Website traffic analysis is of great help to improve conversion rate

In the recent World Tourism Expo in London (Travel Market), industry experts gathered to discuss the impact of Web site traffic Analysis (web analytics) and seemingly trivial site observations and adjustments on the business.

Cameron Jones, director of business development at Expedia, stressed the importance of a quick response to the business: "In 2006, people are willing to spend 4 seconds waiting for the page to open." Now they're only willing to wait 2 seconds. ”

Online booking systems can lead to the loss of valuable customers even if there is a little bit of error. In his keynote speech, "Don't let me think, don't let me Wait", Jones stresses that customer satisfaction is bound to change customer loyalty.

"In fact, 79% of people who are dissatisfied with the site may not be spending even if they return to your site, and 27% may not be able to visit your site again," he said.

Jones stressed that in the use of Web site traffic analysis tools, can not only focus on conversion rates. The travel industry also spends the same amount of time not only attracting customers to the site, but also keeping them on top and making sure they complete the deal.

"Generally, it is cheaper to make better use of users who are already on the site than to attract more users to visit these underperforming sites," says Vicky Brock, co-founder of Highland Business Research Inverness in Scotland. "If we can increase the actual conversion rate of 1,000 users who are willing to make a reservation, this is better than attracting 5,000 more users to visit the site," he said. ”

Brock added that the successful conversion rate for general travel sites was only 1%-3%.

"Not every visitor to the site can finally achieve the purchase," she said. "But there are a lot of people who had this intention, but because they had so many difficulties, the user experience was too bad, and one step in the whole process went wrong. They made an effort, but finally gave up, and the website lost these customers. ”

It's just a simple mistake, she insists, but it can also lead to a loss of potential income. But because did not carry on the website traffic analysis, many companies did not discover these problems existence.

"In the process of booking analysis, it is a quick way to salvage the orders that are about to be abandoned," Brock said. "Whether you like it or not, there are a lot of people visiting your site every day, hoping to meet their goals and meet the purpose of the site, but everything goes wrong and the site may not be aware of it." ”

"Maybe they'll try again until the operation succeeds." But it is often the case that the problem is technical. They may have been trying, but still unsuccessful. So they might have called the call center ... But their message will never come back ... When you look back at these failed bookings, you didn't make any money, even though the guests tried to spend it. ”

So many people are going to give up at the site reservation stage, how to find out the error point of the whole process? Brock says you need to go through the booking process for your guests.

"There could be a small character error, or a bank payment system failure on one day ... You have to quickly figure out how many bookings are affected and how much they are worth, "she said.

Brock takes one of her tourism clients as an example. The customer wants to maximize their online revenue. This occurs during the flow analysis process, where 0.3% of bookings are affected by the inclusion of a simple "illegal" character where the customer enters the phone number. The problem, which was not discovered by them, affected the site for more than 6 months, but it only took two hours to fix, and increased their revenue by 25,000 pounds (40,668 dollars) in the next settlement period.

Jones believes that the booking process should be simple first.

"Web traffic analysis doesn't really have to be a lot of brains," he says. "You need to make sure that the functionality of your site is clear enough so that guests can read it and bring a visual first impression to the guest." ”

The customer expects two seconds to complete the full download time of the Web page. Jones said 40% of customers would leave the site if the loading time was longer than three seconds.

"Of those 40%, about 67% will go to one of your competitors ' sites and won't come back," he says. "It is valuable to measure the loading time of a Web page." ”

Jones says more than half of the companies now have traffic analysis on their web sites, and the five analysis tools most commonly used are: A/b Test (A/B testing), multivariable testing (multivariant testing), Customer process Analysis Journey analysis), user testing (users testing), and shopping cart discards (cart abandonment).

Jones recommends using multiple tools to analyze the optimization. He also insists that the call center's role in the booking process is also important. Expedia keeps track of the first 10 people who call the call center, and if the phones are related to the problem on the site, they can know where the problem is. In this way, the cost is reduced, and the conversion rate can be improved by showing these problems on the FAQ page of the website.

"If someone specializes in conversion rates, your conversion rate may increase by one fold." "Jones said. "This is a critical point for us," he said. And for our alliance network, we have hired a Commissioner to deal with conversion rates, and the effect has come out. ”