How can Segmentation by Referral/Traffic source propel businesses?

One important factor in analytics is understanding the consumer’s journey through the site and what affects certain behaviors. There is far more to a visitor’s point of entry than just calculating it as a simple visit or page view and the information regarding how the consumer initially got to the site is equally just as important. In fact, when done well, this data can provide an ROI back to any existing marketing campaigns in play.

For example, email campaigns, social media sites, affiliates, display ads, direct traffic, and search engines (paid and organic) are all referral points to websites.

(Chaffey, 2016)

Segmentation also offers a snapshot into how many visitors are continual visitors versus new users, what technology sources they are using to enter the site, and what browser type they are using (and if they are coming in on mobile devices). All of this information gives a high level snapshot into the consumers first or continual exposure to the brand.

For the sake of this review, we will focus on the referral/traffic source. There are many companies who are studying this particular feature in great detail and tying it in with the psychographic and demographic detail of the audiences to be able to effectively build campaigns with messaging tailored to the right audience, in the right way, at the right time.

For instance, Lenovo machines found that 40 percent of their online traffic were visitors they did not know and knew it was going to be fairly difficult to sell equipment to them not understanding how to effectively communicate to them. They wanted to speak to this new consumer and needed to be able to shift their messaging and content within the site when these consumers visited.

Lenovo broke their audiences into multiple profiles, identified by interests, likes, etc. and used cross-categorization data from the referral sites to serve up specific content when certain audiences visited the web page. These weren’t landing pages, but content buckets on the home page that spoke clearly to the right audience.

The results created a 40 percent lift in website order conversions and a 25 percent revenue increase per order. Creating these audience profiles are important for all brands, as an effective content strategy includes a descriptive and detailed understanding of the audience. Only when brands and businesses understand what the consumer is about can they effectively provide the right content to their audience and drive deeper interest and conversions. (“When we,” 2016)

The referral source is extremely important - whether it’s from an ongoing effort by the company, direct traffic, a true referral partner (news sites, blogs, vendors, etc.), or organic and paid search, understanding the background behind how the consumer got to the site is very important.  This tracking must be in place in order to effectively serve up the right content to the right audience.

Within the example from Lenovo, there are a few specific analytics elements that were analyzed and adjusted to better answer the consumer needs:

·      How many visitors were new visitors versus repeating visitors – (visitors/unique visitors – foundational)

·      Where the visitors where entering the site from – (referral – visitor characterization)

·      How many sales resulted from the updates to the content – (conversion – conversion)

Chaffey, D. (2016, April 5). How to use (Advanced) Segments in Google Analytics. Retrieved from http://www.smartinsights.com/google-analytics/google-analytics-segmentation/segmenting-google-analytics/

When we customized our homepage offers with Neustar audience data, we saw over 40% lift in conversion rate! (n.d.). Retrieved May 30, 2016, from https://www.neustar.biz/resources/client-stories/activation/lenovo-customer-segmentation-website-personalization.pdf  

Is it true optimizing landing pages and links within a site can increase conversions?

The first question that should be asked is how necessary are landing pages? The answer – very necessary. Landing pages are pages built within a site and are meant to drive conversions tied to a specific objective. These landing pages are generally built to capture the clicks from paid ads and have a clear, direct message that pays off whatever the ads are referring to. According to Patel & Jacob (2016),

“A landing page is generally your first and only opportunity to make a first impression with your customer. It’s your chance to start a conversation, ask a question, invite discussion and welcome clicks on into your site. For many sites, particularly those in high-competition areas, it may be your only chance to reel in a visitor and convince them that your offer is worth their time and attention.”

This means that landing pages must provide quick access to consumers and house the exact information they are looking for, making it vital for companies to adequately assess how the information is provided.

Does this mean that optimizing a landing page based on analytical data can truly convert to sales? The short answer, yes.

Case in point – due to the global recession of the late 2000s, Nature Air, a Costa Rican airline, was experiencing harsh web sales and had to adjust their strategy quickly to make up for these declines. In order to truly understand what could be adjusted from a web perspective to help increase sales, Nature Air did extensive usability studies and qualitative analysis through online surveys of the Nature Air sites.

The destination landing pages within Nature Air were crucial to the success of business (and continue to be) since they are the top pages landed on from the search engines. Nature Air knew these pages needed to be exactly what the consumer was looking for as research showed consumers entering the site from the search engines were typically in the later stages of the buying cycle and more likely to provide a true conversion to sales.

So what did Nature Air do to adjust their strategy and address this challenge?

Nature Air tested 17 landing pages to find out what it was that would make consumers act quicker. As shown below from one of their pages, consumers were more likely to click the conversion link when the content was embedded in the body of the page.  

ORIGINAL:

 AFTER TESTING:

(Kelly, 2009)

According to Kelly (2009),

“The thinking behind this change was that by placing the call to action within the content area, with messaging specific to the location, and including the starting fare price, the call to action would become more relevant and people would connect with it and be persuaded to book a flight.”

Within this example from Nature Air, there are a few specific analytics elements that were analyzed and adjusted to better answer the consumer needs:

·      How many visitors entered the landing page – (landing page – visitor characterization)

·      How many visitors clicked through the contextual link – (click through – visitor characterization)

·      How many times a flight was booked – (conversion – conversion)

The testing of the landing pages, followed by a simple contextual change within the site (allowing for another click-thru within the body of the page) increased Nature Air’s conversion rate from 3% to 19%, a pretty sizable increase.  This is just a small example that shows the importance of understanding what the consumers are looking for, how to adequately answer paid ads, how to adjust payoffs based on testing, and ultimately the importance of web analytics in comparison to sales.

Patel, N., & Jacob, S. (n.d.). Landing page optimization. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from https://www.quicksprout.com/landing-page-optimization-chapter-1/

Kelly, K. (2009, June 17). How website usability testing increased sales in the face of the global travel recession. Retrieved from http://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2009/06/google-website-optimizer-increases-conversion-591