'Net Features : conversion rates

Mobile Traffic Declines in July (And More Statistics)

Michael Garrity — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:30:00 GMT

Affiliate Window, one of the United Kingdom’s leading performance marketing networks, has unleashed upon the world its July report concerning mobile and m-commerce statistics.

Most curiously, the company found that the share of Web traffic through mobile devices actually dropped from over 12 percent in June to making up around just nine percent of total traffic in July. This isn’t terribly peculiar, as May saw a slight decrease, as well, following month-by-month increases for the first four months of the year.

On the upside, however, the volume of mobile clicks actually increased. And not only that, but the share of sales through mobile devices also rose, finally crossing the nine percent threshold at 9.42 percent. Ultimately, this figure, coupled with the drop in traffic, seems to show a closer alignment between mobile conversion rates and those of their desktop counterparts, as mobile conversion rates improved throughout July, increasing to 3.14 percent.

The report also breaks down mobile and m-commerce statistics by mobile device. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that Apple is (still) leading the pack, with the iPhone driving 38 percent of all mobile traffic by the end of the month. However, it’s not all sunshine for the brand, as iPad traffic actually ended up dropping below 40 percent. On the other hand, iPad sales reached a high of 63 percent of all mobile sales by the end of the month, and the iPhone ended up accounting for 24.87 percent.

Android devices saw traffic increases in July, with the number resting between 18 and 19 percent, up from June’s 17.5 percent. BlackBerry and “Other” devices both decreased, driving 1.5 and two percent of July’s mobile traffic, respectively. In terms of sales, Android saw another increase, ranging between 11.5 and 13 percent throughout the four weeks of July, while BlackBerry and “Other” devices both stayed below two percent.

From a year-to-date perspective, iPads have driven 57 percent of all mobile sales, with iPhones coming in second at 27 percent, and followed by Android (11 percent), BlackBerry (3 percent) and other devices (2 percent). Adding to this, Affiliate Window found that the iPhone, Android and “Other” devices allow showed an improvement in conversion rates in July; in fact, they were all almost identical at around 2.1 percent.

I think it’s fair to say that if you take anything away from this report, it’s not to put too much stock in the future of BlackBerry.

Trendy Metrics for Affiliate Marketing

Michael Garrity — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:30:00 GMT

Late last week, affiliate program software provider LinkTrust announced it was including trend reports in its service offering as part of its Summer of Love updates to help monitor an affiliate’s traffic numbers and produce predictive forecasts about his or her performance.

Solutions or features like this have the potential to be very helpful for publishers and merchants, alike. Advertisers can obviously use the data to assess the performance of their affiliate partners and adjust their campaigns to eliminate waste. For affiliates, it serves as both a review of their successes (and hopefully limited failures), and gives them the opportunity to fix problems based on the trend predictions.

But, as always, the way to make information like this actionable (and thus worth your time) is to understand it first. While there are a variety of metrics and trends for you to keep track of, there are some that provide almost universally useful information and have a direct impact on the success of an affiliate marketing campaign.

Here are some of the most important affiliate-related metrics to keep your eye on:

Conversion Rate: I mean, this is without a doubt the most important metric in basically any type of online business or advertising campaign. How many times does an affiliate help a merchant make a conversion, or convince a consumer to complete a desired action. Conversion rate numbers can help parse successful strategies and ensure that those practices are imitated. For advertisers, a massive spike can also serve as an indication of fraud.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR): This is the bread and butter of the affiliate marketing world, and there is no better way to assess performance and predict trends than by observing clicks. Increases in clicks obviously indicate positive performance, while monitoring decreases is the most efficient way to identify a bad campaign and turn it around (or dump it) before it’s too late.

Average Order Value (AOV): After a while, any business is going to have a pretty consistent average order size for the majority of its customers. On occasion, especially around the holidays, this average will see a substantial spike, but at more unexpected times, a big increase can indicate something else, and in these cases it’s important to investigate. One thing it could point toward is affiliate fraud.

Number of Sales: Sales are, by nature, made of ups and downs, and paying attention to the events and strategies taking place during both of these periods can help greatly improve the efficiency of a marketing campaign. So, when affiliate marketing is responsible for a big rise in sales numbers, or is a major disappointment, everyone involved should review the related events to see why, and what both sides can do maintain, or improve, those figures. For advertisers, this could mean altering their creative to be more enticing to consumers, and for publishers, it could mean continuing to produce a specific type of content that is driving sales.

Reversal Rate (RR): Occasionally, an affiliate-referred transaction will get reversed (or refunded) by a merchant, usually because the merchant does not approve of it. This means a direct loss of commission for an affiliate, who is probably going to want to stay away – far away – from merchants boasting an abnormally high RR.

Browsers, Buyers & Conversion Rates

Allison Howen — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:45:00 GMT

Although e-commerce sales have risen over the past five years, conversion rates have continued to drop, this is partially due to a rise of the new type of e-commerce shopper, the “browser.”

According to the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), conversion rates in the UK have dropped by 55 percent over the past five years. In 2006, the average online conversion rate for IMRG Capgemini e-commerce retailers was at 8.4 percent, which has since declined to 3.8 percent.

However, it is not all bad news for e-commerce retailers. Aside from lower conversion rates, online sales have continued to grow, from £30.2 billion ($47.95) in 2006 to £58.8 billion ($93.36) in 2010. The contrast makes sense due to the fact that there are many more shoppers visiting retailer sites, which means that the percentage of people browsing without buying has risen.

Reasons for the dropped conversion rates come from consumers that are more interested in browsing, researching and comparing products online, instead of going to a site with the intent to purchase. Other reasons for lower conversions include mobile usage, which makes comparing products in-store possible, social media sites, which give consumers an outlet for discussing products, and tablets, which have given consumers an easy way to browse stores and compare products.

“The steady decline in online conversion rates in recent years is evidence that consumers’ purchasing behaviour has changed,” says Tina Spooner, Chief Information Officer at IMRG. “The average online shopper today is making more considered purchases, often visiting several websites in order to compare products before deciding to buy.”

Although e-commerce retailers may be experiencing more browsers than purchasers on their site, here are a few options that e-retailers can consider when trying to increase their conversion rates:

Customer Service

Offering live chat, phone or email support is very beneficial for consumers. After all, not having the ability to ask a sales clerk questions is one disadvantage for consumers that are shopping online. Providing customer service for online shoppers can also assist customers in finding exactly what they are looking for on your site. And remember, fewer clicks equal more conversions.

Search

Having a productive search box is very important on ecommerce sites. If a customer is searching for something specific and the search directs them to a wrong product, the retailer can assume that they have lost a conversion. Additionally, retailers should monitor what items are being searched for the most. With this information, retailers can feature popular products on their e-commerce site’s landing page, promote the products within social media and feature the products in e-newsletters.

Product Views

Incorporating different product views into your site can prove to be very beneficial. It gives consumers the ability to view a product at all angles. This is especially valuable for clothing retailers, especially if they provide the consumer with different body types, so that the consumer can view a similar body type to their own or to whomever they are buying the product for. Retailers can also think about taking this a step further by implementing the new technology of augmented reality into their e-commerce site. With augmented reality a consumer can virtually try products on, such as clothing, jewelry or other accessories through the e-commerce site and a web cam. This provides a solution to one of the biggest disadvantages for consumers that shop online — a fitting room.

Customer Reviews

Since online shoppers are more into browsing and comparing products nowadays, why not provide them with consumer reviews for the products on your website? This is valuable because consumers won’t have to leave your site in order to search for product reviews, and good reviews may persuade consumers to make an instant purchasing decision.

Get Feedback

By implementing a feedback option on your e-commerce site, retailers have the ability to take into consideration how consumers view their site. Feedback can provide retailers with an outsider’s opinion about how informative the site is, if the site is easy to navigate and whether the site’s content and features are easy to understand. With this information, an e-commerce retailer can continuously improve their site and analyze recurring complaints or requests from consumers.