Only 10% of retailers use unique visitor-based metrics over time
Only
10% of retailers use unique visitor-based metrics over time to evaluate
demand generation activities while 63% rely on response and activity-based
metrics (clickthroughs, page views, visits and orders), according
to WebTrends. Although significant value can be gained from basic
activity-based metrics, using them to calculate campaign conversion leads
to double-counting and declining conversion rates over time even for
successful campaigns.
According to a survey of more than 300
multi-channel retailers by Web analytics provider WebTrends, the biggest
problems threatening the accuracy of retailers' metrics are the use of
third party cookies and the misuse of activity-based metrics like page
views or response-based metrics like clickthroughs, to measure
demand-generation activities, writes
ClickZ. Instead, marketers should be using visitor-based metrics like
unique visitors and deferred conversions, which are tracked over time,
according to Jason Palmer, VP of marketing at WebTrends.
Report Highlights:
Report Highlights:
- Segmenting users, even at the basic level of separating new and returning visitors, can have a dramatic impact on campaign performance. For example, while overall conversion rate might be 1.8%, you might find out that first-time visitors converted at 1% and repeat visitors at 3%.
- The number of retailers that are identifying unique visitors increased from 32% last year to 44% this year.
- The rejection rate of third party cookies can exceed 20%, while for first party cookies it can be as low as 0.5%. The use of first party cookies by retailers grew by only 1%, reaching 25%.
- More than 80% of respondents said they regularly use e-mails for demand-generation activities - build and maintain customer relationships.
For client Designer Linens Outlet, cookie rejection was cut by more than 97% when it switched from using third party cookies to first party ones. As a result, it found its return visitor count increased by 10%, and its conversion rate went up by 20%. Because the company was better able to reallocate budget to successful campaigns, marketing costs went down by more than 23% while revenues increased by 3.5%, Palmer said.
