How to Uncover Customer Data and Increase Online Sales

Editor's Notes

• #2: When managing eCommerce sites, it’s crucial to be familiar with how people interact and engage with your site, and what drives them to buy (or not) We’ll discuss best practices for managing and eCommerce Site, how to follow a customer’s conversion path, and how to get the most out of the data you’re collecting
• #5: Online retail in the United States was a $263 Billion industry in 2013 That number is expected to rise this year to nearly $300 Billion. By 2018, Forrester Research forecasts that online retail sales will increase to over $400 Billion, which will represent 11% of the total retail sales. In the first half of 2014, ShopVisible’s data shows that online revenue increased 18% vs. the same period in 2013, which is even faster than Forrester predicted (12%).
• #6: ShopVisible’s data also shows that online traffic is up 9% so far in 2014, and a larger percentage of visits are coming from devices other than a desktop or laptop computer. 21% of site visits came from a mobile device, like a smartphone, which is up from 15% just one year ago. Tablet traffic accounts for 17% of visits. A lot of retailers are scrambling to make sure they’re optimized for mobile visitors, whether its through mobile site development, responsive website redesigns, or mobile/tablet apps. The takeaway here is that traffic from smartphones is becoming too great to ignore, and in order to provide a top notch experience for visitors, your site needs to be optimized for all traffic, regardless of device.
• #7: And this likely comes as no surprise to many of you, but the Q4 holiday shopping season is by far the busiest and most important for retailers, offline and online. In 2013, over half of all orders placed online were placed in Q4. The biggest shopping days online include, no surprise, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but Thanksgiving has also become a major date on retail calendars as businesses continue to feed bargain-hungry consumers with discounts and sales earlier and earlier each year. The list of physical stores that open on Thanksgiving continues to grow every year, and major sales have crept into Turkey Day online as well. Last year, Thanksgiving weekend order volume surged by 26% online vs. the previous year. As more shoppers get comfortable shopping online (and realize they can skip the stampedes and early-morning lines around the building at their local stores), the weekend will continue to grow for online retailers.
• #8: If you work in ecommerce and go to enough conferences or webinars, or hear enough software pitches, you’re no doubt familiar with the word “omnichannel”. A few years ago, the popular word was “multi-channel” the idea that your customers are “omnichannel” or “multi-channel” consumers is an important one to remember. Your customers interact with your business, and likely buy from your business, in more than one way, and it’s becoming increasingly important to make sure that they get a consistent, seamless experience, regardless of what channel they’re using.
• #9: Let’s think for a minute about all the ways people are interacting with your company or brand. They’re visiting your site on their computer, their smartphone, their tablet. They’re visiting your physical store locations and interacting with your employees. They’re calling your call center to place orders or talk to customer service. They’re following your brand on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ (ok, maybe not Google+), Pinterest, etc. They’re getting email messages and seeing ads and listings on Google and Bing. They’re seeing your products in stores, or seeing people wearing or using your products. They’re reading reviews of your products. They’re seeing your commercials on TV, hearing them on the radio, and flipping through them in magazines. It’s a lot to try to control. When I think about previous experiences, I remember there being one team that did marketing for retail, another that did marketing for the website. The catalog, retail and web teams were separate. The creative team for the web were not necessarily the same creative people that worked on retail projects. You called one customer service number if you purchased your products on the website, and another one if you purchased your product in a store. If someone reached out on social media with a question or an issue, the intern that was managing the day-to-day operations there had no idea how to handle it. Our marketing calendar on the ecom side, with promotions, discounts, deals, didn’t necessarily align with the marketing calendar from the retail team. Everything was separated. And for a lot of you, this isn’t much different from how your company it set up.
• #10: To your customers, your company is all of these things, and all of these things are your company. They don’t care if they purchased something in one of your stores – if they go to your website and find a customer service number, they want someone at that number to be able to help them. If they see a certain product on one of your shelves, they’ll expect to find that same product on your website, at the same price. This means that all of your business units need to be aligned. That doesn’t mean consolidated, but they should be talking to one another. Web teams need to talk to retail teams, who need to talk to customer service and call center teams, who need to talk to IT, etc. And as it relates to data – all systems should be able to talk to one another. Retail POS systems should be able to sync up with customer records in the catalog file. A rep at the customer service counter should be able to an order that someone placed online. Consumers shopping online should be able to tell if their local store has a particular item, and if they do, they should be able to reserve it and go pick it up. Your customers don’t care about internal business units and reasons for doing things and org charts. They just know that they’re interacting with your company and brand.
• #12: Looking at that touchpoints slide, think about data that can be captured for some of these: Website Data is going to be most measured by nature of the channel. You’ll have Web analytics software, which will more than likely be third party software but can also be provided by your ecommerce platform, depending on which one you have Order Management Systems will house customer and order data Other third party software like email marketing providers, recommendation engines, loyalty/rewards programs, advertising platforms – they’ll all have their own set of metrics to track Other sources of data include: Retail POS sytems, capturing sales trends, product data, and store inventory Warehouse management systems, showing inventory, shipment history, and availability Call centers will either use their own systems or interact with the OMS, but they’re looking at returns and exchanges, complaints, and direct mail orders And of course we have Content Management Systems, housing product data, descriptions, specs, part numbers, pictures, videos, etc Customer feedback channels, including product reviews on your website, survey data, and marketing studies/focus groups Of course the gold mine is to have all of these systems communicating and sharing data with one another in an automated fashion, but the reality for most of us is that’s quite a ways off. You may have a few working hand-in-hand but there’s still a lot of pieces left out.
• #13: Most of what we’re going to focus on for the remainder of our time is how you can tie in external data with web analytics data to make informed decisions. Most of you are using a third-party analytics provider, and possibly even some other analytics tools from your ecommerce platform. Typically, a snippet of code is inserted onto every page of a website, and the tool begins collecting data right away, including: Where traffic is coming from – location, source, channel, etc What it’s doing once it’s on your site What type of device they’re using What they’re clicking on Conversion actions – orders placed, forms filled out, pages viewed
• #14: So let’s discuss how to use the data you’re collecting to improve your business.
• #15: I’m going to keep things simple and pile a lot into three major areas on our data trail: Driving Traffic There are so many ways you’re driving traffic to your site, and each of them is measurable, allowing you to learn more about how to make them better so that you can drive better quality traffic So you have: Paid search Banner ads Email marketing Social media Comparison Shopping SEO Offline Advertising That leads into measuring how that traffic is behaving once they’re on your site. How long are they staying? What are they looking at? Why are they leaving? What kind of device are they on? Where are they located? What triggers them to buy certain products? Do they buy anything? And then finally, if they do buy something, post-sale actions are measurable and can be improved. Confirmation messaging Product reviews Product follow-up emails Loyalty programs/rewards You can then use that data to take what you’ve learned, go back and continue to improve the traffic that’s coming to your site, and it starts all over again. So our data trail is really more of an ongoing cycle as opposed to a straight line, and each time around should get better and better.
• #16: You can then use that data to take what you’ve learned, go back and continue to improve the traffic that’s coming to your site, and it starts all over again. So our data trail is really more of an ongoing cycle as opposed to a straight line, and each time around should get better and better.
• #17: For every retail site, there are a few metrics that should always be tracked, and a few data points calculated from them. Most of you are probably familiar here. These KPIs are good globally, and for every channel or traffic source. Can be trended over time.
• #18: The result is that you have KPIs that you can track over time, for every channel that drives traffic to your website. This can give you an idea of how you’re doing vs. your historical numbers, as well as what channels need more of your attention to get up to snuff.
• #19: So lets think about a few of the ways we discussed could drive traffic to our site, and what are some key data points to use to decide to improve performance.
• #20: We won’t focus on all of these, but there’s likely metrics and data points that can be collected from every one of these channels. Come up with a few success metrics for each and see how it trends over time.
• #21: Keyword & Ad Performance Which keywords and ads are driving traffic? Are my keywords and ads being seen? Campaign Profitability What campaigns are working well, and what can I learn from them? What campaigns can’t be justified to continue? Testing Testing Ad Copy or Creative and monitoring results Landing page testing – test different URLs, content on page, or even something as simple as default sort method
• #22: Most email marketing software comes chock full of features, reports and automated programs. Some key things to look at in your email marketing program: Source of Acquisition Where did your subscriber opt-in? Where they from a catalog file? Did they opt-in during checkout? Did you capture their email in the footer of your site, or a modal pop-up? How does each type of opt-in behave when it comes to engagement and revenue? Optional Fields Do we ask for too much at sign-up? Do we not ask enough? What should we be asking? Address? State? Interests & Hobbies? What happens when we do ask those questions? Will we use it? Automated Program Performance Should we set up a welcome email? Should it include a coupon? Is it worth it to send a birthday coupon? Do cart abandonment emails work? Testing What should I test? Subject line? Content? Time of day? How should I measure success? Should I send 10/10/80? Segmentation Do I have the list size to effectively segment? What types of segmentation works best? Location? Nearest store? Order history? Interests/Preferences?
• #23: There are plenty of tools to give you insight into how you’re doing in natural search listings. Some tools, like SEMRush, which is pictured, give a great deal of key info and keyword discovery. Or, for some of these, you can do it the old fashioned way, by going to the search engines and finding keywords. Keyword Rankings Where do I rank for my most important keywords? Competitive Analysis What are my competitors doing? What are they ranking for that I should be? What can I learn from their landing pages and site structure? Keyword Traffic & Landing Pages What keywords are driving traffic to my site? How is that traffic behaving? Are the landing pages for my keywords what they should be? Look for ways you can improve key pages: Site structure and navigation Natural language URLs – instead of parameters and characters, have real words Lots of content – product pages, catalog pages, etc
• #24: And a lot of you probably don’t know what to do with social media as it relates to sales, and that really depends on your brand. Some of you may find that social media is a big part of your business, while others may use it for branding and interacting with fans. But you should, as a retail site, look at a few data points: Traffic from social media What platforms do you use to drive traffic? What does that traffic do when it’s on your site? Follower Counts No matter whether you’re looking to increase sales or just interact and build your brand, you want more followers. What has been successful in driving your numbers up? Feedback * This one is tricky because it’s not a number. But what is the attitude of your fans? How do they react to certain posts? What can you learn from them about how your brand is perceived?
• #26: Click tracking - Heatmaps Homepage – what are your visitors clicking on? Landing pages – are people guided towards conversion? Click Path Report Goes one step further and lets you follow the most popular paths visitors take You can filter this by original page, source type, etc to get detailed about the journeys visitors are taking Popular Pages Obviously your homepage will be up there, but are there any surprises in your other most-visited pages? Are those pages resulting in a lot of bounces and exits? Do they drive sales?
• #28: Top Searches People are telling you what they are hoping to find on your site How can you make things easier to find. Do you need to? Look at the language they’re using – Towables & Tubes example Number of Results Found Make sure there are results for popular searches Searches with Low Conversion Rates Find popular searches that don’t drive sales – why is that? Is it availability? Pricing? Do you need to add tags to products that don’t show up?
• #29: Cart Abandonment Trend how many carts get abandoned See if there are trends in the products that are most likely to be in an abandoned cart. Check cart size ($$) Checkout Conversion Once people enter checkout, you should have them. They’ve made the decision to give you their money. Get out of their way – lots of sites leave too many distractions What’s the conversion rate of checkout Checkout Flow Pinpoint where people are leaving the process. Is it because you’re making them create an account? Is it because you didn’t specify shipping charges or taxes in the cart?
• #30: Software may be included in your platform, or third party recommendation and cross-sell engines smartly suggest things based on product sales volume, views, and trends. Items per Transaction Revisit your KPIs to see if adding upsell areas throughout the site has increased the items per transaction Product Sales Are smaller dollar items being sold? What categories are successfully moving product? Average Order Value * Is this increasing along with IPT?
• #31: Integrating your retail stores into your website is a step to becoming omnichannel. If I have a store near me, I might want to browse online and then go pick it up after I’ve researched. Geo-Targeting Show content based on where someone is visiting from. If you can tell that they’re coming from an area with a store, populate their local store info, change banners Measure this to see if people are engaging with that content. Talk to the retail store – is there an increase in foot traffic, sales? Visits to Store Info How much real estate should you devote to store info? Are those pages popular Store locator Local ad Store Inventory Can you show inventory by store on your site? Look at engagement metrics and product sales – are you presenting it clearly on your site? Ship-to-store or reserve – what is the sales volume?
• #32: Top Attributes What are the most widely-used attributes? What filters drive the most conversions Conversion Rate by Sort May lead to change the default sort for certain categories Best selling, top rated, lowest price, on sale Test Layout How many should be displayed at once?’ What’s the bounce rate? Am I overwhelming visitors?
• #33: Products by Item Sold Sales volume – Lower-end items and upsells/add-ons will likely be in this view Any surprises? Things you think should be here but aren’t? Products by Revenue Obviously big ticket items will dominate this sort method Are there any surprises here? Products with Low Conversion Rates Like Searches, look at products with lots of page views/visits but not a lot of sales Is it price? Information? Availability? Photos?
• #34: Conversion Rate on Products with Reviews What is the effect of reviews on sales? Is there a specific number of reviews that drives up conversion? Conversion Rate on Poorly Reviewed What effect do low reviews have on sales? What’s the drop-off by rating? Engagement in Navigation Do clicks and conversions increase by showing star ratings in search and navigation pages?
• #35: Top Promotion Types Do % discounts sell more than $ off, even if the effect is similar? Free Shipping – no minimum, $50 minimum, etc Length of Promotion Do flash sales work? Do 2-Day Sales convert better than week-long coupons? New Customers How many new customers did a promotion drive? Will those customers re-engage with the brand at some point?
• #36: And finally, some things to look at after the sale is over – what should you be looking at improving in these programs?
• #37: Increasing in popularity, post-checkout upsell allows one last incentive. Could be adding additional products, package deals, or discounts. Can also be action based – Share this order on Facebook and we’ll take the shipping charge off this order!
• #38: Order and shipment confirmations Customer Service Interaction Are calls and emails for tracking numbers and return policies lessening because you’re including that in the emails? Orders from Confirmations Do you drive new orders from these emails?
• #39: Similarly, product review triggers invite users to come back and review their purchase Look at your reviews total and see if this helps steadily increase that and help you get more reviews on your site Also, since this drives people back to your site and reminds them of their purchase, are they buying anything else?
• #42: Any questions?
• #43: Well thanks for your time. I do invite you all to check out some of our online resources for eCommerce tips and best practices. You can go to ShopVisible.com, or our blog is OnlineCommerceInsights.com.