optimization Testing is a Quantitative technique for optimizing UI, by executing A/B Tests or Multi-Variate Tests on 2 or more recipes of the UI. 


Signature: Roopkumar T.V.

How to optimize the Conversion Ratio (%) of the Website Conversions

As we have seen in earlier post, each website conversion funnel consists of a set of goals to be completed.

Isolating each goal in the conversion funnel and optimizing the actions needed to complete that specific goal is important. When each goal in the conversion funnel is optimized for improved user experiences, the user experience of the overall conversion funnel would improve.

In the given illustration, the first goal is get the user to view the product.

To complete this goal, some of following user actions are required.

1. User will land directly at the product page (from some marketing campaigns or SEO).  
2. User does a site search for the product using the search facility.
3. User does an advanced search such as faceted search, assisted search etc.
4. User clicks on the product listings in the search results pages.
5. User clicks on the navigation links on the home page or other higher level pages. Navigation links are located in the top nav, left nav or right nav, mini nav, mega nav etc.
6. User clicks on the banners or tiles or other display formats on the home page or other higher level pages.
7. User clicks on the product listings in the product category pages.
8. User clicks on the product listings in the product comparison pages.

Now we will look at each of these user actions and see what needs to be done to optimize the user experience for these actions.

User action	What is needed to optimize this user action?
User will land directly at the product page (from some marketing campaigns or SEO).	All the Product pages need be optimized with product specific keywords to facilitate high ranking in Google through SEO.           In the Paid Marketing Campaigns executed through Display Ad Networks, Email Marketing, or SEM ensure that product specific display Ads, product specific campaigns or product specific keywords respectively, always send the users to relevant product pages as landing pages.
User does a site search for the product using the search facility.	Site search box needs to be prominently visible and available on all pages in the website.           Site search should provide product suggestions as a drop down in the search box, when user inputs only a part of the keyword or only the model number of the product.
User does an advanced search such as faceted search, assisted search etc.	Same as in site search.           Additionally these advanced search functionality need to be user friendly proving relevant product suggestions.
User clicks on the product listings in the search results pages.	Search results pages should show only product relevant listings for the product searched.          Search results pages should never contain irrelevant listings or lead to pages outside the site. This would also include irrelevant Display Ads and paid links to be avoided.
User clicks on the navigation links on the home page or other higher level pages. Navigation links are located in the top nav, left nav or right nav, mini nav, mega nav etc.	The correct positioning of the navigation on the site pages need to be identified by executing a series of user tests.         The keywords used as linking text in the navigations links, need to be relevant to the products they link to.         Navigation positioning needs to be consistent across all higher level pages.
User clicks on the banners or tiles or other display formats on the home page or other higher level pages.	The correct positioning of the banners or other display formats on the site pages need to be identified by executing a series of user tests     The displays like banners need to be relevant to the products they link to, and need to be tested through extensive user tests to increase the clicks.
User clicks on the product listings in the product category pages.	The positioning and ordering of product listings in the product category pages need to be tested through user tests.         The level of details provided in the product listings, images, videos etc. need to be user tested.
User clicks on the product listings in the product comparison pages.	Same as in product category pages         The product specs, images, videos etc. used for comparison need to be tested with user testing.

As seen above, we isolated one goal in the website conversion funnel, and defined the user actions that need to be optimized to complete that goal. After that we looked at what is needed to optimize each of the user actions. By taking these steps we ensure that the completion ratio of this goal by the users increases and is optimized.

Similarly, the completion rate of the other goals in the website conversion funnel need to be optimized which would increase and optimize the conversion ratio (%) of the website conversions.

Signature: Roopkumar T.V.

Delightful user experiences by combining ReMarketing with Website Conversion Funnel Analysis.

In the previous post, we discussed about the website conversion funnel. We saw how a conversion funnel is made up of a series of goals or actions. What do we do with users who are dropping out without completing certain goals? Do we lose them permanently and just forget them.

No, we should never lose and forget the visitors who drop off from website conversion funnels without completing the goals. Since the repeat visitors who have already visited the website are more valuable to the business then the new visitors to the website. More the number of repeat visits, the more valuable the visitor becomes to the business. As we can clearly see below :

Getting new visitors to the website…………..	Getting back repeat visitors to the website……………………
Needs higher marketing spends More expensive	Needs smaller spends Less expensive
More complex Need to perform complex analysis to execute online campaigns across various online marketing channels. Need to design and develop many types of ads, keywords, etc.	Less complex Can be performed easily through direct contact channels like Email, SMS, Voice call or Social Media messaging. Simple messages and not ads are needed.
Requires more staff to Manage various online marketing channels and execute various formats of online campaigns	Requires less staff to Directly communicate friendly customer support messages through customer preferred means like email, SMS, social media or voice call.
More expensive staff Complex online marketing skills are needed	Less expensive staff Simpler customer service/help desk skills are needed

Also after getting the Visitors to the website

New visitors to the website	Repeat visitors to the website
Have lower conversion rate (%) and hence lower revenue per visit	Have higher conversion rate (%) and higher revenue per visit
Most likely to drop off earlier in the conversion funnel before completing  further goals in the conversion funnels	Least likely to drop off earlier in the conversion funnels and are most likely to move deeper the conversion funnel completing further goals in the funnel.
Less likely to complete micro conversions on the website (like viewing Contact Us page or opening a live chat session with customer service agents)	More likely to complete micro conversions on the website

Also

New visitors are	Repeat visitors are
Not profiled to specific customer segments. Difficult to provide marketing treatments (like coupons or deals) due to incomplete visitor profiles.	Already profiled to specific customer segments. Easier to provide the right marketing treatments at the right time due to existence of more complete visitor profile.
Complex to communicate. Preferred communication methods (like Email, Voice call, SMS or social media)  are unknown.	Preferred communication methods are known and are easier to communicate.

From the above comparison of the advantages of repeat visitors over new visitors, it is clear that we need to regularly communicate with those visitors who have already visited the website. 

While communicating with past website visitors and bringing them again to the website is one thing, providing delightful user experiences to the repeat visitors in another thing.  This is where conversion funnel analysis discussed in earlier post becomes very useful.

For each visitor who exited from the website, identify

1. The goals completed in the website conversion funnel.
2. The goals not completed in the website conversion funnel.
3. The exact next goal which should have been reached, before the exit.
4. Preferred methods and timing of communication from the visitor profiles. 

Send out communication to these visitors and bring them back to the site.

Now here comes the customer delight part in the user experience, bring the repeat visitors back to the exact stage in the website conversion funnel, from where they had dropped off in the earlier visits.

                                                        First Visit

                                                                     

               

As seen in the illustration above the user had exited the website exactly before checkout in the first visit. In the first visit itself the user had completed a series of 3 goals in the website conversion funnel, i.e. in the first visit, the user had

1. Viewed the product
2. Customized the product
3. Even added the customized product to the shopping cart      

In the repeat visits, when the users who had dropped off the funnel in earlier visit are brought back to the website by ReMarketing programs, we need to ensure that the status of already completed goals from the previous visit is intact, and the user has to complete only the remaining goals in the repeat visit.

Second Visit

As seen in the illustration above the user need to only checkout and complete the purchase in the second visit. So in the second visit, the user has a short conversion funnel with just 2 (pending) goals to be completed. Since the user has to just complete 2 goals in the second visit, which is checkout and purchase completion the Conversion rates (%) would be very much higher in these second visits.

This is how we can combine Website Conversion Funnel Analysis and ReMarketing to offer delightful digital user experiences with high impact to

• Conversion rate(%) which would increase significantly
• Revenue per visit which would go up
• Costs which would go down, especially expensive marketing spends
• ROI which will increase significantly 

Signature: Roopkumar T.V.

Analysis of Website Conversion Funnels

Analysis of Website Conversion Funnels (eCommerce or lead generation or any other type of conversions) is important for optimizing digital user experiences.

A website conversion funnel is set up by

1. Identifying a series (funnel) of actions which a website user must take to complete a conversion. A completed conversion is an important event for meeting the business objectives of the website.
2. Defining this series of actions as goals. Each action in the funnel is a goal which must be completed before proceeding to the next action or goal. Hence the last & final action which needs to be completed to close the funnel, would be the website conversion for which the previous series of actions or goals in the funnel must be completed.  
3. Instrumenting the website to track and report on the completion of these goals in the conversion funnel regularly and accurately. 

A product conversion funnel in an eCommerce website is illustrated below

As seen in this illustration of product conversion funnel we have clearly 

1. Identified the series of actions a user must take to complete the conversion. 
2. Defined the conversion clearly. The final goal to close the funnel, is the product purchase. Hence product purchase is the conversion. 
3. The previous goals in the funnel which must be completed before the conversion, are clearly defined. 
• The first goal is to get the users to view the product - product views.
• The second goal is to get the users to customize or configure the product - product customization. Product customization is important to increase the sales dollars from each unit of the product.
• The third goal is to get the users to add the customized product to the shopping cart.
• The fourth goal is to get the users to checkout from the shopping cart.
• The final goal is the conversion for which the previous goals need to be completed. In this case the conversion would be recorded, when the users have purchased the product after completing checkout.  

 Regular and accurate reporting of website conversion funnels would lead to insights on

1. Which goals in the funnel are most likely to be completed.
2. Which goals in the funnel are least likely to be completed.
3. Why the users are dropping out without completing certain goals.
4. What is motivating the users to complete certain goals more frequently then other goals.
5. Purchase trends during different seasons and periods of time. What motivates the users to behave differently by completing further goals in the funnel, during certain seasons and time periods.
6. Which segments of users are most likely to complete certain goals.
7. Which segments of users are least likely to complete certain goals.
8. etc.

Signature: Roopkumar T.V.