5 Ways to Boost E-commerce Conversion Rates.
Google Analytics can be used to find valuable insights about how visitors are interacting with your website. However, with so much data in front of you, finding what’s valuable can seem like finding a needle in a haystack! So, Credo are here to help.
We’re going to show you five ways to make the most of your Google Analytics data, and how to use it to improve your e-commerce conversion rate.
1. Exit Pages.
We always say that to find where users are struggling most on your site, you need to ‘head for the exit’. Of course, this means using the Exit Pages data in Google Analytics.
This report will show you on which of your webpages users are leaving your site the most. If you know the pages where most users are exiting your site, you can find out WHY they are exiting and make changes to encourage them to stick around.
You would expect your homepage to be top of the pile, as it is one of the most visited. In an ideal world, your thank you page would be right up there too.
To start, identify which pages are the worst offenders. Take a look at what the site average is for your site and tackle the pages that are significantly higher than this average.
The main metric we’re looking at in this report is the “% Exit”; this is the % of users who have exited the site while on this page. Pages with an unusually high exit rate can instantly highlight areas where users are struggling.
[Figure taken from Google Analytics showing the report that can be found under ‘Exit Pages’. This figure shows a table with statistics for each page: Exits, Page Views, and % Exit. The statistics show an extremely high page exit rate of 56.13% compared to a site average of 36.02%. This is a prime example of a page with an unusually high exit rate.]
2. Bounce Rates.
We think of bounce rates as an indicator of how engaged your site traffic is. If your users are engaged and your site is attracting quality traffic, bounce rates will be low. If they’re high, it can be telling you that either the traffic is poor, or that engagement levels on the page are very low.
Google suggests that the average website bounce rate is about 41%-55%. While this is a useful benchmark, it is not going to be representative of every website.
When looking at individual pages, it can be much more valuable for you to compare an individual page bounce rate to your site average, rather than Google’s average. Your site might have a low average bounce rate, despite having a page that isn’t performing, yet this bounce rate may still be inside Google’s 41%-55% suggestion.
If a page has both a high bounce rate AND a high exit rate, you may not be sure if the If the problem lies with your traffic or your page.
If the page is a landing page and the bounce rate is much higher for a single traffic source, it is likely that you have a traffic problem. Poor traffic is a common problem we see when clients are using Facebook Ads at the top of the funnel (the beginning of the user journey).
If you’re confident the traffic is good quality, then the issue is most likely due to poor engagement. The first questions to be asking here are around the page’s messaging.
Is it clear what the page is about? Is the content of the page aligned with what users are likely to be expecting? Is there enough high-quality information to make the user interested to stick around and find out more?
At this stage, you should look to install some tracking software like Hotjar on the poor performing page to see exactly how users are behaving. Heat maps and user videos can often reveal why bounce rates are particularly high.
3. Behaviour Flow.
The behaviour flow tool creates a graphical representation of how users flow through your site. This visual aid can clearly highlight areas causing users to drop off and exit the site.
Have a look at the screenshot below. Almost 99% of traffic that hits this page is dropping off and leaving the site at this point. One thing to consider here is that this is a blog post; and while blog pasts usually have a reasonably high drop off, we wouldn’t expect it to be quite so high.
The behaviour flow tool creates a graphical representation of how users flow through your site. This visual aid can clearly highlight areas causing users to drop off and exit the site.
Have a look at the screenshot below. Almost 99% of traffic that hits this page is dropping off and leaving the site at this point. One thing to consider here is that this is a blog post; and while blog pasts usually have a reasonably high drop off, we wouldn’t expect it to be quite so high.
4. Shopping Behaviour.
Shopping behaviour is aimed at e-commerce sites and is like behaviour flow in that it helps you identify where users are dropping off at a glance. It sorts page views into products, basket sessions, checkout sessions, and transactions, allowing you to analyse all the key stages within a user journey.
By visualising your sales funnel like this, you identify by page type, where there may be holes in your user journey.
[A figure taken directly from Google Analytics, showing total sessions with percentages of users who reach each stage of the user journey, as well as the drop off rate at each point within the funnel. 50.29% of users drop off without viewing products, 91.22% of those who view product pages drop off without adding to basket, 52.41% who add to basket abandon their baskets, and 71.4% drop off within the checkout process.]
Above, we see that 91% of visitors who viewed products on this site did not add anything to their basket. We would expect this figure to be around 75% or lower. We can also see that checkout abandonment is as high at 71% (anything over 55% is worthy of further inspection).
Immediately, we can see that to increase conversion rates, we need more users adding products to basket, and fewer users leaving during the checkout process.
A good start would be to find out why users are dropping off at the checkout. If they have already added a product to the basket, they had an intent, so it’s key to find out what spooked them.
5. New Vs Returning.
Our final tip on getting the most out of Google Analytics can be found by exploring the New Vs Returning relationship. New Vs Returning can reveal where your user is in the user journey. Honestly, it’s an absolute gold mine! And yet, it’s quite often overlooked.
You should always expect returning traffic to have a higher conversion rate. These users are already familiar with your brand and site and are back for a reason. So, it makes sense that a higher proportion of them will convert.
If a website has similar conversion rates for both new and returning visitors, it suggests that a significant number of customers are making purchases based on impulse. In contrast, if a site has a low conversion rate for new users and a very high conversion rate for returning visitors, it suggests that the purchase is a considered one.
If the ratio of New Vs Returning is higher than 1:2 in favour of returning, then you stand a much better chance of converting the user by focusing your attention on nurturing their journey between visits. This can be done through retargeting.
In the example below, the ratio is around 1:4.
[Figure from Google Analytics showing number of new vs returning visitors. The statistics shown include: All sessions, sessions with product views, sessions with add to basket, sessions with checkout, and sessions with transactions. The proportion of sessions with transactions for each are: New (0.51%) and Returning (1.92%).]
An excellent way to bridge this gap is to reduce concerns and address reasons people don’t buy from you in both your product pages themselves, and your retargeting.
Your FAQ section is a great place to identify these concerns. For instance, if you get asked lots of questions about delivery times and returns, you may highlight information and reassurances about delivery on product pages. You may also promote your free next day delivery and hassle-free returns as part of a retargeting campaign.
If you can overcome customer concerns, you stand a much better chance of bringing users back to the site. The data shows that you have a much better chance of converting them the second time around.
NEXT STEPS.
There is so much more to Analytics than we’ve shared here. It can help in many different aspects of your marketing and in converting users into customers.
We hope that these five ways to get the most out of Google Analytics have been helpful.
We help you make sense of all this and more within our CRO Website Audits. Get in touch to learn how an audit could benefit your website.