Understanding the Affinity of the Visitor
Understanding the Affinity of the Visitor
Affinity is defined as a natural attraction, liking, or feeling of kinship-the basis of which is charged by emotion. For website owners, the ability to assess the visitor’s affinity with their site is critical to understanding the value of the brand as a whole. Brand affinity also puts into context the influence of other methods of communication (in-store, word of mouth, advertising, etc.) on visitors coming to your site for the first time. The methodology used to measure brand affinity during a site visit is to ask the participant’s to rank their level of agreement with a statement like, “Company X is the premier provider of XYZ products and services” on both entry and exit of the site visit. The initial rating for first timers and the lift between the paired entry/exit responses is where the value lies.
To understand this better we will look at brand affinity results from recent studies we’ve conducted with WebIQ.
- Hotel site:
- Results: From entry to exit 55% of participants increased their agreement with the brand affinity statement (13% lowered their agreement).
- Learning: What this tells you is that the site experience had a more positive effect on the participants’ brand affinity. The desired goal is always to have those who increased their affinity outweigh those who decreased.
- E-tail site:
- Results: 80% of 1st time site visitors on entry to the web site indicated they agreed with the brand affinity. Note: “agreement” is based on 5, 6, or 7 rating (7-pt scale)
- Learning: What this tells you is that the other channels of brand communication are having a positive impact on the newly acquired site visitors.
What these results allow you to do is not only assess the effectiveness of the site against the brand but also to establish a benchmark to measure all future site enhancements. At the end of the day, your customer’s affinity towards your brand is an emotional relationship that takes time and the right information to understand.
Scott Gunter
WebIQ Project Manager