To drive a higher conversion rate automotive industry needs to focus on digital experiences

Efrat David, former CMO at Contentsquare, explains why focusing on improving digital experiences is critical to driving a higher conversion rate in the automotive industry.

A business school professor of mine once referenced “buying a car from a dealership” as one of Americans’ top ten fears. And while the nation’s anxieties have evolved since my MBA years, shopping for a vehicle remains a significant pain for many consumers today.1

The automotive industry has long had an unfortunate reputation in the collective unconscious, what with:

And even if you’re not swayed by pop culture stereotypes of car dealers, the amount of confusing information that gets thrown at you when shopping for a vehicle is overwhelming at the best of times.

Like many parents, I spend a significant amount of time driving my kids from one after-school activity to another. But while I may be a veteran carpooler, a Formula 1 driver I am not.

The Digital Playbook for Automotive Brands

Download now to discover the biggest digital challenges facing automotive brands and how to overcome them.

Get my free copy

 

I’m not particularly interested in acceleration stats, high-fangled engine specs or rustproofing. Nor do I want to spend forever negotiating on special features I don’t need or get into lengthy discussions about warranties.

When it comes to picking out a car, my checklist is fairly simple: I’m looking for good mileage, reliable safety ratings and comfort on the road.

My main priorities: An easy buying experience and simple, fast delivery

So when it was finally time for me to get a new car, I decided to go online in order to bypass those long, confusing showroom conversations I’ve grown to dread. I made a short list of my top three car manufacturers and checked out each of their sites. My main priorities: an easy buying experience and simple, fast delivery.

In the end, my online experience was far from seamless, and I had to request assistance from a customer service representative. I did end up buying a vehicle online, but the process was complex enough that it did make me wonder, “Do car manufacturers actually design their sites with the intention of selling online..?”

Or is it high time that the automotive industry embraced conversion rate optimization?

The digital shift in the automotive industry

While buying a car online might seem daunting to a lot of people, more and more big purchases and transactions are shifting to the digital sphere. There is a tremendous opportunity for the automotive industry to build up its digital audience by investing in successful online experiences that remove the friction associated with showroom visits. But creating successful journeys online means more than transposing the dealership sales model to digital platforms.

Creating successful journeys online means more than transposing the dealership model to digital platforms.

Disruptors like Airbnb and Amazon have understood that today’s consumers want seamless digital experiences that strike the right balance of giving you the facts upfront and at the same time not overloading you with information.

A brand like Tesla (I did not buy a Tesla) delivers on these points, keeping the process of buying a vehicle as simple and transparent as possible, with a manageable amount of choice for the consumer. Their car configurator is user-friendly, pre-selecting standard models and clearly labelling the value of each added feature for a quick and painless overview of upgrades.

The digital experience can drive the conversion rate automotive industry wants

Understanding what consumers are looking for in a digital experience is the first step towards creating journeys that speak to their expectations and are convenient from start to finish. This becomes particularly important when it comes to major transactions like acquiring a vehicle, which is slightly more involved than many of the “one-click purchases” we complete from day to day.

Developing these seamless journeys means knowing which steps and elements cause users to stall or hesitate, or become frustrated. Thanks to AI, analytics today can pinpoint where these obstacles lie so you can focus on fixing the User Experience (UX) elements that still make consumers reluctant to convert online when it comes to cars.

Automotive brands that harness digital experience analytics to understand site visitor behavior and optimize conversion rates will turn their digital platforms into the ideal showroom, keeping up with the digital appetite of today’s consumers and shift more and more of their vehicle sales to the online space.

Just take a look at French car dealership BYmyCAR, who used Contentsquare to optimize its customer journey, increase inbound leads and exceed its goal of doubling its conversion rate.

To find out more about how the automotive industry can drive better conversion rates through digital experiences and overcome the digital challenges facing the industry, read our automotive playbook.

The Digital Playbook for Automotive Brands

Download now to discover the biggest digital challenges facing automotive brands and how to overcome them.

Get my free copy

 

How The Amtrak App Got On Board The Good UX Train

In the UX Spotlight series, we post about UX features that impressed us online, and are great examples and inspiration for anyone looking to enhance their digital user experience.

I recently moved to New York from the other side of the country. Knowing nothing and nobody in this city, everything is exciting and new. With that, I occasionally need two things – love and fresh air. For this, I have the occasional weekend with my sister and her family in Boston, where I can get a reminder of what the world looks like outside of the wonderful mutation I have made my home.

Booking my trip up north is always a happy occasion – I love having a family weekend to look forward to, and with the easy-to-use Amtrak app, all it takes is a few clicks to reserve my tickets. (By the way, I should mention here that Amtrak is not a client of ours…)

On a rainy Monday morning, with a long gray week ahead, I open up the Amtrak app and begin planning my next trip.

WHEN BOOKING A TRIP LEADS TO A GOOD DIGITAL JOURNEY

From the moment I begin, they’ve already made me happy. I get a fleeting vision of the journey I’m about to take – I see a picturesque landscape with train tracks disappearing into the horizon. This is the image that will stay with me throughout my online experience, and for the rest of the week. (1)

I click ‘Book’ in the lower menu bar. The overall look of the app is clean and simple, and the train icon has a charming, old-school feel to it. All this makes me feel more comfortable about booking online. Even the prompt to enter my departure and arrival stations – ‘Where can we take you?’ – is engaging. (2)

Because the system remembers my main stations from previous journeys, this process takes seconds. (3)

 

The next screen is the best. It just makes me happy. It’s showing me every type of train, whether regional or express, as well as travel class. Not only does it give me only the information I care about, it also just looks good. Notice the color difference between Coach tickets and Business Class Tickets. (4)

Once I pick a train, all the additional details are displayed above the fold. Another menu of pleasing icons – all clickable – lists the amenities on the train I’ve selected. A clickable yellow triangle allows me to consult the service alerts. In a weird way, the honesty of this feature actually outweighs the inconvenience I might feel about a potential disruption. (5)

Next I must enter my details. For many, this is the least favorite part of any digital journey. But instead of making me click to reach payment, the system takes me there in one smooth transition. Right after I’ve picked my train, I am immediately directed to the personal information section, so I don’t have time for that unhappy hesitation. (6)

Each time I reach this page I am reminded that I still haven’t set up a Guest Rewards Number. I do find it slightly annoying that the system hasn’t remembered my personal info. ‘Of course,’ my inner voice says, ‘had you registered and logged into the system, then it would remember you. And now you’re complaining about the system, when you were too lazy to do it – as usual!’

I tell my inner voice that it’s right, of course, but that if I’m too lazy to register, others probably are too. A link next to the Guest Rewards Number box encouraging me to sign up for an account could do the trick.

I like the inline form validation – nothing super advanced or high-tech, but elegantly done. I also like that there are no extraneous questions. Every single thing that needs to be there is there – no optional info.

CLEARLY A LOT OF THOUGHT HAS BEEN PUT INTO WHAT TYPE OF DIGITAL EXPERIENCE A PROSPECTIVE TRAVELER EXPECTS.

Throughout this whole process I can go forward and back to any screen without losing any info. This level of continuity also adds to comfort – it’s always nicer to continue in a process when you feel you aren’t being locked in. ‘That’s why you live in New York – you’re so afraid of commitment it’s even hard for you to commit to a few screens in an app,’ inner voice says. I murder inner voice.

Aside from that opening shot of a sunset, there’s nothing glamorous about this app. It doesn’t use advanced date pickers, video, or animations. It does however make every step of the digital journey simple and painless, and clearly a lot of thought has been put into what type of digital experience a prospective traveler expects.

I also like that, as well as enabling me to complete my booking task, the app connects me to the experience of physically riding a train with the splash screen and cute little icons. I wouldn’t mind even more of that, by the way.

Compared to what’s out there today, this is great UX. Inner voice and I can get this whole booking done in about a minute, and merrily go on with our happy, schizophrenic day.

I think we are not so far from the day that I’ll step into a virtual world and already be there with my sister… I’ll see the New England foliage in front of me and hear the birds sing, even if my body is in a New York high-rise. For now, letting me easily book my trip while giving me small glimpses of a train ride on a gorgeous day is all the experience this user needs.

Digital Luxury Shopping – Unique User Experiences for Unique Brands – es

When it comes to luxury shopping online, consumers appear to need less convincing than their e-commerce counterparts. Because while online conversion rates are 2 to 3 times lower than those for mainstream retail, Luxury visitors are more likely to convert on the first visit.

Luxury brand sites also remain mobile-dominant, with more than 2/3 of visitors coming from mobile sources. This outpaces the average e-commerce site, which has 50% mobile traffic.

Digitizing the luxury shopping experience

When we think of Luxury brands, we think of status and style – and it is no different online. Digital customers want seamless journeys, of course, but they also expect brands to replicate the exclusivity and cachet of a label in their digital luxury shopping experiences.

DIGITAL CUSTOMERS WANT SEAMLESS JOURNEYS BUT THEY ALSO EXPECT BRANDS TO REPLICATE THE EXCLUSIVITY AND CACHET OF A LABEL IN THEIR DIGITAL LUXURY SHOPPING EXPERIENCES.

But how exactly do you reproduce the unique experience associated with a luxury brand on a mobile device, while still driving conversions like an e-commerce site? And what are these brands doing to cater to their compulsive, mobile-dependent shopping audience?

A ContentSquare study comparing the digital behavior of e-commerce and Luxury visitors shows that an average 15% of Luxury users view inspirational content on mobile and desktop. Category pages, on the other hand, perform particularly well on mobile devices – good news considering the mobile dependency of many of these consumers.

Our study also found that 13% of site visitors view more than 6 products during their first visit, versus only 5% for e-commerce – and this, despite spending considerably less time on each product than their e-commerce counterparts. In other words, digital Luxury consumers tend to become active, product-focused users during their very first visit.

And while a visitor session on mobile will generally last under 2 minutes, the content consumption remains high. Mobile users tend to flick through pages, and browse content 1.8 times faster than desktop users. To put it mildly, most mobile users are in a rush, easily distracted, yet crave content.

Where to include inspirational content

In an effort to streamline the user journey, some luxury brands have started to keep their branded content and e-commerce content separate. However, since many visitors head straight to category and product pages, it would make sense to integrate inspirational content within these pages, and to astutely merge branding elements with effective purchasing elements.

And with a 50% chance that mobile users will leave a site after 5 seconds of loading time, a quick load time is crucial to ensuring continued engagement. In the words of Anne Lesueur, International e-commerce and media director at L’Occitane en Provence, “Less frustration, more pleasure – that is the key to effectiveness.”

THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS A HEALTH INSPIRATIONAL/E-COMMERCE RATIO THAT WILL BOTH CAPTIVATE STYLE-CONSCIOUS USERS AND FACILITATE THEIR PREFERRED PATHS TO CONVERSION.

The most successful Luxury brands have understood that the key to success is a healthy inspirational/e-commerce ratio that will both captivate style-conscious users and facilitate their preferred paths to conversion. Locating the pain points along the customer journey – whether that is a frustrating load time or ineffectual marketing on the category or product pages – will help teams develop friction-free experiences for their customers.

Next-gen, AI-powered analytics can help digital Luxury brands harness the power of their online presence, and devise unique and profitable digital journeys that also cultivate loyalty and following.

Digital Luxury Shopping – Unique User Experiences for Unique Brands

When it comes to luxury shopping online, consumers appear to need less convincing than their e-commerce counterparts. Because while online conversion rates are 2 to 3 times lower than those for mainstream retail, Luxury visitors are more likely to convert on the first visit.

Luxury brand sites also remain mobile-dominant, with more than 2/3 of visitors coming from mobile sources. This outpaces the average e-commerce site, which has 50% mobile traffic.

Digitizing the luxury shopping experience

When we think of Luxury brands, we think of status and style – and it is no different online. Digital customers want seamless journeys, of course, but they also expect brands to replicate the exclusivity and cachet of a label in their digital luxury shopping experiences.

DIGITAL CUSTOMERS WANT SEAMLESS JOURNEYS BUT THEY ALSO EXPECT BRANDS TO REPLICATE THE EXCLUSIVITY AND CACHET OF A LABEL IN THEIR DIGITAL LUXURY SHOPPING EXPERIENCES.

But how exactly do you reproduce the unique experience associated with a luxury brand on a mobile device, while still driving conversions like an e-commerce site? And what are these brands doing to cater to their compulsive, mobile-dependent shopping audience?

A ContentSquare study comparing the digital behavior of e-commerce and Luxury visitors shows that an average 15% of Luxury users view inspirational content on mobile and desktop. Category pages, on the other hand, perform particularly well on mobile devices – good news considering the mobile dependency of many of these consumers.

Our study also found that 13% of site visitors view more than 6 products during their first visit, versus only 5% for e-commerce – and this, despite spending considerably less time on each product than their e-commerce counterparts. In other words, digital Luxury consumers tend to become active, product-focused users during their very first visit.

And while a visitor session on mobile will generally last under 2 minutes, the content consumption remains high. Mobile users tend to flick through pages, and browse content 1.8 times faster than desktop users. To put it mildly, most mobile users are in a rush, easily distracted, yet crave content.

Where to include inspirational content

In an effort to streamline the user journey, some luxury brands have started to keep their branded content and e-commerce content separate. However, since many visitors head straight to category and product pages, it would make sense to integrate inspirational content within these pages, and to astutely merge branding elements with effective purchasing elements.

And with a 50% chance that mobile users will leave a site after 5 seconds of loading time, a quick load time is crucial to ensuring continued engagement. In the words of Anne Lesueur, International e-commerce and media director at L’Occitane en Provence, “Less frustration, more pleasure – that is the key to effectiveness.”

THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS A HEALTH INSPIRATIONAL/E-COMMERCE RATIO THAT WILL BOTH CAPTIVATE STYLE-CONSCIOUS USERS AND FACILITATE THEIR PREFERRED PATHS TO CONVERSION.

The most successful Luxury brands have understood that the key to success is a healthy inspirational/e-commerce ratio that will both captivate style-conscious users and facilitate their preferred paths to conversion. Locating the pain points along the customer journey – whether that is a frustrating load time or ineffectual marketing on the category or product pages – will help teams develop friction-free experiences for their customers.

Next-gen, AI-powered analytics can help digital Luxury brands harness the power of their online presence, and devise unique and profitable digital journeys that also cultivate loyalty and following.

Read the full report here.

Users Blame Cart Abandonment on Price, Choices and Bad UX

Convincing shoppers to add to cart is just one of the daily challenges of digital marketing teams everywhere – the real concern is making sure digital journeys end in conversion.

A ContentSquare survey of US consumers aged 18 to 65 found that 81% of shoppers had abandoned their cart at least once in their lifetime.

The 25-34 age group has the biggest tendency for cart abandonment (21%), followed by the 35-44 (20%) and 45 to 54 age groups (13%). The three most frequently abandoned item categories are clothing (40%), tech products (18%) and home ware (16%).

But what exactly causes someone to spend time filling their basket, only to get cold feet at the very last minute?

Not surprisingly, ‘money’ tops the list of reasons, with 74% of surveyed consumers citing price as the biggest obstacle to conversion. Others fill up their cart but simply can’t make their mind up once they get to checkout – with 8.9% of consumers quoting ‘too many options’ as their main reason for not following through on a purchase. For 7.95% of consumer, it’s ‘time’ (or presumably, running out of it) that hinders conversion.

THE THREE MOST FREQUENTLY ABANDONED ITEM CATEGORIES ARE CLOTHING (40%), TECH PRODUCTS (18%) AND HOME WARE (16%).

In fourth place is ‘a poor online experience,’ with 7.30% of shoppers blaming an underwhelming User Experience (UX) for their desertion.

There are many levels of engagement to any digital journey, and the challenge for brands is to meet prospects’ needs every step of the way. Disruptors like Amazon have mastered the art of competitive pricing, but there is still much brands can do to incentivize consumers, including offering free shipping, promotions and exclusive member deals.

Behavioral insights that can identify friction points along the customer journey and tell you why users are frustrated will help your teams roll out the optimizations that will keep visitors engaged until the moment of purchase.

Celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day with a Lot More than Just Beer – gb

Saint Patrick’s Day is a holiday known for indulging and sharing alcohol among friends. Knowing this, we set out to capture what the age of the internet meant for Americans celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day this year, and how digital experiences would be influenced by it. Our assumption was that online shoppers would be purchasing a lot more than just beer and Irish whiskey. The actual analysis did not disappoint. Here are the nuggets of data we found:

Curious to see who are making these purchases and for who? Check out these data-packed charts below!

Men vs Women:

Men are 38% more likely to make an intoxicated online purchase this year than women.

Age Group Breakdown

Millennials (21-34) are more likely to make an online drunk purchase this Saint Patrick’s Day.

Who will people shop for in this Saint Patrick’s Day?

People are most likely to shop for themselves during Saint Patrick’s Day.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

ContentSquare Raises $42 Million Series B Led by U.S. VC Canaan and Highland Europe

France-Based SaaS Digital Experience Insights Platform Secures Funding to Continue its Rapid Growth in Americas and Europe

PARIS (Jan. 29, 2018) — ContentSquare, a SaaS digital experience insights platform, has raised a $42 million Series B funding round led by Canaan, a U.S. VC firm that has previously invested in LendingClub, Ebates and Match.com. Highland Europe, a global investor in companies including Matchesfashion.com, WeTransfer and Photobox and a previous investor in the company also participated in the round, as did Eurazeo and H14. The funding will be used to continue to grow ContentSquare’s business in the U.S. and globally.

 

ContentSquare computes billions of touch and mouse movements every day in 191 countries, and transforms this knowledge into profitable actions that increase engagement, reduce operational costs and maximize conversion rates. Used by content, eCommerce, analytics, acquisition, IT and UX teams, ContentSquare’s roadmap positions it to become the first fully automated, Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven digital experience platform.

 

“Since our founding, we have been dedicated to understanding how and why consumers interact with their favorite brands’ website, mobile and apps – and to use that data to improve our customers’ digital experiences, measure content efficiency and, ultimately, increase sales,” said ContentSquare’s CEO Jonathan Cherki, who is based in NYC. “By improving and automating digital experience analytics, our innovative technology has become a secret weapon for some of the best brands all around the world. This round is a testament to the value we bring to our customers, and we’re very excited about our growth ahead.”

 

ContentSquare believes in people transformation more than digital transformation — changing the way digital teams work by empowering them to measure their impact and pinpoint the best ways to increase their revenue.

 

The company previously raised a $20 million Series A fundraising closed in the fall of 2016 led by Highland Europe and supported by business angels from Seed4soft. Since then the company has expanded globally, with offices in Paris, Munich, London and New York, and has grown to over 200 employees. In that time, ContentSquare also saw more than 150 percent revenue growth and added 120 customers worldwide, including Orange, Rakuten, Carrefour, Walmart, Tiffany’s, Clarks, Goldman Sachs, Abbott, SNCF, AccorHotels, L’Occitane and more.

 

Since the launch of the company, ContentSquare has rolled out a series of innovations and groundbreaking technology. Recent developments include the creation of an AI engine to analyze behavioral data and offer automatic insights, as well as its Auto-Zone feature launched earlier this month. Auto-Zone redefines online data collection by replacing content tagging and tag configuration with automatic element identification and revenue attribution for each area and element of a website.

 

“The ability for any brand to sell any good and deliver it to the consumer quickly means that the key differentiator for brand loyalty is customer experience,” said Michael Gilroy, Principal at Canaan, who spearheaded the firm’s investment and has joined the ContentSquare board. “This is where ContentSquare’s digital experience insights come into play – they help enterprises really understand their users and create the ultimate experience.”

 

“We are proud to participate in another rounding of funding for ContentSquare,” said Tony Zappala, Partner at Highland Europe. “The talented team, led by Jonathan Cherki, has a strong vision with ambitious goals in a huge market. As an early investor, it’s exciting to see they ContentSquare continue to innovate and grow.”

 

For more information about ContentSquare, please visit: contentsquare.com

 

About ContentSquare:

ContentSquare is a digital experience insights platform that helps businesses understand how and why users are interacting with their app, mobile and web sites. The company computes billions of touch and mouse movements, and transforms this knowledge into profitable actions that increase engagement, reduce operational costs and maximize conversion rates. Using behavioral data, artificial intelligence and big data to provide automatic recommendations, ContentSquare empowers every member of the digital team to easily measure the impact of their actions, and make fast and productive data-driven decisions to optimize the customer journey. Learn more at contentsquare.com.

 

About Canaan:
Canaan is an early stage venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs with visionary ideas. With $5 billion under management, a diversified fund and 190 exits to date, Canaan has invested in some of the world’s leading technology and health care companies over the past 30 years. Canaan’s focus areas include fintech, enterprise/SaaS, marketplace, e-commerce, biopharma, digital health and medtech. To learn more about our people and our portfolio, please visit canaan.com.

 

About Highland Europe:
Highland Europe is exclusively focused on Growth Stage internet, mobile and software businesses. Launched in 2012 and with over €580m ($640m) in capital raised across two funds, the firm’s origins were as the European operations of Highland Capital Partners, a US venture capital firm. Highland Europe is based in London and Geneva and its current portfolio includes MatchesFashion.com, GetYourGuide, WeTransfer, Nexthink, and Malwarebytes among many others.

www.highlandeurope.com

 

Media Contact:

Austin Rotter

ContentSquare@5wpr.com

Equipping Businesses for the Age of Digital Shopping – es

The decline of brick-and-mortar stores in favor of digital shopping platforms is inspiring businesses everywhere to improve their customers’ online experience.

Credit Suisse estimates that there could be more than 8,640 store closures this year, breaking the 2008 record of approximately 6,200 store closures. Meanwhile, the US Census Bureau has recorded a 0.8% increase in consumer spending in November 2017 (a 5.8% hike from the previous year), showing that spending is not the factor.

According to McKinsey & Company, “digital’s share of total retail sales in the United States has been growing by about 15% annually over the past 5-years.” For mobile channels, the growth is +25% in 2017 alone. Today, 60% of Americans have smartphones, and 80% of them shop with their device.

Companies that want to capitalize on this shift need to consider the following 4 trends as they prepare for the future:

1: Changing Face of the Consumer

Meet Generation Z, the first generation of digital natives. Born into a world of smartphones and streaming, they have very different needs than their forebears.

2: New Patterns of Personal Consumption

Customer expectations are changing fast and often. Today’s shoppers are looking to fit shopping around their busy lives – not the other way round.

3: Technological Advancements

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and increasingly sophisticated analytics solutions are revolutionizing the landscape of online business.

4: Structural Industry Shifts

The recent Amazon takeover of Whole Foods is just one example of how businesses are embracing the digital revolution, and shifting their focus to online.

DIGITAL USER EXPERIENCE (UX) PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN THE ONGOING CHANGES TO THE CULTURE OF HOW PEOPLE SHOP.

All pointing to the same conclusion: that digital User Experience (UX) plays a key role in the ongoing changes to the culture of how people shop.

In fact, it has widely been reported that UX is the new salesperson. In the past, the consumer would enter a store, and be greeted and advised by a sales assistant. Based on this interaction, the salesperson would assess the customer’s needs and goals, and adapt the experience accordingly. Today’s online customer expects that same level of experience, hence the development of AI and bots to achieve personalized, more human customer journeys.

But personalizing journeys implies knowing your customer inside out. Enter digital experience analytics. These allow you to measure and compare traffic and engagement from one country to another, one device to another, taking into account factors like time of day, mood, reason for visiting your site, and source of origin (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc), to name a few. With behavioral data in their arsenal, digital teams are now able to understand why and how prospects use their platforms, and can optimize their sites accordingly.

And with data-driven insights into the real behavior of their digital customers, companies can identify pain points on their platforms, prioritize optimization efforts, and in turn achieve real conversion growth.

Marcus Magarian is a Business Developer in ContentSquare. Reach out to talk about how behavioral data can help your business prepare for the future of digital commerce: marcus@contentsquare.com