How to use visitor data to upgrade your website

Effective inbound marketers yearn to be like insects ... specifically, like flies on the wall.

In other words, effective inbound marketers seek to (unobtrusively, of course) get a good view of what their audience is doing and how that audience is interacting with their marketing messages.

As an inbound marketer, you don't need to be a fly on the wall
to understand your customers' needs. 

Why is this information so important? Simply put, using the intelligence you gain about customer behaviors enables you to upgrade your website to a bona fide lead-generating magnet, and fine-tune your marketing message for maximum conversion in the process.

>> Learn more about using visitor data to make consistent upgrades to your website: Download our Growth-Driven Design Playbook 

Behavior-driven design and the impact of personalization

Adobe's "Behavior-driven Design: Integrating User Intent with Responsive Experiences" notes: "Behavior-driven responsive design seeks to understand the visitor's needs and intent and to use this information to influence the order and emphasis of content, navigation, and design aesthetic."

Figuring out your visitor's need has long been a foundational part of effective marketing. However, in the venue of online customer interaction, understanding the needs and intent behind customer behaviors on your site is absolutely critical for successful website design.

Personalizing the customer experience based on such things as geolocation, existing customer profile, and web traffic patterns enables you to more closely match your offerings to what matters most to your customers.

Since marketers are not exactly equipped with psychic abilities where their customers are concerned, what tools can help you figure out customer intent?

Leveraging visitor data to improve the effectiveness of your website

Fortunately, there are a variety of analytic tools that can reveal a virtual treasure trove of information about your visitors. These tools fall into two categories: clickstream analytics and in-page analytics.

Here is a basic rundown of the information which can be gleaned from each type:

Clickstream Analytics: These are the numbers with which you are likely most familiar. They include things like number of page views, number of visitors, the average time a visitor spends on a page, and the conversion rate.

Obviously, these numbers are a big deal. This is likely why clickstream analytics have been the focal metrics that marketers use to measure success for some time.

However, simply knowing how much traffic your web pages are getting and how much time a visitor spends on your page may not give you all the information you need to discern the intent of the visitor. Online Behavior's "How to Optimize Web Design for Conversions" notes: "Clickstream analytics, providing data about your visitor traffic alone, does not reveal how a customer experiences your site and the web pages therein. This can only be seen and understood through the analysis of visitor engagement within the webpages themselves."

In-Page Analytics: To measure visitor engagement on your web page, in-page analytics yield more in-depth information. Online Behavior's article continues: "In-Page analytics tools provide you with honest visitor feedback about each usability element within your web pages. Each time a visitor clicks, hovers, scrolls or hesitates with his mouse, he is communicating rich qualitative data about the text, images, links, banners, and ads, as well as their placement on your web pages."

It is here that you get that "fly-on-the-wall" effect you need to divine your visitor's intent. With In-Page analytics, you can drill down more deeply for an individual customer, or you can use an aggregate of many customers to discern patterns of use.

Careful study of your metrics will reveal actionable insights that
inform your web design and marketing campaigns. 

Using the knowledge you acquire

This level of understanding of customer behaviors provides insight which would have been impossible just a few years ago. However, modern marketing tools capture these all-important metrics so that you can make adjustments to your website or marketing campaigns based on solid research into the minds of your target audience.

When you make minor adjustments, you can continue to use these metrics to ascertain how the changes are affecting the ROI of your marketing efforts. This process of continual review and adjustment gives you a more agile marketing strategy, thus maximizing the potential of your website and every campaign.

Get your free copy of our website performance report to get some valuable insight and ideas of best practices that you can apply to your web design and marketing.

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