Can customer behaviour history be a tool to increase online sales? I think it can be… Well, Numbers of returning or unique visitors are hardly numbers that will give you insight into what is causing more sales on your site or what is pushing your visitors away. The good news is the data is all available and it is easier now than ever to collect more data. Also, as the e-commerce market widens and reaches deeper into the population, more and more analytical tools are developed to help you track customer behaviour and increase your online sale.
How to observe customer behaviour to increase online sales
So, there are multiple ways to observe customer behaviour:
Information of past behaviour: You are in the money if your products are the kinds that warrant repetitive use. For example, a household would need a new set of bedsheets maybe every 10-12 months or the parents who have ordered size 1 diapers will most likely need size 2 in a few months or more of size 1 in a few weeks.
Integrating Google Analytics: From which pages the visitors landed on to where they left from to how much time they spent on which page and so on. Moreover, Google is constantly adding new features to their analytics.
Customer demographics: Customer demographics can tell you a lot more about them than meets the eye. For example, their zip code could tell you about the average income of the people from that area giving you an idea of your customer’s income.
Information on social media: Your customer’s social media profiles have a wealth of information waiting for you to explore. From the more obvious birth dates and anniversaries to the relatively subtle information on interests, likes and dislikes can be used to target products better.
Heatmaps: A heat map shows which area of your site is most clicked on or hovered on with the mouse/pointer. There are many tools available that are simple to install and provide invaluable data. Google analytics has “In-page Analytics” which provides very similar information.
Eye-tracking: Eye-trackers are devices that measure how the eye moves. These can be used to find out how the visitor is actually physically looking at your website. This will give valuable information that can be used to optimize the design of your site.
Having data is not enough, though. It is a matter of slicing and dicing the numbers in a way that you can use them right. Not all of us are equipped with analysing given data.
There are tones of tools available that offer a wide range of features to help you analyse, process the information in the form of graphs and tables, give suggestions on what to do next, and actually, give templates, where necessary, to begin with too.
Such tools offer to track all phases of the purchase process, refund data, discount usage, etc. The analysis could lead to answers for why you aren’t being able to retain customers for some products to what are the customers liking best.
Also, these tools use customer-wise amounts spent, time of purchase to create customer profiles. They will use the time taken to buy, the number of visits to the site and even help/customer service chats/e-mails to reach conclusions about customer behaviour.
This then can lead to decide on what type of campaign for a said customer profile. In addition, real-time analysis can lead to dynamic campaign management and identify real buyers from window-shoppers.
Such tools also make it easy for you to do the analysis yourself without having to rely on technical know-how.
With this information at your disposal, it is easy to get carried way. Don’t forget balance. There is a thing as over-use which could brand your online store as “weird” like one would brand a stalker. Be wary but do an experiment and use the data. After all, leaving out this analysis will keep you from extra sales. And who wants that?
