Simplifying Visitor Engagement

For this month, I'd like to introduce Bill Bruno as a guest writer to WebSight. Bill is a Principal at Stratigent currently acting as the head of business development, sales, and training services. He also supports the services team on strategic projects. He has extensive experience helping clients with a wide range of business initiatives to optimize their online marketing activities. In the following edition of WebSight, Bill will utilize his experience gained from previous client interactions to give his viewpoint on Visitor Engagement.

Defining the Indefinable

The term "Visitor Engagement" has become a confusing concept to say the least. Many people have written and spoken about it, but always at a high level which generally leaves marketers with the inability to take action on this concept. To date, I prefer Avinash’s viewpoint on Visitor Engagement (http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/), but wanted to expand upon it a bit further. The term "Visitor Engagement" truly does mean something different for everyone, but here at Stratigent we have been able to define the concept based on client experiences.

The definition differs from client to client because no two websites are alike. If every website was the same, then analytics would be easy. My "definition" of Visitor Engagement is as follows:

"The amount of key processes completed during a visitor’s lifetime prioritized and analyzed across the site as a whole or within pre-defined segments."

In theory, that should be relatively straightforward to measure. I have built a 4 step process to help you understand your Visitor Engagement process and ultimately make business decisions based off the data you are collecting.

Phase 1: Set your Goals

This is the fundamental building block for any analysis that you plan to conduct. There is a reason you have a site, just as there is a reason for every individual page within that site. Taking this a step further, there is a purpose for every campaign and driver to your site. The money invested across the site and its initiatives is not something you want to be in vain. By establishing this purpose, the murky waters become clearer. First, identify the type of site that you have from the following list:

• Lead Generation
• Branding
• E-Commerce
• Self-Service

For larger companies, you might have a medley of the above list. If that is the case, then analyze each site section differently. Second, establish what you want a visitor to do while on the site, keeping in mind that your "key processes" don’t necessarily have to be a multiple-step process. It could be as simple as viewing a single page or as complicated as an 8-step purchase process. Here’s a basic list to get you started:

 

Once you have established the purpose and processes on your site, you’re ready to move on to Phase 2.

Phase 2: Prioritize Your Events

Prioritization is necessary to help you understand just how "valuable" your visitors are as it pertains to their activity on the site. Priority is generally the toughest concept, especially when you have different business groups each with different goals. That is perfectly normal, and the way to work around the concept of multiple business units is to let each unit create their own prioritized list.

Your priorities, just like your website, will change over time. However, that does not make this phase any less important. Analytics is a part-time job for the majority of you reading this newsletter and prioritization will help you to focus on what matters most instead of falling victim to data overload.

A prioritization is simply a list of the success events you want a visitor to complete. Your list(s) may look something like this:

1. Completed a Sales Contact Form
2. Viewed More than One Video
3. Downloaded a Brochure
4. Signed up for the Newsletter

As you make changes to the site, this list will change over time. In addition, each campaign that you initiate will have its own list based upon the purpose for that campaign. Once you have established the prioritization of events, you are ready to move on to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Assigning Value

Now that you have established which events are most important to your business, you need to assign a value to each individual event. Don’t let this scare you off, as you can start very simple and mature the model over time. Here are a couple examples to get you started:

These "values" can be stored within your analytics solution using custom variables, and are set on the Conversion Page. Example 1 shows each conversion equally weighted, allowing you to understand conversion as a whole. Example 2 has a ranking associated with the events, where event 2 is the most important event and event 1 is the least important. Example 3 brings up an interesting topic of discussion. Revenue parameters aren’t just for E-commerce sites. For example, if you have a contact form and you know how much revenue is generally created offline by someone who fills out that form you can begin to establish the math behind calculating the true “value” that event contributes. If your event is a purchase, you can use Average Order Value as the value measurement.

By establishing these values, you can begin to view Visitor Engagement within your analytics system as an average, a sum, or individually as it pertains to the site as a whole or any campaigns that may be running. Insight into a Visitor’s Lifetime Value also becomes evident as this dataset grows.

Phase 4: Segmentation and Analysis

Creating a system to measure engagement is half the battle. The rest of your time should be focused on the analysis and optimization of your site and campaigns based upon the actionable insights you derive from the reporting. Looking at Visitor Engagement across the site as a whole is nice, but the real value comes from breaking that down further. Set up reporting to examine the Visitor Engagement for campaigns on an individual and aggregate level, break down Visitor Engagement by referring sources, and ultimately empower yourself with the dataset that allows you to gain understanding about your website and campaign effectiveness. Some of the reports might look like the following:

Example 1: A report that shows the Average Visitor Engagement (Calculated by Established Values), and the number of times each event was completed, broken down by Campaign.

Example 2: A report that shows the Average Visitor Engagement (Calculated by Established Values), and the number of times each event was completed, broken down by Referring Source.

Putting It All Together

While Visitor Engagement is a high level term that is different for everyone, the process behind the struggle of defining the concept is where the value truly lies. If you can prioritize the purpose for your site and every campaign you initiate, you will be able to understand the effectiveness of your efforts by following the process outlined above. 

 

Josh Manion

Chief Executive Officer

Stratigent, LLC

 

For more information please contact 877-427-8900 or email info@stratigent.com.