5 Necessary Digital Marketing Tasks For Online Retailers In 2015

culled from:http://tweakyourbiz.com

#1. Use Google’s Goal Conversions and Funnel Visualisation

Some of the most important eCommerce statistics within Google Analytics dashboard are the goal completions and conversions stats. These will give you a better understanding of the obstacles which are preventing you from your marketing goal. You will need to use the goal funnel visualization within analytics. This will help you see the path to conversion; you can include all the important pages before securing a sale.

Simply go to Conversions > Goals > Funnel Visualization:

First you need to set up a series of goals leading up to the final page. Here’s a Goal Funnel Visualisation guide from Kissmetrics showing you how to go about this.

As an eCommerce store, it is highly recommended that you set up ‘add to cart’ as a goal funnel. You will be able to see how many people went through this initial step until they completed a purchase. This is handy for discovering how many people converted from a certain period went through the full funnel, and how many dropped out – and where they clicked off.

Here’s an example of a retailer who wanted to know the flow of customers from the basket phase to completion of purchase:

The graph demonstrates how many visitors continued to the next step of the checkout process, how many went to a different page on the site and how many simply left the online shop.

As an eCommerce business, it is important to see if there are any holes in the funnel that shouldn’t be there. Obviously, not everyone is going to make a purchase from you, but you ideally want to optimize it so this is your aim.

The funnel visual will give you a clearer understanding of why potential customers are leaving before completion. In this case, perhaps more customer reassurance is required – such as a guarantee or information on returns policy on the cart page.

You should also consider whether your checkout process is too confusing? Are you asking for irrelevant information? Are there too many steps for a customer to go through?

#2. Run A/B Testing

A/B testing is the testing of two versions of a web page. The A version being the control and the B version being the variant. Each page receives live traffic so you can measure the effect each as on conversion rate. This form of testing is particularly important for online retailers because it is one of the simplest ways to increase profitability.

Your tests could include variations in:

• Layout
• Copywriting
• Headlines
• Promotions
• Pricing
• Images

When the test period is over, you can choose which version produced the best results and which one to stick with.

An example is the recent A/B conversion rate optimization tests we ran for a luxury retailer. We created a variation with the zoom-in window enlarged by up to four times more than the control version.

 

We found that the click rate for ‘add to cart’ was increased by 221% with this feature added. Which just goes to show the dramatic effect a small change can have upon sales.

#3. eCommerce Tracking with Google Analytics

Google’s eCommerce tracking helps you to carry across revenue figures to your analytics account and see how much revenue is generated for your individual traffic sources.

Here you can compare revenue generated by your SEO efforts versus your email campaign, which is great for pinpointing where to invest more time and money. You can learn how to get started with Google’s instructional guide, here.

#4. Monitor traffic from mobile users

Sales via mobile technology doubled in 2013, to £3bn. This suggestion is that mobile purchasing is set to grow still over the coming years, so it is vital your site works well for mobile customers, as well as desktop users.

To ensure your site is providing the best mobile shopping experience for your customers, take a look at your mobile traffic in Google Analytics. This will give you a better idea of how many visitors are coming to your site through a mobile device, and allow you to analysis this traffic and the associated interactions.

You can do this by logging into your Google Analytics account and heading to Audience > Mobile > Overview.

If mobile traffic makes up over 10% of your overall web traffic, it is a clear indicator that you could benefit from monitoring the way your mobile customers are using your site.

To check whether your mobile user experience is satisfactory, take a look at conversions via mobile devices – this is a good indicator. What’s the percentage? How does this compare to your desktop conversion percentage? If visitors are buying via a computer but not via a mobile, this suggests that your mobile user experience includes obstacles along the sales path, or perhaps your mobile web presence leaves potential customers feeling uneasy about purchasing from you.

Here are a few common turn-offs for mobile shoppers:

• Your site is too complicated – Your mobile website needs to be stripped to the basics, and it is vital that navigation be simplified and easy to follow. Breadcrumb links at the top of each page are very helpful. As space is limited on a mobile page, you may wish to keep to four categories on each page. Don’t forget to make the shopping basket accessible on every page.
• You do not display a phone number – Studies have found that if a shopper can’t call you during the checkout procedure, they won’t buy from you. Make sure you have a click-to-call telephone number clearly visible on your site, this will reassure customers you are a legitimate retailer who is always there to help.
• Your site lack imagery – Good quality images help sell products; this is especially true on mobile devices where text should be kept to a minimum.
• Your text fields are too fiddly – When a visitor decides to make a purchase, it is inevitable they will require entering their payment and delivery information. Make this as straightforward as possible. If your forms are too fiddly, people are highly likely to give up, and may not come back.

#5. Utilise Heatmaps

Benefit from the visual data which shows you how your site is performing and save time on analysing rows of data, Heatmaps provide insight on what people are clicking on and reveal which pieces of content are overlooked.

Heatmaps function on the premise that people place their mouse over content in which they have an interest. The map records the time spent on this content and produces a Heatmap (as seen below) which highlights the most popular areas of your site. Orange equals the most popular content, while blue equals less popular areas.

Get an understanding of how customers engage with your most important pages by running a Heatmap on these. Pages could include: homepage, checkout and product listing pages.

Important questions to ask yourself when looking at Heatmap results are:

• Are people looking at the most important content?
• Is a key part of your navigation being missed?
• Are elements of your page taking up space yet not being noticed?