Conversion Rates Revisited – The One Percent Solution April 30, 2008
Posted by debbiepascoe in accessibility, high performance site analytics, privacy, quality, search engine optimization, usability, web analytics, web design, web standards.Tags: accessibility, cart abandonment, conversion, engagement, optimization, pivacy, quality, search, traffic, usability, web analytics
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In my last post, I noted that Coremetrics has begun releasing benchmark data collected from their ~300 clients. A couple of the stats really caught my attention:
- The typical conversion rate is 3.29%
- Conversions Where Site Search Was Used – 14.84% of consumers used site search during their visits – conversion rate 5.60%
- The shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.42%.
Wow….think about it….
- out of 100 people, only 3 of them actually complete the desired action. AND
- out of 100 people that begin a shopping cart, only 32-33 of them complete the transaction and buy something (through the website – we don’t know if they walked in the store later and concluded the sale there); AND
- of the people that use internal search, they convert at a much higher rate than the ones that do not.
While some of my esteemed colleagues have decided that it’s not about conversions, it’s really about engagement (I’m not naming names, you know who you are 
), it really is about conversions. That’s the bottom line. For every small improvement a site owner makes to improve their conversion rate or reduce their abandonment rate, they get repaid many times over. The philosophical diversion into “engagement” is really code for “we know people are leaving the site and completing the sale offline, we just don’t have a way to tie all the data together”. When that day comes, conversion will come back into vogue in a huge way.
Take this rate that Coremetrics has given us as a benchmark. If this conversion rate of 3.29% can be improved by one percent, sales would increase by 30%. That translates to real money. Similarly, 68 of 100 people walking out of your virtual store when they have things in their basket that they abandon in the last aisle represents real money that didn’t make it into the till. Everything that can be done to chip away at that represents real money.
So, how do you identify those improvements? Strip it back to its basic elements; look at what you’ve created – how usable is it, how findable is it, how free of defects, does it respect the visitor’s privacy, is it accessible to all potential customers? Are the key pages that lead people to the conversion event optimized? Do they have the right stuff in the right places with the right call to action to propel people forward and keep them moving forward to completion? You’ll notice these questions don’t have anything to do with studying how people have reacted to your site; rather they have everything to do with understanding deeply what you’ve given people to interact with. Traffic is a measure after the fact – it’s forensics. Evaluating traffic is great for understanding what people did; it is not a predictor of what they would do if things were different.
To help you visualize the impact that small improvements in conversion rates and abandonment rates can have, I’ve created a “conversion rate calculator”. I am not an accountant or finance expert. This is not complex econometric modeling. This is just a simple way for you to plug in some numbers that are meaningful to you to see that the impact over time is real and measurable. Have fun, dream big, and see what it might mean
Here’s the link to the Coremetrics Benchmark page.
Page Load Time Gets Googled March 16, 2008
Posted by debbiepascoe in ads and ad spending, page load times, quality, usability, web design.Tags: broadband, page load times, quality, usability, web design
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For years we have been telling site owners – and anyone else we talk to – that page weight matters. Occasionally, somebody would respond with something like ‘everybody has broadband, so that’s just not the problem it used to be’. There are several issues with this line of thinking.
First, as broadband has become more prevalent, page sizes have grown larger.
Second, code that enables tracking and more robust interactivity adds weight to the pages. While you are wondering why the page is taking so long, your browser is busy reading every single line of code in order to show you the page. Bloated code contributes significantly to page weight issues.
Third, the notion that broadband is everywhere has caused an explosion in the use of flash. Flash used thoughtfully can provide a richer, more satisfying experience for the visitor. Flash used with abandon and no alignment to business goals can provide a frustrating, confusing experience that is also inaccessible to visually impaired persons and invisible to search engines.
Last week Google weighed in on the page weight discussion, and in a big way. This month, Google has begun to measure the load times of advertisers’ landing pages. Once advertisers’ load time grades are provided to them, they will have 30 days to make necessary improvements before penalties begin to be applied. Google uses the measurement of landing page quality as a component of the advertiser’s “Quality Score”. Quality score impacts two things:
- The price the advertiser pays for keywords
- Ad placement
Here are four specific suggestions offered by Google to reduce page load time:
Use fewer redirects. Reduce the page size by using fewer, smaller, and more highly-compressed images. Do not use interstitial pages. Minimize the use of iframes on your landing page.
The good news is that this is a very manageable issue, from a technical perspective. The challenge, as it has always been, is for site owners to find the delicate balance that provides the best possible user experience without going overboard on design.
New Pew Research Sets US Broadband Households at 55 Pct January 21, 2008
Posted by debbiepascoe in broadband, page load times, quality, usability, web design.Tags: broadband, low band, page download times, page weight, Pew Research, usability, web design
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It’s been a while since I posted any numbers about broadband adoption, so I was glad to see eMarketer’s newsletter on January 18. The Headline – “Who Doesn’t Use the Internet” – caught my attention. Much is written, with great flourish and excitement, about internet adoption, and it’s written in a way that leaves the impression that everybody has it and in a big, fast way. This headline is quite unique.
The article goes on to highlight the results of a new study by Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (PDF). In addition to information about broadband adoption, this study is full of great information that will be of interest to our friends in local, state and federal government. People are increasingly turning to the web and expect that they can find what they need from their government there.
Three key findings:
- “Digital Divides Matter” -”low access” people – those with no or low bandwidth – are not as successful as “high access” people in finding needed information to address their personal issues.
- “E-Government is not an Option; It’s a Necessity” – See above. All citizens – rich and poor, old and young, high-band and low-band, are turning to the agency websites for information.
- Government agencies can not afford to disenfranchise people, and must provide information in many different formats so that it can be accessed by all.
This is an excellent paper and well worth the read.
eMarketer’s research, using International Telecommunication Union for select countries, supports the broadband numbers. We know people access the internet from work; we also know that this is a problem for employers and not something that is preferred or encouraged.
Interestingly and coincidentally, the subject of page download times was discussed at length this past week on the Web Analytics Forum. Practitioners are talking about it, thinking about what to do about it, asking others about it. Page weight continues to be an important consideration for site owners.
Unfortunately, organizations are frequently in the dark about just how large their pages are.
We are seeing increasing instances where a very heavy page is not the result of images or even a flash file -those can load in the background. Rather they are the result of pages with very large amounts of code required to build the page. In some instances, code is commented out, but never removed. Browsers must read every line of code in order to build the page, so every unnecessary line adds to the time people have to wait.
The creation of an attractive site with sleek code that can reach your target audience in an acceptable time frame may require thinking critically about just how the site is put together. But it can be done, and it is worth the effort.
Mobile web access – the next frontier is here December 2, 2007
Posted by debbiepascoe in mobile web, page load times, search, usability, web design.Tags: brands, broadband, local search, marketers, mobile web, usability, web design
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I just ran across a blog about mobile phone adoption that has some fascinating stats in it. The blog is written by Tomi Ahonen – here’s a link to two posts. Even though they were written a while ago, the information is still very relevant, probably even more relevant, an well worth the read.
Mobile the 7th Mass Media is to internet like TV is to radio
(Stats below come from this post.)
As web content migrates to the mobile internet
At the end of 2006, according to Informa’s Mobile Market Status 2007 , there were 2.7 billion mobile phone users
- three times as many mobile phones as personal computers(850 million)
- over a quarter of all internet access is already from mobile phones
- nearly twice as many mobile phones as TV sets (1.5 billion)
- twice as many people use messaging on a phone (SMS text messaging) as use e-mail on the web.
- more people are accessing the internet via mobile rather than PC in China, Japan and South Korea
By comparison with the number of mobile phones,
- there are 800 million registered automobiles
- 1.3 billion fixed landline phones
We have not even begun to know how internet access via mobile phones will impact site design. One thing’s for sure, though. It can not be avoided. The more consumer-oriented, and geographically relevant a company is (where is the closest one to me, how do I get there, what are their hours, do they have the merchandise/food/gas/service I need or want to purchase), the sooner it will become an issue.
Some pundits that cover this space are speculating that the PC will be obsolete in the next few years. I’m not ready to buy that, for a couple of simple reasons. One – real estate, and two – computing power. Mobile screens are not very big, and even if they get a bit bigger, they will never be big. If they were big, they would be….PCs. If I am on the go, having content that is relevant to being on the go is great. When I am stationary, I’d rather use a larger format, with more computing power that will enable me to see and do more things simultaneously. which leads to reason number two – the size of mobile phones will continue to limit computing and battery power. Yes it continues to improve; I’m just not buying the notion that mobile internet access will replace laptops.
The balance will continue to shift as more content is created for the mobile environment and as advertisers and marketers experiment with methods to reach the mobile market. As some point, they discover what they can do that mobile users will tolerate. Because some rate plans charge for texting and excess minutes, it will be interesting to watch this play out: will carriers change their rate plans to “all you can eat”? Will consumers revolt if they start receiving unsolicited text messages?
At some point, market equilibrium will be reached – some people will use one method or the other, some will use both.
For big consumer brands, ensuring that their information is formatted for mobile access is a no-brainer. A beautiful online “experience” complete with flash, ajax, beautiful graphics, etc- has a defined reach. Access to these sites increasingly requires broadband access. As the stats above show, mobile access has three times the reach. Brands that can create streamlined mobile-accessible, relevant content and applications will have a far greater chance of reaching their rank-and-file buyers.
