The world of digital marketing has been heavily dependent on third-party cookies for tracking user behaviour and personalizing advertisements for years. However, as privacy concerns continue to grow, the use of third-party cookies is becoming increasingly controversial and is now being deprecated. This presents a challenge for companies and brands looking to improve their conversion rates. In response, shifting the focus from tracking user behaviour to improving the Customer Experience (CX) is becoming increasingly important.
CX improvements can provide valuable insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and needs, allowing website owners to create a more personalized and user-friendly experience. By doing so, website owners can increase their conversion rates and overcome the challenges posed by the depreciation of third-party cookies. There are various ways CX improvements help increase conversions.
Understand Your Customers
The first step to improving the customer experience is to understand your customers. Customer surveys are often the first-place marketers turn to gather customer data and gain insights into their behaviours and preferences. Whilst surveys can help website owners learn about the customer journey on the website, their likes and dislikes, and their overall satisfaction, they often don’t supply the detailed information required to make meaningful changes. For example, feedback stating “I couldn’t find the product I was looking for” doesn’t give any information on how the customer tried to find the product, any errors they encountered such as 404s, code errors, or other website navigation issues; and standard analytics products such as those from Google and Adobe don’t tell the complete picture of what happened between the clicks.
Contentsquare and FullStory offer digital experience analytics and insights showing a video-like replay of real user sessions across both web and app. They offer robust debugging and developer tools. This information can be used to make continuous improvements to the CX, leading to increased conversions.
Use A/B Testing
A/B testing is a powerful tool for website owners looking to improve their CX and increase conversions. A/B testing involves creating two versions of elements of a website, with one version being the control (version A) and the other being the variation (version B). It is then possible then test which version performs better by measuring the conversion rates of each version.
For example, you may want to test the impact of a new call-to-action (CTA) on the conversion rate. You can create two versions of the CTA panel, with one version having the new CTA and the other having the original CTA. You then measure the conversion rates of each version and determine which version performs better.
A/B testing can also be used to test the impact of various CX improvements, such as changes to layout, a user journey, the addition of new features, or the use of different types of content. By using data to inform decisions, website owners can make continuous improvements to their CX, leading to increased conversions.
Feature flagging & rollout functionality provided by many A/B testing platforms allow developers to merge and deploy code at any time without having to release features or changes, resulting in faster releases with less risk.
Adobe Target, part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, provides the option of testing multiple variations across the web, mobile app, IoT, and more on both the client and server sides.
Optimizely provides an omnichannel platform for low/no code experimentation, providing the ability to design, implement and analyse experiences and make changes to your website without requiring a developer with easy-to-use WYSIWYG visual editors.
Build Trust
Trust is a crucial factor in website conversions. Customers are more likely to make a purchase or provide personal information if they trust the website and the company or brand behind it. To build trust, website owners need to be transparent about how customer data will be used and provide easy-to-use privacy settings.
For example, use “plain English” privacy policies and terms of service agreements to explain how customer data will be used. It’s also important to provide clear opt-out options for customers who don’t want their data to be used for marketing purposes via email, SMS, or cookie tracking. Building trust with customers can increase conversions as customers will feel more comfortable providing personal information and making purchases on the website.
Ensighten, OneTrust, and Tealium all have cookie consent mechanisms that will work with, or (Ensighten and Tealium) can replace your existing tag management solution, whether that’s client- or server-side.
Your next CX move starts now
Digital Balance is committed to staying independent and agnostic. Our clients need to know they’re getting the unbiased advice we’re known for, so we strive to partner with multiple providers for every solution. We are partners with Google, Adobe, Contentsquare, FullStory, Optimizely, Tealium, Ensighten, and OneTrust allowing us to evaluate and recommend the right solution for our client’s needs.
If you want advice on where to start on your CX optimisation journey, or you’re ready to take the next step, contact us today.
