Understanding Conversion Metrics for Designers
The Importance of Conversion Optimisation
With a range of music lovers whether it be hip hop, country, classical or folk, understanding the user’s behaviour and needs can be quite challenging. Conversion metrics help Spotify to identify and react to tweak the design accordingly, such as the simple points of interest across the main pages to please different music needs as seen here.
As designers, we should start considering looking at conversion metrics to measure the value increment of our design solutions, to see the impact and outcome it was intended to achieve. This can help us justify our design recommendations with proof.
Here are four insights I always try to derive from conversion metrics: Effective entry points, validating navigation flow, engaged content and signify conversion with case study examples.
1st Insight: Effective Entry Points
“No matter how nicely designed your page can be, it’s useless if no one visits.”
Conversion metrics help to identify where user traffic should be coming from and any gaps and broken access points.
The site’s traffic source should be positive and as diverse as possible. A low number of Direct Visitors (%) indicates that people are less likely to enter the site by directly typing URL in the address bar. A low number of Search Visitors (%) indicates that people are less likely to enter site through search engine, e.g. Google. A low number of Referral Visitors (%) indicates that people are less likely to enter site through a link from another website, social media page or somewhere else.
Hence, to increase external entry points, start by finding opportunities for better marketing/sales pitches, improving social media, emails, promotional ads & campaigns and strengthening of SEO. A positive traffic entrances will yield increase higher chances of conversion.
Case study:
Go to Nike.com, and you’ll see a plethora of terms in use! “Must-have,” “trending,” and “new releases” are just the start of the celebration.
From the moment you go onto Nike’s homepage, you’ll be bombarded with their most recent offerings.
You can view not just the phrases but also photos immediately below them to stimulate your curiosity while you browse the site.
2nd Insight: Validating Navigation Flow
“You may have the best envisioned user flow but not reflected in reality.”
Conversion metrics help to identify & validate if users are clicking on the correct links & CTAs and dropping off at the end of the flow.
To understand if your call-to-actions and navigation flows are clear to user, conversion metrics is able to analyse and pick up any unusual behaviour. If you notice there is high traffic of users coming from a different Previous Page Path (%) as intended, it may signify a broken user flow and experience. Bounce/Exit Rate (%) helps to check where users are dropping off and if they have reach the end of the conversion flow. A high percentage indicates that the page is not capturing enough retention of the users.
Hence, to build better navigation flows, relook at the site flow and information architecture structure. Increase the visibility of any call-to-actions or ways to incorporate directional way-finding assistance to guide users to accomplish their tasks.
Case study:
If people cannot find it, it does not exist! One reason that Zoom became popular was that people could set up and share conference links with invitees. The invitees didn’t have to set up an account or even install an application to join the call. Skype also offered a way to set up meetings without an account or the software. But many users simply did not know about the feature.
3rd Insight: Engaged Content
“A well-designed experience should interest the user enough to engage.”
Conversion metrics is one way to determine the user’s interest level and how it might lead to trigger their conversion thereafter.
Many times, a designer is not able to tell whether their content design accurately reflects the business growth. By analysing the Time spent on page (min/sec), it helps to shed some light on the user’s duration on the page to infer the level of content, though this is dependant on the nature and type of the page. Another measurement is Value per visit ($). This is largely affected by page view and it is determined by defining a value for each page and balancing it with the number of visits. High conversion pages should reflect higher page views.
To improve the content engagement, start by improving the readability of texts, add stranger visuals or video elements and build in engaging contents such as blogs, posts, feedbacks or reviews.
Case study:
With nearly 95% of consumers reportedly reading online reviews before naking a purchase, Asos seen a positive feedback to their checkout page. This turnout began to see a balance between the value of the user’s visit to the page and the amount of interaction and time spent viewing and interacting with ratings and reviews to contribute to an informed decision making process.
4th Insight: Signify Conversion
“A product is never successful if people are never going to convert.”
Conversion metrics helps to justify how effective the new design manages to help in the turnover for the product.
Unless an A/B testing is conducted, it is hard to tell immediately if users are convinced enough to buy in your product. A low number of New Visitors (%) indicates that people are less interested in what they see the first time they visit your website. A low number of Returning Visitors (%) indicates that people are not coming back to your website to convert in either the first or the subsequent visits. The number of visitors should correspond closely to the number of conversions.
Hence, try to find ways to highlight any value proposition, improve clarity of user actions and understanding of the service/product provided.
Case study:
While Mailchimp’s website was functioning perfectly well earlier, the company wanted to make a statement and highlight a clear value proposition to its growing customer base. The result was a cleaner and easier navigation model, with a top menu and a striking and more organised landing page with a clear-cut CTA, directing users to convert quicker.
