White Paper: Beyond Web Analytics - Uncovering Hidden Roadblocks to Conversion

Many of our clients and prospective clients ask us how our Attitudinal Analytics’ solutio n is different from the many web analytics programs popular in the marketplace. First let’s start with the typical web analytics software. As we all know most web analytics typically provides information such as:

Number of unique visitors coming to your website for some given period of time
Number of page views rendered for some determined period of time
Number of pages visited by each site visitor
Where visitors entered and left the site
Where visitors came from prior to the visiting the site and possibly where they were going upon leaving the site

Attitudinal Analytics provides similar kinds of web analytics information but it goes the next step by revealing deeper information about site visitors and their experience on your site. It answers questions like:

Why visitors are coming to the site - what is their intent?
Why visitors abandon the site?
Did the visitor experience success-based roadblocks during their visit?
Was the visitor able to find what they were looking for, were they able to complete the task, which motivated their visit - in other words, was their visit successful?
What did the visitor do after leaving the site?

Attitudinal Analytics gathers user experience insight explicitly and implicitly from the site visitor. Meaning our solution collects data from the visitor, via a site entrance and exit survey, and from tracking their navigation path during the visit. Together this data can uncover barriers to success based on site visit intent. Our user experience analysts are then able to provide clients with actionable recommendations for eliminating these barriers of which the client often did not realize existed.

Through Attitudinal Analytics we are able to help our clients develop a deeper understanding of their funnel process, barriers that exist, and ways to improve the user experience, which will ultimately increase site conversion rates.

To illustrate the value of Attitudinal Analytics, let’s first look at a fictional website shopping and purchase funnel process, which often looks like a ‘Y’, using typical web analytics. Below you can quickly see the number of unique visitors who entered the funnel, the abandon rates between pages, and the end result of 74 visitors completing the purchase, representing a 3.2% conversion rate.

LEAD Technologies Inc But what about visitors who did not purchase? Using this example, 96.7% of the visitors did not complete their purchase - why? With Attitudinal Analytics you can gain insights into “why” visitors abandoned the process, page by page. Below is an illustration of the same shopping and purchase process using Attitudinal Analytics.

LEAD Technologies Inc Armed with insights and recommendations, clients can remove the success barriers, whether known or unknown, in order to increase conversion, which is the easiest, most effective way to quickly increase top line revenues.

Let’s take a closer look at each page’s abandonment insight and examples of what might be happening on your website:

Homepage Abandonment: Visitors leave sites when they cannot find a way to get started. When they cannot find what they are looking for. When they cannot find some indication that the site is going to meet their needs. With Attitudinal Analytics insights into visitor intent will help determine effective homepage links.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “no link for refrigerators”
  - “didn’t see anything for rebates”
  - “why don’t you have a search box?”
Visitors also leave when nomenclature, or phrasing, is confusing or unfamiliar. With Attitudinal Analytics wrong terms will be revealed
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “what does a kept list mean?”
  - “what’s with this product family stuff?”
  - “where is My Account button?”
Category Page Abandonment: Visitors leave sites when sub-categories are unclear or the information presented is not thought out from a visitor’s perspective.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “I didn’t see anything for GE microwave units” (under applicances)
  - “I looked all over for truck boxes” (under Hardware)
  - “you don’t show me where you have lamps” (under Lighting Systems)
Users will also leave is they don’t see their desired categories because they were below the fold of the page.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “no curtains?”
  - “why don’t you carry sofas?”
  - “I thought you’d have garden furniture this time of year”
Product List Page Abandonment: If the volume of information presented is too much, too little, or different from what the visitor was expecting, they will leave.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “how do you expect me to sort through this mess?”
  - “you returned three pages of suto parts when I clicked on accessories”
  - “I want to sort by function, not brand!”
Product Page Abandonment: Visitors are likely to be shopping for price. If you are not competitive and consistent then the sale will be lost.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “way too expensive”
  - “your email offer gave me one price, your site gave me another”
  - “I can find this product cheaper on your competitor’s site”
Product Detail Page Abandonment: The way a product is marketing on the site will make the different between a sale or no sale.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “photo is much too small to see details”
  - “couldn’t see it in the color I wanted”
  - “can’t tell from the picture if it’s the right model”
Site visitors want, need, demand to interact with the product, similar to the way they shop offline
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “I wanted to zoom in and look at the phone from different angles”
  - “I need to see how the shirt looks in different patterns”
  - “I wanted to see how to mix and match with this skirt”
Comparison Page Abandonment: Visitors expect to be able to compare products based on features. Without this capability, they leave.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “I want to be able to select which features to compare”
  - “you should look at how the compare page works on XXX’s site”
  - “it wouldn’t let me see all my selections”
Cart Review Page Abandonment: Visitors don’t hang around if your site has technical issues - and this issues may not be known.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “I had 3 items in my cart and they vanished”
  - “your carts have holes in them!”
  - “the cart wouldn’t take the shoes I put in it”
Visitors also won’t purchase if the purchase process is made too hard.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “why can’t I add something to my cart from the compare page?”
  - “have to go back to the product details page to add to the cart and this take too much time”
  - “why can’t you let me save my cart for next time?”
Checkout Page Abandonment: Visitors want to see a recap and total cost of their purchase, including shipping, prior to pushing the ‘buy’ button.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “just checking on the shipping costs and its not here”
  - “this is the only way to see shipping charges”
  - “need to see ‘hidden’ costs before buying”
Visitors often abandon their purchase because they were unable to put in alternate shipping addresses.
- Sample visitor comments from Attitudinal Analytics
  - “it won’t let me ship anywhere but my home address”
  - “seems to not accept my son’s shipping address”
  - “want to send to different address, it won’t let me”

Traditional web analytics don’t help web managers get to the root cause of their page abandonment. What you don’t know that you don’t know can be very scary. Attitudinal Analytics, by capturing the voice and behavior of the site visitor, helps uncover issues you many not be aware of and, therefore, don’t know to repair.

White Paper: Beyond Web Analytics - Uncovering Hidden Roadblocks to Conversion

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