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Digital customer experience metrics: Uncovering the behavior behind the numbers

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3 4 Digital Customer

Experience Metrics

Introduction

Bird-Eye’s View of

In-Page Visitor

Behavior

Evaluating

Visitor

Interaction

Assessing the

Degree & Quality

of Engagement9 125

Final Musings

on Metrics

Form

Analytics 1615

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successful conversion - despite the fact that you are unlikely to ever return to that site again. As this example illustrates, although engagement generally represents a positive outcome, not all engagement is positive in actuality. In contrast to abandonment, which generally reflects a poor experience, visitors who are engaged and satisfied are poles apart from those who are engaged and frustrated, even when both experiences end in conversion. This e-book shows how Digital Customer Experience metrics help you go beyond the numbers to understand what your customers and visitors are really experiencing on your website, and use that complete, accurate picture to optimize engagement and revenue.

Introduction

As marketers, we rely on metrics as basic tools for assessing success and failure. But marketers are also website visitors who instantly recognize poor customer experiences when they occur. Perhaps you tried to purchase a sweater online, book an urgent flight or send a bouquet of flowers, but the website was not up to par. You might have experienced technical difficulties with order processing or could not find what you were looking for easily. You struggled and struggled and finally completed the purchase. But you swore never to use that website again! A marketer who looks only at the Time on Page metric might notice that you stayed on the page longer than average. She might even realize that you were having technical issues or trouble figuring out what to do. But once you completed the action, it was recorded as a

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Digital customer experience metricsMost analytics tools show you when a visitor abandons your website. But to understand why your visitors leave, you need insight into their actual behavior while still on the site. For example, knowing that many visitors clicked on non-clickable elements while looking for more information helps you understand their frustration, confusion or generally negative experience. Armed with real behavior insights, you can address the root cause by re-ordering or re-designomg page elements, optimizing site search, fixing form fields, or otherwise improving the experience.

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Bird-eye’s view ofin-page visitor behavior

web design?

Engagement-promoting

Attention to page elements?

Elements optimally

positioned?

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Does your web design promote engagement?

As we've already seen, Time on Page does not always equal positive engagement. It might indicate that your potential customer arrived on a page but was distracted and left the page open. The Engagement Time metric tells you how long your visitors were active on the page - moving their mouse, scrolling, tapping or clicking on images - so you can assess which page design is more engaging.

Bird-eye’s view of in-page visitor behaviorWhen you analyze website performance, your first step is to use traditional web analytics tools to get the big picture and to track visitor movement between pages. Once you’ve determined the general "health” of various site pages, more specialized metrics can help you drill down deeper and answer specific questions about visitor behavior on those pages.

Were visitors exposed to page elements?

The % of Page Views metric shows you the percentage of visitors who were exposed to elements on the page. It helps you see which elements drew more attention - for instance, whether many people saw a promotional banner placed on a specific page. It allows you to determine which areas on the webpage have the most valuable real estate for placing key elements or advertising.

% of Page Views Engagement Time

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How do I use these insights to optimize design?

By combining the % of Page Views and Engagement Time metrics you can assess if your webpage promotes visibility and engagement, and optimize layout accordingly. For example, if a small percentage of your visitors were exposed to a specific element but the engagement was significant, this means that the element should probably move to a more prominent spot. In contrast, if many visitors are exposed to a certain part of the page, but only engage with it briefly, you should consider removing elements or changing where they're placed.

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Scroll Reach Heatmap showing the % of Page Views on the page

Attention Heatmap showing the Engagement time on the page

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Are page elements optimally positioned?

The Average Scroll Reach metric helps you see the scroll reach for a specific page and the levels of interaction above and below the average page fold.

If the Average Scroll Reach goes below the average page fold, your page’s design is highly engaging (as seen in the example). If your Average Scroll Reach stops way above the fold, you can promote scrolling by adding visual cues, enhancing the visibility of key elements, and removing confusing elements.

Example: Clicktale’s Scroll Reach Heatmap reveals that many visitors scrolled down below the average page fold. This shows that the webpage is well-designed and encourages engagement.

AverageScroll Reach

AveragePage Fold

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START NOWSTART NOW NOW START

Driving Engagement?

Time to Click?

Conversionor Hesitation?

Evaluating visitorinteractions

NOWSTART

Promotingor ObstructingEngagement?

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high Hesitation show that the visitor was confused and not sure what to do or whether to go ahead and complete the action. Low Time to Click and low Hesitation show that the CTA or page layout was clear and inviting, promoting completion of the action.

Evaluating visitor interactionsIs your webpage layout effective and designed so that your Call to Action (CTA) elements encourage interaction and optimize the user experience? The following metrics can help you find out.

How long does it take for your page visitorsto click?

Time to Click shows you the average time from page load to any click. For example, a straightforward CTA that shows a longer than average Time to Click can indicate that visitors were distracted by an image on the page, or that the CTA is located in a place that is not highly visible.

Does your webpage layout promote conversion or hesitation?

The Hesitation metric measures the average time from beginning of mouse hover to mouse click. Combining Hesitation with Time to Click helps you better understand visitor interaction with the webpage: high Time to Click and

This form page includes fields that request sensitive information. Clicktale’s Form Analytics and Session Player revealed that visitors hesitated and hovered over the fields before they started filling them in

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Is your page layout driving engagement?

The Hover Conversion metric enables you to see the percentage of visitors that clicked on a link after they hovered over it. This metric helps you understand whether the feature facilitates visitor interaction. For example, if the Hover Conversion of a CTA is lower than average, it isn’t driving visitors to click. It might be unclear or poorly designed.

Is your webpage layout promoting or obstructing engagement?

Combining Hover Conversion and Hesitation clarifies the visitor’s decision making process. It helps identify conversion distractors and promoters. For example, high Hesitation and low Hover Conversion means that only a few visitors actually converted after hovering. This indicates that visitors are finding the CTA but something is preventing them from clicking on it. Is the information next to the CTA causing second thoughts or obstructing conversions?

Not Converted Changed Banner Position

Example: Clicktale’s Mouse Move Heatmaps showed that visitors were leaving the checkout because they were distracted by the secondary CTA. Once the banner position was changed, more visitors converted.

SecondaryCTA

SecondaryCTA

MainCTA

MainCTA

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Assessing the degree & quality of engagement

Quality ofEngagement

Visitor’sJourney

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Assessing the degree& quality of engagementOnce you have assessed the layout of the webpage, you can continue to zoom-in on how your visitors interact with specific elements on your page such as links and CTA’s.

What is the quality of the engagement on your webpages?

Hover Time measures visitors' interactions with elements that do not invite any action or respond to it. Seeing where visitors spend the most time on the webpage allows you to evaluate the extent to wich the page is appealing, engaging and clear. This is a useful metric for assessing engagement on text-heavy webpages, particularly when comparing content pages to actionable pages with CTA’s or forms.

Clicktale’s Mouse Move Heatmap revealing Hover Time for each page element

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What path do your visitors take on their journey through each webpage?

The Hover Order metric ranks links by the average order in which visitors hovered over them. It shows which links attract visitors first, second and so on (as seen in the example below).

This metric enables you to “connect the dots” and visualize your visitors’ path on a page. This enables you to eliminate distracting elements, drive more visitors to the desired path, and move them along the funnel.

Clicktale’s Link Analytics show Hover Order by ranking the average order in which visitors hovered over the elements

Steps of the customer journey

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Form analyticsForm Analytics provide an in-depth view of visitor interactions to help you optimize the effectiveness of online forms and minimize visitor frustration. They enable easy assessment of form usability and effectiveness through metrics such as percentage and number of visitors who interacted with the form but did not submit it; number and percentage of visitors who dropped at each form field; average visitor interaction time with each form field, and more.

Learn more about how you can dramatically increase conversions from your online forms by listening to our There’s more to Web Forms Optimization webinar.

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Submit

Email

Phone Number

Full Name*

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Country

Enter Your NameA

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I agree to the Terms53%

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Of visitors who interactedwith the form did notcomplete it

Of visitors droppedat the first form field

3sec

Average time visitorsinteracted with each field

Example: Clicktale’s form analytics showing actionable insights that go far beyond traditional web analytics metrics.

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Final musings on metrics

04

Customer- centricity

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Final musings on metricsWhile traditional analytics assess important metrics, they do not meet the challenge of obtaining a clear and accurate picture of the factors that contribute to customer engagement success or failure.

Digital Customer Experience metrics focus on the person behind the mouse clicks and analyze the quality of the person’s engagement. These metrics offer actionable insights that can move businesses forward by clarifying when an experience is positive or whether conversion was accompanied by a bad aftertaste. They also help clarify which actions and measures should be taken to improve website layout and optimize the overall customer experience.

In the age of customer-centric marketing, when optimized customer experience provides a true competitive edge, more companies are investing in understanding the way their customers engage with their websites. Make sure that your investment earns healthy returns by driving greater customer satisfaction and paving the way to business success.

Contact Clicktale to learn more about how to useDigital Customer Experience Metrics to better analyze and optimize engagement on your website.

Digital CustomerExperience metrics

behind the mouseclicks and taps

focus onthe person

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