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Web Analytics Reports : 10 Key Types and How to Use Them
29 janvier, par ErinYou can’t optimise your website to drive better results if you don’t know how visitors are engaging with your site.
But how do you correctly analyse data and identify patterns? With the right platform, you can use a wide range of web analytics reports to dive deep into the data.
In this article, we’ll discuss what website analytics reports are, different types, why you need them, and how to use reports to find the insights you need.
What is web analytics?
Website analytics is the process of gathering, processing, and analysing data that shows what users are doing when they visit your website.
You typically achieve this with web analytics tools by adding a tracking code that shares data with the analytics platform when someone visits the site.
The visitors trigger the tracking code, which collects data on how they act while on your site and then sends that information to the analytics platform. You can then see the data in your analytics solution and create reports based on this data.
While there are a lot of web analytics solutions available, this article will specifically demonstrate reports using Matomo.
What are web analytics reports?
Web analytics reports are analyses that focus on specific data points within your analytics platform.
For example, this channel report in Matomo shows the top referring channels of a website.
Your marketing team can use this report to determine which channels drive the best results. In the example above, organic search drives almost double the visits and actions of social campaigns.
If you’re investing the same amount of money, you’d want to move more of your budget from social to search.
Why you need to get familiar with specific web analytics reports
The default web analytics dashboard offers an overview of high-level trends in performance. However, it usually does not give you specific insights that can help you optimise your marketing campaigns.
For example, you can see that your conversions are down month over month. But, at a glance, you do not understand why that is.
To understand why, you need to go granular and wider — looking into qualifying data that separates different types of visitors from each other.
Gartner predicts that 70% of organisations will focus on “small and wide” data by 2025 over “big data.” Most companies lack the data volume to simply let big data and algorithms handle the optimising.
What you can do instead is dive deep into each visitor. Figure out how they engage with your site, and then you can adjust your campaigns and page content accordingly.
Common types of web analytics reports
There are dozens of different web analytics reports, but they usually fall into four separate categories:
- Referral sources: These reports show where your visitors come from. They range from channel reports — search, social media — to specific campaigns and ads.
- Engagement (on-site actions): These reports dive into what visitors are doing on your site. They break down clicks, scrolling, completed conversion goals, and more.
- E-commerce performance: These reports show the performance of your e-commerce store. They’ll help you dive into the sales of individual products, trends in cart abandonment and more.
- Demographics: These reports help you understand more about your visitors — where they’re visiting from, their browser language, device, and more.
You can even combine insights across all four using audience segmentation and custom reports. (We’ll cover this in more detail later.)
How to use 10 important website analytics reports
The first step is to install the website analytics code on your website. (We include more detailed information in our guide on how to track website visitors.)
Then, you need to wait until you have a few days (or, if you have limited traffic, a few weeks) of data. Without sufficient website visitor data, none of the reports will be meaningful.
Visitor Overview report
First, let’s take a look at the Visitor Overview report. It’s a general report that breaks down the visits over a given time period.
What this report shows:
- Trends in unique visits month over month
- Basic engagement trends like the average visit length and bounce rate
- The number of actions taken per page
In general, this report is more of a high-level indicator you can use to explore certain areas more thoroughly. For example, if most of your traffic comes from organic traffic or social media, you can dive deeper into those channels.
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Location report
Next up, we have the most basic type of demographic report — the Location report. It shows where your visitors tend to access your website from.
What this report shows:
- The country, state or city your visitors access your website from
This report is most useful for identifying regional trends. You may notice that your site is growing in popularity in a country. You can take advantage of this by creating a regional campaign to double down on a high performing audience.
Device report
Next, we have the Device report, which breaks down your visitors’ devices.
What this report shows:
- Overall device types used by your visitors
- Specific device models used
Today, most websites are responsive or use mobile-first design. So, just seeing that many people access your site through smartphones probably isn’t all that surprising.
But you should ensure your responsive design doesn’t break down on popular devices. The design may not work effectively because many phones have different screen resolutions.
Users Flow report
The Users Flow report dives deeper into visitor engagement — how your visitors act on your site. It shows common landing pages — the first page visitors land on — and how they usually navigate your site from there.
What this report shows:
- Popular landing pages
- How your visitors most commonly navigate your site
You can use this report to determine which intermediary pages are crucial to keeping visitors engaged. For example, you can prioritise optimisation and rewriting for case study pages that don’t get a lot of direct search or campaign traffic.
Improving this flow can improve conversion rates and the impact of your marketing efforts.
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Exit Pages report
The Exit Pages report complements the Users Flow report well. It highlights the most common pages visitors leave your website from.
What this report shows:
- The most common exit pages on your website
- The exit rates of these pages
Pages with high exit rates fall into two categories. The first are pages where it makes sense that visitors leave, like a post-purchase thank-you page. The second are pages where you’d want your visitors to stay and keep flowing down the funnel. When the rates are unusually high on product pages, category pages, or case study pages, you may have found a problem.
By combining insights from the Users Flow and Exit Pages reports, you can find valuable candidates for optimisation. This is a key aspect of effective conversion rate optimisation.
Traffic Acquisition Channel report
The Acquisition Channels report highlights the channels that drive the most visitors to your site.
What this report shows:
- Top referring traffic sources by channel type
- The average time on site, bounce rates, and actions taken by the source
Because of increasingly privacy-sensitive browsers and apps, the best way to reliably track traffic sources is to use campaign tracking URL. Matomo offers an easy-to-use campaign tracking URL builder to simplify this process.
Search Engines and Keywords report
The Search Engines and Keywords report shows which keywords are driving the most organic search traffic and from what search engines.
What this report shows:
- Search engine keywords that drive traffic
- The different search engines that refer visitors
One of the best ways to use this report is to identify low-hanging fruit. You want to find keywords driving some traffic where your page isn’t ranked in the top three results. If the keyword has high traffic potential, you should then work to optimise that page to rank higher and get more traffic. This technique is an efficient way to improve your SEO performance.
Ecommerce Products report
If you sell products directly on your website, the Ecommerce Products report is a lifesaver. It shows you exactly how all your products are performing.
What this report shows:
- How your products are selling
- The average sale price (with coupons) and quantity
This report could help an online retailer identify top-selling items, adjust pricing based on average sale prices, and strategically allocate resources to promote or restock high-performing products for maximum profitability.
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Ecommerce Log report
If you want to explore every single ecommerce interaction, the Ecommerce Log report is for you. It breaks down the actions of visitors who add products to their cart in real time.
What this report shows:
- The full journey of completed purchases and abandoned carts
- The exact actions your potential customers take and how long their journeys last
If you suspect that the user experience of your online store isn’t perfect, this report helps you confirm or deny that suspicion. By closely examining individual interactions, you can identify common exit pages or other issues.
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Introducing the Matomo Connector for Looker Studio (Formerly Google Data Studio)
26 janvier, par Erin — CommunityExplore Matomo data like never before with the official Matomo Connector for Looker Studio. Matomo users can now securely display accurate web analytics data in Looker Studio for free.
Connect Matomo to Looker Studio (formerly known as Google Data Studio) in a few clicks and start building dashboards instantly. Get access to a range of data visualisation capabilities and chart types in Looker Studio’s easy-to-use interface.
Leave behind manual, error-prone spreadsheet entries and disparate data. With the Matomo Connector for Looker Studio, you get unified, automated reporting and interactive dashboards for faster insights and smoother collaboration.
What sets the official Matomo Connector for Looker Studio apart?
Our open-source connector puts security first by providing a reliable connection without relying on third-party intermediaries. It’s free, with no hidden charges, and no limits on the number of users or Matomo instances. Connect as many instances as you need.
Plus, our Support team is here anytime you need help.
Who is this connector made for?
The Matomo Connector for Looker Studio is a good fit for institutions and corporations using Looker Studio, NGOs handling multiple entities, marketing agencies with various clients, and small to medium-sized businesses with advanced data practices.
When is this connector not the best fit?
If you prioritise privacy and compliance, this might not be the right fit. The Looker Studio app operates on Google servers, and while we don’t log or store any data, privacy considerations should be carefully evaluated. Transferring data, especially visitor data, to external platforms can have privacy implications.
Getting started
Check out our documentation for an easy setup.
To help, we’ve also created a template report so you can visualise your Matomo data instantly.
Here’s how to get started:
- Visit the demo template report in Looker Studio
- Click the more options button then Make a copy
- Click Create data source within the New Data Source dropdown.
- Connect your Matomo (Full Connection Guide)
- Select the API > Main Metrics report
- Click Connect and then Add to Report
- Click Copy Report to finalise
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What is Funnel Analysis ? A Complete Guide for Quick Results
25 janvier, par ErinYour funnel is leaking.
You’re losing visitors.
You’re losing conversions and sales.
But you don’t know how it’s happening, where it’s happening, or what to do about it.
The reason? You aren’t properly analysing your funnels.
If you want to improve conversions and grow your business, you need to understand how to properly assess your sales funnels to set yourself up for success.
In this guide, we’ll show you what funnel analysis is, why it’s important, and what steps you need to take to leverage it to improve conversions.
What is funnel analysis?
Every business uses sales funnels, whether they know it or not.
But most people aren’t analysing them, costing them conversions.
Funnel analysis is a marketing method to analyse the events leading to specific conversion points.
It aims to look at the entire journey of potential customers from the moment they first touch base with your website or business to the moment they click “buy.”
It’s assessing what your audience is doing at every step of the journey.
By assessing what actions are taking place at scale, you can see where you’re falling short in your sales funnel.
You’ll see:
- Where prospects are falling off.
- Where people are converting well.
By gaining this understanding, you’ll better understand the health of your website’s sales funnels and overall marketing strategy.
With that knowledge, you can optimise your marketing strategy to patch those leaks, improve conversions and grow your business.
Why funnel analysis is important
Funnel analysis is critical because your funnel is your business.
When you analyse your funnel, you’re analysing your business.
You’re looking at what’s working and what’s not so you can grow revenue and profit margins.
Funnel analysis lets you monitor user behaviour to show you the motivation and intention behind their decisions.
Here are five reasons you need to incorporate funnel analysis into your workflow.
1. Gives insights into your funnel problems
The core purpose of funnel analysis is to look at what’s going on on your website.
What are the most effective steps to conversion?
Where do users drop off in the conversion process?
And which pages contribute the most to conversion or drop-offs?
Funnel analysis helps you understand what’s going on with your site visitors. Plus, it helps you see what’s wrong with your funnel.
If you aren’t sure what’s happening with your funnel, you won’t know what to improve to grow your revenue.
2. Improves conversions
When you know what’s going on with your funnel, you’ll know how to improve it.
To improve your conversion funnel, you need to close the leaks. These are areas where website visitors are falling off.
It’s the moment the conversion is lost.
You need to use funnel analysis to give insight into these problem areas. Once you can see where the issue is, you can patch that leak and improve the percentage of visitors who convert.
For example, if your conversion rate on your flagship product page has plateaued and you can’t figure out how to increase conversions, implementing a funnel analysis tactic like heatmaps will show you that visitors are spending time reading your product description. Still, they’re not spending much time near your call to action.
This might tell you that you need to update your description copy or adjust your button (i.e. colour, size, copy). You can increase conversions by making those changes in your funnel analysis insights.
3. Improves the customer experience
Funnel analysis helps you see where visitors spend their time, what elements they interact with and where they fall off.
One of the key benefits of analysing your funnel is you’ll be able to help improve the experience your visitors have on your website.
For example, if you have informational videos on a specific web page to educate your visitors, you might use the Media Analytics feature in your web analytics solution to find out that they’re not spending much time watching them.
This could lead you to believe that the content itself isn’t good or relevant to them.
But, after implementing session recordings within your funnel analysis, you see people clicking a ton near the play button. This might tell you that they’re having trouble clicking the actual button on the video player due to poor UX.
In this scenario, you could update the UX on your web page so the videos are easy to click and watch, no matter what device someone uses.
With more video viewers, you can provide value to your visitors instead of leaving them frustrated trying to watch your videos.
4. Grows revenue
This is what you’re likely after: more revenue.
More often than not, this means you need to focus on improving your conversion rate.
Funnel analysis helps you find those areas where visitors are exiting so you can patch those leaks up and turn more visitors into customers.
Let’s say you have a conversion rate of 1.7%.
You get 50,000 visitors per month.
Your average order is $82.
Even if you increase your conversion rate by 10% (to 1.87%) through funnel analysis, here’s the monthly difference in revenue:
Before: $69,700
After: $76,670In one year, you’ll make nearly $80,000 in additional revenue from funnel analysis alone.
Different types of funnel analysis
There are a few different types of funnel analysis.
How you define success in your funnel all comes down to one of these four pillars.
Depending on your goals, business and industry, you may want to assess the different funnel analyses at different times.
1. Pageview funnel analysis
Pageview funnel analysis is about understanding how well your website content is performing.
It helps you enhance user experience, making visitors stay longer on your site. By identifying poor performing pages (pages with high exit rates), you can pinpoint areas that need optimisation for better engagement.
2. Conversion funnel analysis
Next up, we’re looking at conversion funnel analysis.
This type of funnel analysis is crucial for marketers aiming to turn website visitors into action-takers. This involves tracking and optimising conversion goals, such as signing up for newsletters, downloading ebooks, submitting forms or signing up for free trials.
The primary goal of conversion funnel analysis is to boost your website’s overall conversion rates.
3. E-commerce funnel analysis
For businesses selling products online, e-commerce funnel analysis is essential.
It involves measuring whether your products are being purchased and finding drop-off points in the purchasing process.
By optimising the e-commerce funnel, you can enhance revenue and improve the overall efficiency of your sales process.
How to conduct funnel analysis
Now that you understand what funnel analysis is, why it’s important, and the different types of analysis, it’s time to show you how to do it yourself.
To get started with funnel analysis, you need to have the right web analytics solution.
Here are the most common funnel analysis tools and methods you can use:
1. Funnel analytics
If you want to choose a single tool to conduct funnel analysis, it’s an all-in-one web analytics tool, like Matomo.
With Matomo’s Funnel Analytics, you can dive into your whole funnel and analyse each step (and each step’s conversion rate).
For instance, if you look at the example above, you can see the proceed rate at each funnel step before the conversion page.
This means you can improve each proceed rate, to drive more traffic to your conversion page in order to increase conversion rates.
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2. Heatmaps
Heatmaps is a behaviour analytics tool that lets you see different visitor activities, including:
- Mouse movement
- How far down visitors scroll
- Clicks
You can see which elements were clicked on and which weren’t and how far people scroll down your page.
A heatmap lets you see which parts of a page are getting the most attention and which parts go unnoticed by your users.
For example, if, during your funnel analysis, you see that a lot of visitors are falling off after they land on the checkout page, then you might want to add a heatmap on your checkout page to see where and why people are exiting.
3. Session recordings
Want to see what individual users are doing and how they’re interacting with your site?
Then, you’ll want to check out session recordings.
A session recording is a video playback of a visitor’s time on your website.
4. A/B testing
If you want to take the guesswork out of optimising your funnel and increasing your conversions, you need to start A/B testing.
An A/B test is where you create two versions of a web page to determine which one converts better.
For example, if your heatmaps and session recordings show that your users are dropping off near your call to action, it may be time to test a new version.
You may find that by simply testing a different colour button, you may increase conversions by 20% or more.
5. Form analytics
Are you trying to get more leads to fill out forms on your site?
Well, Form Analytics can help you understand how your website visitors interact with your signup forms.
This information allows you to optimise your forms effectively, ultimately maximising your success.
Let’s look at the performance of a form using Matomo’s Form Analytics feature below.
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Start optimising your funnels with Matomo today
If you want to optimise your business, you must optimise your funnels.
Without information on what’s working and what’s not, you’ll never know if your website changes are making a difference.
Worse yet, you could have underperforming stages in your funnel, but you won’t know unless you start looking.
Funnel analysis changes that.
By analysing your funnels regularly, you’ll be able to see where visitors are leaking out of your funnel. That way, you can get more visitors to convert without generating more traffic.
If you want to improve conversions and grow revenue today, try Matomo’s Funnel Analytics feature.
You’ll be able to see conversion rates, drop-offs, and fine-tuned details on each step of your funnel so you can turn more potential customers into paying customers.
Additionally, Matomo comes equipped with features like heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing, and form analytics to optimise your funnels with confidence.
Try Matomo free for 21-days. No credit card required.
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Web Analytics : The Quick Start Guide
25 janvier, par ErinYou’ve spent ages carefully designing your website, crafting copy to encourage as many users as possible to purchase your product.
But they aren’t. And you don’t know why.
The good news is you don’t have to remain in the dark. Collecting and analysing web analytics lets you understand how your users behave on your site and why they aren’t converting.
But before you can do that, you need to know what those metrics and KPIs mean. That’s why this article is taking things back to basics. Below, we’ll show you which metrics to track, what they mean and how to choose the best web analytics platform.
What is web analytics?
Web analytics is the process of collecting, analysing and reporting website data to understand how users behave on your website. Web analytics platforms like Matomo collect this data by adding a code line to every site page.
Why is it important to track web analytics?
There are plenty of reasons you should start tracking web analytics, including the following:
Analyse user behaviour
Being able to analyse user behaviour is the most important reason to track website analytics. After all, you can’t improve your website’s conversion rate if you don’t know what users do on your site.
A web analytics platform can show you how users move around your site, the links they click on and the forms they fill in.
Improve site experience
Web analytics is a fantastic way to identify issues and find areas where your site could improve. You could look at your site’s exit pages, for example, and see why so many users leave your site when viewing one of these pages and what you can do to fix it.
It can also teach you about your user’s preferences so you can improve the user experience in the future. Maybe they always click a certain type of button or prefer one page’s design over another. Whatever the case, you can use the data to make your site more user-friendly and increase conversions.
Boost marketing efforts
Web analytics is one of the best ways to understand your marketing efforts and learn how to improve them.
A good platform can collect valuable data about your marketing campaigns, including:
- Where users came from
- What actions these users take on your site
- Which traffic sources create the most conversions
This information can help you decide which marketing campaigns send the best users to your site and generate the highest ROI.
Make informed decisions
Ultimately, web analytics simplifies decision-making for your website and marketing efforts by relying on concrete data instead of guesswork.
Rather than wonder why users aren’t adding products to their shopping cart or signing up for your newsletter, you can analyse how they behave and use that information to hypothesise how you can improve conversions. Web analytics will even give you the data to confirm whether you were right or wrong.
What are the key metrics you should track?
Getting your head around web analytics means knowing the most important metrics to track. Below are seven key metrics and how to track them using Matomo.
Traffic
Traffic is the number of people visiting your website over a period of time. It is the lifeblood of your website since the more visits your site receives, the more revenue it stands to generate.
However, simply having a high volume of visitors does not guarantee substantial revenue. To maximise your success, focus on attracting your ideal customers and generating quality traffic from those who are most likely to engage with your offerings.
Ideally, you should be seeing an upward trend in traffic over time though. The longer your website has been published and the more quality and targeted content you create, the more traffic you should receive.
Matomo offers multiple ways to check your website’s traffic:
The visits log report in Matomo is perfect if you want a granular view of your visitors.
It shows you each user session and get a detailed picture of each user, including:
- Their geographic location
- The number of actions they took
- How they found your site
- The length of time they stayed
- Their device type
- What browser they are using
- The keyword they used to find your site
Traffic sources
Traffic sources show how users access your website. They can enter via a range of traffic sources, including search engines, email and direct visits, for instance.
Matomo has five default traffic source types:
- Search engine – visitors from search platforms (like Google, Bing, etc.)
- Direct traffic – individuals who directly type your website’s URL into their browser or have it bookmarked, bypassing search engines or external links
- Websites – visits from other external sites
- Campaigns – traffic resulting from specific marketing initiatives (like a newsletter or ad campaign, for instance)
- Social networks – visitors who access your website through various social media platforms (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. etc.)
But each of these can be broken into more granular sources. Take organic traffic from search engines, for example:
Matomo tracks visits from each search engine, showing you how many visits you had in total, how many actions those visitors took, and the average amount of time those visitors spent on your site.
You can even integrate Google, Bing and Yahoo search consoles to monitor keyword performance and enhance your search engine optimisation efforts.
Pageviews
Whenever a browser loads a page, your web analytics tool records a pageview. This term, pageview, represents the count of unique times a page on your website is loaded.
You can track pageviews in Matomo by opening the Pages tab in the Behaviour section of the main navigation.
You can quickly see your site’s most visited pages in this report in Matomo.
Be careful of deriving too much meaning from pageviews. Just because a page has lots of views, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s quality or valuable. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the page might be confusing, so users have to keep revisiting it to understand the content. Second, it could be the default page most visitors land on when they enter your site, like the homepage.
While pageviews offer insights, it’s important to dig deeper into user behaviour and other metrics to truly gauge a page’s importance and impact.
Average time on page
Time on page is the amount of time users spend on the page on average. You can see average time on page in Matomo’s page analytics report.
A low time on page score isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Users will naturally spend less time on gateway pages and checkout pages. A short time spent on checkout pages, especially if users are successfully completing their transactions, indicates that the checkout process is easy and seamless.
Conversely, a longer time on blog posts is a positive indicator. It suggests that readers are genuinely engaged with the content.
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Returning visitors
Returning visitors measures the number of people who visit your site more than once. It can be expressed as a number or a percentage.
While some analytics tools only show returning visitors as a percentage, Matomo lets you learn more about each of them in the Visitor profile report.
This report offers a full summary of a user’s previous actions, including:
- How many times they’ve visited your site
- The pages they viewed on each visit
- Where they visited from
- The devices they used
- How quickly pages loaded
When people keep coming back to a website, it’s usually a positive sign and means they like the service, content or products. But, it depends on the type of website. If it’s the kind of site where people make one-off purchases, the focus might not be on getting visitors to return. For a site like this, a high number of returning visitors could indicate that the website is confusing or difficult to use.
It’s all about the context – different websites have different goals, and it’s important to keep this in mind when analysing your site.
Conversions
A conversion is when a user takes a desired action on your website. This could be:
- Making a purchase
- Subscribing to your newsletter
- Signing up for a webinar
You can track virtually any action as a conversion in Matomo by setting goals and analysing the goals report.
As you can see in the screenshot above, Matomo shows your conversions plotted over time. You can also see your conversion rate to get a complete picture and assign a value to each conversion to calculate how much revenue each conversion generates.
Bounce rate
A visitor bounces when they leave your website without taking an action or visiting another page.
Typically, you want bounce rate to be low because it means people are engaged with your site and more likely to convert. However, in some cases, a high bounce rate isn’t necessarily bad. It might mean that visitors found what they needed on the first page and didn’t feel the need to look further.
The impact of bounce rate depends on your website’s purpose and goals.
You can view your website’s bounce rate using Matomo’s page analytics report — the same report that shows pageviews.
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Web analytics best practices
You should follow several best practices to get the most from website analytics data.
Choose metrics that align with your goals
Only some metrics your analytics platform tracks will be relevant to your business. So don’t waste time analysing all of them.
Instead, focus on the ones that matter most to your business. A marketer for an e-commerce store, for example, might focus on conversion-related metrics like conversion rate and total number of transactions. They might also want to look at campaign-related metrics, like traffic sources and bounce rates, so they can optimise paid ad campaigns accordingly.
A marketer looking to improve their site’s SEO, on the other hand, will want to track SEO web analytics like bounce rate and broken links.
Add context to your data
Don’t take your data at face value. There could be dozens of factors that impact how visitors access and use your site — many of which are outside your control.
For example, you may think an update to your site has sent your conversions crashing when, in reality, a Google algorithm update has negatively impacted your search traffic.
Adding annotations within Matomo can provide invaluable context to your data. These annotations can be used to highlight specific events, changes or external factors that might influence your website metrics.
By documenting significant occurrences, such as website updates, marketing campaigns or algorithm changes, you create a timeline that helps explain fluctuations in your data.
Go further with advanced web analytics features
It’s clear that a web analytics platform is a necessary tool to understand your website’s performance.
However, if you want greater confidence in decision-making, quicker insights and better use of budget and resources, you need an advanced solution with behavioural analytics features like heatmaps, A/B testing and session recordings.
Most web analytics solutions don’t offer these advanced features, but Matomo does, so we’ll be showcasing Matomo’s behavioural analytics features.
Now, if you don’t have a Matomo account, you can try it free for 21-days to see if it’s the right tool for you.
A heatmap, like the example above, makes it easy to discover where your users pay attention, which part of your site they have problems with, and how they convert. It adds a layer of qualitative data to the facts offered by your web analytics tool.
Similarly, session recordings will offer you real-time playbacks of user interactions, helping you understand their navigation patterns, identify pain points and gain insights into the user experience.
Then you can run experiments bu using A/B testing to compare different versions of your website or specific elements, allowing you to make informed decisions based on actual user preferences and behaviour. For instance, you can compare different headlines, images, page layouts or call-to-action buttons to see which resonates better with your audience.
Together, these advanced features will give you the confidence to optimise your website, improve user satisfaction and make data-driven decisions that positively impact your business.
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How to choose a web analytics tool
A web analytics tool is the best way to track the above metrics. Choose the best one for your company by following the steps below.
Look for the right features
Most popular web analytics platforms, like Google Analytics, will offer the same core features like tracking website traffic, monitoring conversions and generating reports.
But it’s the added features that set great tools apart. Do you need specific tools to measure the performance of your e-commerce store, for example? What about paid ad performance, A/B testing or form analytics?
By understanding exactly what you need from an analytics platform, you can make an informed choice.
Think about data accuracy
Data accuracy is one of the biggest issues with analytics tools. Many users block cookies or opt out of tracking, making it difficult to get a clear picture of user behaviour — and meaning that you have to think about how your user data will be collected with your chosen platform.
Google Analytics, for instance, uses data sampling to make assumptions about traffic levels rather than relying on accurate data. This can lead to inaccurate reports and false conclusions.
It’s why Matomo doesn’t use data sampling and provides 100% accurate data.
Understand how you’ll deal with data privacy
Data privacy is another big concern for analytics users. Several major analytics platforms aren’t compatible with regional data privacy laws like GDPR, which can impact your ability to collect data in these regions.
It’s why many companies trust privacy-focused analytics tools that abide by regulations without impacting your ability to collect data. Matomo is a market leader in this respect and is one of the few web analytics tools that the Centre for Data Privacy Protection in France has said is exempt from tracking consent requirements.
Many government agencies across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, including organisations like the United Nations and European Commission, rely on Matomo for web analytics.
Conclusion
Web analytics is a powerful tool that helps you better understand your users, improve your site’s performance and boost your marketing efforts.
If you want a platform that offers advanced features, 100% accurate data and protects your users’ privacy, then look no further than Matomo.
Try Matomo free for 21 days, no credit card required.
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Conversion Funnel Optimisation : 10 Ways to Convert More
24 janvier, par ErinConverting leads into happy customers is the ultimate goal of any sales and marketing team. But there are many steps in between those two events, or in other words, funnel stages.
Your sales funnel includes all the steps you take to make your audience aware of your product or services and convince them to purchase. Conversion funnel optimisation strategies can help you move users through the stages of your sales funnel.
This article will show you how to optimise your conversion funnel and boost sales — no matter how your funnel looks. We’ll go over practical tips you can implement and how you can analyse and measure results.
Let’s get started.
What is conversion funnel optimisation?
Conversion funnel optimisation is the strategic and ongoing process of refining and improving the different stages of a sales or marketing funnel to increase the rate at which users complete desired actions.
A sales funnel represents the stages a potential customer goes through before purchasing.
The typical stages of a sales funnel include:
- Awareness: At the top of the funnel, potential customers become aware of your product or service.
- Consideration: In this stage, prospects evaluate the product or service against alternatives. They may compare features, prices and customer reviews to make an informed decision.
- Conversion: The prospect completes the transaction and becomes an actual customer by purchasing.
- Loyalty: You can turn one-time buyers into repeat customers and brand advocates.
It’s called a “funnel” because, similar to the shape of a funnel, the number of potential customers decreases as they progress through the various stages of the sales process — as you can see illustrated below.
Sales funnels can vary across industries and business models, but the general concept remains the same. The goal is to guide potential customers through each funnel stage, addressing their needs and concerns at each step, ultimately leading to a successful conversion.
You can create and monitor a custom funnel for your site’s user journey with a web analytics solution like Matomo.
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The importance of conversion funnel optimisation
At the heart of conversion funnel optimisation is the quest for higher conversion rates.
Refining the customer journey can increase the chances of turning visitors into customers who return repeatedly.
Specifically, here’s how conversion funnel optimisation can benefit your business:
- Increased conversions: Marketers can increase the likelihood of turning website visitors into customers by making the user journey more user-friendly and persuasive.
- Higher revenue: Improved conversion rates aren’t just numbers on a chart; they translate to tangible revenue.
- Increased ROI (return on investment): By optimising the conversion funnel, you can get more value from your marketing and sales efforts.
- Improved customer satisfaction: When customers find it easy and enjoyable to interact with a website or service, it positively influences their satisfaction and likelihood of returning.
- Data-driven decision-making: Businesses can make informed decisions on budgets and resources based on user behaviour and performance metrics by analysing and optimising conversion funnels.
Ultimately, conversion funnel optimisation efforts align the entire funnel with overarching business goals.
10 ways to optimise your conversion funnel
Here are 10 ways to optimise your conversion funnel.
1. Identify and segment your target audience
The key to a successful conversion funnel begins with a deep understanding of your target audience.
Identifying and segmenting your audience lets you speak directly to their pain points, desires and motivations.
One effective way to know your audience better is by creating detailed buyer personas. These are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on thorough market research and real data. Dive into demographics and behavioural patterns to craft personas that resonate with your audience.
Note that consumer preferences are not static. They evolve, influenced by trends, technological advancements and shifts in societal values. Staying attuned to these changes is crucial as part of optimising your conversion funnel.
Thus, you must regularly update your buyer personas and adjust your marketing strategies accordingly.
2. Create content for every stage of the funnel
Each funnel stage represents a different mindset and needs for your potential customers. Tailoring your content ensures you deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience.
Here’s how to tailor your content to fit prospective customers at every conversion funnel stage.
Awareness-stage content
Prospects here are seeking information. Your content should be educational and focused on addressing their pain points. Create blog posts, infographics and videos introducing them to your industry, product or service.
Consideration-stage content
Prospects are evaluating their options. Provide content highlighting your product’s unique selling points, such as case studies, product demonstrations and customer testimonials.
Here’s how we use a versus landing page at Matomo to persuade prospects at this funnel stage.
Conversion-stage content
This is the final push. Ensure a smooth transition to conversion with content like promotional offers, limited-time discounts and clear calls to action (CTA).
Loyalty-stage content
In this stage, you might express gratitude for the purchase through personalised thank-you emails. Follow up with additional resources, tips or exclusive offers to reinforce a positive post-purchase experience. This also positions your brand as a helpful resource beyond the initial sale.
Reward customer loyalty with exclusive offers, discounts or membership in a loyalty program.
3. Capture leads
Lead magnets are incentives offered to potential customers in exchange for their contact information, typically their email addresses.
Examples of lead magnets include:
- Ebooks and whitepapers: In-depth resources that delve into specific topics of interest to your target audience.
- Webinars and workshops: Live or recorded sessions that offer valuable insights, training or demonstrations.
- Free trials and demos: Opportunities for potential customers to experience your product or service firsthand.
- Checklists and templates: Practical tools that help your audience solve specific challenges.
- Exclusive offers and discounts: Special promotions are available to those who subscribe or provide their contact information.
For instance, here’s how HubSpot uses templates as lead magnets.
Similarly, you can incorporate your lead magnets into relevant articles or social media posts, email campaigns and other marketing channels.
4. Optimise your landing pages
Understanding how visitors interact with your landing pages is a game-changer. So, the first step in optimising your landing pages is to analyse them.
Enter Matomo’s heatmaps — the secret weapon in landing page optimisation. They visually represent how users interact with your pages, revealing where they linger, what catches their attention and where they may encounter friction.
Here are a few landing page elements you should pay attention to:
- Strategic visual elements: Integrate high-quality images, videos and graphics that support your message and guide visitors through the content.
- Compelling copy: Develop concise and persuasive copy that emphasises the benefits of your offering, addressing user pain points.
- Effective CTA: Ensure your CTA is prominently displayed, using compelling language and colours that stand out.
- Mobile responsiveness: Optimise your landing pages for various devices, especially considering the prevalence of mobile users.
- Minimal form fields: Reduce friction by keeping form fields to a minimum, requesting only essential information.
- Leverage social proof: Integrate testimonials, reviews and trust badges to build trust and credibility.
- A/B testing: Experiment with variations in design, copy and CTAs through A/B testing, allowing data to guide your decisions.
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5. Use compelling Calls to Action (CTAs)
Crafting compelling CTAs is an art that involves a careful balance of persuasion, clarity and relevance.
Here are a few tips you can implement to write CTAs that support your goals:
- Use language that compels action. Instead of generic phrases like “Click Here,” opt for more persuasive alternatives such as “Unlock Exclusive Access” or “Start Your Free Trial.”
- Make sure your CTAs are clear and straightforward. Visitors should instantly understand what action you want them to take.
- Tailor CTAs to the specific content on the page. Whether it’s a blog post, landing page or email, the CTA should seamlessly connect with the surrounding context.
- Position your CTAs strategically. They should be prominently displayed and easily noticeable, guiding visitors without intruding.
- Create a sense of urgency. Encourage immediate action by incorporating language that instils a sense of urgency. Phrases like “Limited Time Offer” or “Act Now” can prompt quicker responses.
6. Have an active social presence
Social media platforms are bustling hubs of activity where your target audience spends a significant portion of their online time. Cultivating a social media presence allows you to meet your audience where they are, fostering a direct line of communication.
Moreover, the integration of shopping features directly into social media platforms transforms them into seamless shopping experiences. Nearly half of Instagram users shop weekly through the platform.
Also, the US social commerce sales continue to grow each year and are expected to reach $79.64 billion by 2025.
7. Build a brand community
Four in five customers consider communities important to how engaged they are with a brand.
A strong community fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty among members. When customers feel connected to your brand and each other, they are more likely to remain loyal over the long term.
Also, satisfied community members often share their positive experiences with others, expanding your brand’s reach without additional marketing efforts.
For example, Nike’s community for runners is a digital space where individuals share their running journeys, accomplishments and challenges.
By strategically building and nurturing a community, you not only enhance retention and spur referrals but also create a space where your brand becomes an integral part of your customers’ lives.
8. Conduct A/B tests
A/B testing systematically compares two versions of a webpage, email or other content to determine which performs better.
Examples of elements to A/B test:
- CTAs: The language, colour, size and placement of CTAs can significantly impact user engagement. A/B testing allows you to discover which variations prompt the desired actions.
- Headlines: Crafting compelling headlines is an art. Test different versions to identify which headlines resonate best with your audience, whether they are more drawn to clarity, humour, urgency or curiosity.
- Images: Test different images to understand your audience’s visual preferences. This could include product images, lifestyle shots or graphics.
With Matomo’s A/B testing feature, you can test various elements to see which is successful in converting visitors or moving them to the next stage of the conversion funnel.
9. Leverage social proof
In an era where consumers are inundated with choices, the opinions, reviews and endorsements of others serve as beacons, guiding potential customers through the decision-making process.
Simply put — when people see that others have had positive experiences with your brand, it instils trust and confidence.
You can proactively gather social proof and display it prominently across your marketing channels. Here are some examples of social proof you can leverage:
- Customer reviews: Positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers serve as authentic endorsements of your products or services.
- Case studies: In-depth case studies that showcase successful collaborations or solutions provided to clients offer a detailed narrative of your brand’s capabilities. These are particularly effective in B2B scenarios or for complex products and services.
- User-generated content: Encourage customers to share their experiences. This could include photos, videos or posts on social media platforms, providing a dynamic and genuine portrayal of your brand.
- Influencer endorsements: Collaborating with influencers in your industry or niche can amplify your social proof. When influencers vouch for your products or services, their followers are more likely to take notice.
10. Measure and analyse performance
This is a continuous loop of refinement, where you should use analysis and data-driven insights to guide your conversion funnel optimisation efforts.
Here’s a systematic approach you can take:
- Identify the path users take on your site using a feature like Users Flow.
- Map the customer journey using a Funnels feature like the one in Matomo.
- Identify the metrics that align with your conversion goals at each stage of the funnel, such as website traffic, conversion rates, click-through rates and customer acquisition costs.
- Assess conversion rates at different stages of the funnel. Identify areas with significant drop-offs and investigate factors that might contribute to the decline.
- Use heatmaps and session recordings to see first-hand how users interact with your site.
- Create an experiment to test and improve a specific area within your funnel using insights from the heatmaps and session recordings.
- A/B test, analyse the results to understand which variations performed better. Use this data to refine elements within your funnel.
See how Concrete CMS 3x their leads with conversion optimisation.
Conclusion
The customer journey is not linear. However, it involves a few specific stages your audience will go through — from first learning about your product or services to considering whether to try it. The goal is to turn them into happy and loyal customers.
In this article, we went over strategies and practical tips you can use to guide customers through the conversion funnel. From segmenting your audience to capturing leads, optimising landing pages and running A/B tests, there are steps you can take to ensure your audience will move to the next stage.
And of course, you have to continuously measure and analyse your performance. That’s how you know whether you’re heading in the right direction and, if not, where to correct your course.
For that, you need a robust web analytics solution with conversion optimisation features. Try Matomo free for 21 days and start optimising your conversion funnel—no credit card required.
