The Salesforce B2C Commerce Partner Demo Jam is going down tomorrow, and we’ve been busy polishing our own live demo performance, and figuring out the best way to showcase our new and improved digital experience analytics platform.  

Here’s a look at how we’ve been preparing to take home the Demo Jam crown…

What Sets the B2C Commerce Partner Demo Jam Apart

With participants having to do away with slideshows, presentations and videos, the challenge was how to create a condensed, 3-minute, to-the-point live demo of our solution.

If that doesn’t set the event apart, its setting and rules will. That’s because the Demo Jam is set up like a game show, meaning one team will walk away the winner.

The visitors are a live audience of approximately 80-100 spectators, as hungry for the next best thing as we are. We’re also in it to win it, so we can’t wait to square off with the five other partners, execution style. 

Joking aside, we’ve been working up a storm in preparation for the Demo Jam.

How Contentsquare Prepared for the B2C Commerce Partner Demo Jam 

We made sure key stakeholders from Marketing, Product and Sales were involved in prepping our performance. 

At a tactical level, we launched an internal brainstorm, inviting the entire Contentsquare US team to ideate over pizza and booze — the best possible stimuli, of course. With so many great minds in one room, our brilliant Content Director recommended breakout sessions with 3 separate teams to streamline the collaboration. 

What surfaced were 3 easily applicable concepts, and 1 winning idea that inspired a theme, script and the tapping of members from our Solutions Engineers, Digital Marketing and Client Success teams to creatively present the idea. 

Building on Our Partnership with Salesforce

This event is critical to our partnership success with Salesforce, because it enables 3 key opportunities:

Exposure: elevating the visibility of Contentsquare to prime stakeholders is an evolving challenge, and Demo Jam is an event that is promoted by Salesforce to and by their teams, who strategically promote partner solutions to clients and prospects.

Competitive benchmarks: Demo Jam feedback and consensus are instant, relatively speaking. The Insight Link Partners ascertain from the event hosts and audience questions, and ultimately the voting results, is a useful indication of whether or not your presentation and use case value mapping is resonating with attendees and prospects.

Demand generation: Customers who watch the performance and are interested in learning more about partner solutions opt-in to receive info. Need we say more?

Our Unique Demo Jam Take

Our singularity springs forth from our platform. The Contentsquare solution visualizes data in a unique way, and can show any brand directly from its website view where customers are getting frustrated or stuck across the acquisition funnel and which content is encouraging conversions. 

We display unique behavior and revenue attribution metrics directly onto the web page — which elements of content have a high Attractiveness rate, where visitors Hover and hesitate, what sections of the page drive revenue etc… Demonstrating this always brings the “oohs and ahhs.”

Why We’re in It To Win It

Aside from the fact that winning is universally fun, Contentsquare has powered Customer Experience insights for Salesforce customers like GoPro, L’Occitane, Crocs and the Gap, helping their team make data-driven decisions, innovate the experience and increase revenue. Winning the demo jam helps publicize how we can prove similar results for more of Salesforce customers who haven’t heard of us yet or are still considering how to best invest in their digital CX.

Closing Off on the Demo Jam

The Demo Jam prep was great fun, and helped align the entire team around a common goal. Everyone on the team has a unique take on how to best tell the Contentsquare story, and we wanted to bring all these perspectives together for this exercise. We also discovered hidden talents across the team — turns out we have a bunch of thespians and scriptwriters in the office! (As ever, we’re reminded that when good people come together, great things can happen.

Tune in to watch us go head to head with 5 other Salesforce partners during the webinar at 11 am.

Some website users undergo a bad UX, which leads them to exit — or worse — bounce from a website, possibly to never again return. Understanding what causes premature site exits is key to improving the customer experience (CX), and delivering journeys that help customers meet their wide-ranging digital expectations.

Making use of data for a UX analysis is the most practical approach to scrutinizing customer journeys, including high-level views that locate friction points and counter-intuitive navigation patterns. Once you’ve identified your problematic pages through a high-level view of user behavior, you can make more fine-tuned changes by assessing individual pages and elements.

Achieving a fulfilling digital experience is attainable, but you have to identify what constitutes a broken UX in the first place, and establish the visitor segments that come across one. Once you have this insight on hand, you can prioritize optimization efforts to improve your digital experience and make your visitors crave more.

Identifying What’s Amiss in the Customer Journey

We quizzed Ying Yang, our Lead Product Experience Manager, to get her thoughts on where to start. “The first thing you must look at when identifying a poor UX is the customer journey,” she said. “You should be able to break it apart page by page to see exactly how users traverse your site during each session.”

A well-built customer journey analysis tool will show you each step a customer takes during their time spent on a site, help uncover what they are trying to do, and how they went about doing it. You ought to be able to detect where the first UX friction lies on a high level; to find this, you have to pinpoint where users are bouncing or leaving the site, and what led to this outcome.

“You need to identify the last page that a segment of users stayed on during their journey before leaving your site. It is this page in which their UX was disrupted,” explained Ying. 

“However, in longer customer journeys, note that a page from which a user has left the site may not signify a bad experience. Instead, the user may simply feel that their stay on the site is complete, and requires no further browsing.”

As such, observe the pages that contain bounces initially, as there is some shortage of retaining the visitors’ interest. Furthermore, since a bounce is more caustic than a regular site leave, it requires immediate attention. (Bounces reveal a non-existent journey, or one of one step/page visit).

Now that you’ve found the page with the UX culprit of bouncing or exiting, let’s delve further. 

A Further Analysis of a Crippled UX

Entering step two of making corrections, you will need to work out the cause behind particular site exits or other behaviors indicative of frustration or unmet needs. In order to spot individual obstacles in the customer journey, you’ll need to analyze specific elements within a page. 

Through this approach, you’ll be able to catch the exact cause of friction (whether it’s a CTA, image, product description, form field, etc), as opposed to guessing what regions and elements of a page led users to leave.

So what do you do when analyzing a particular page element? You take a hyper-focused turn in your UX analysis. “This is a more granular step,” says Ying. “As such, you’ll want to look at a robust batch of behavior and revenue metrics. These present a deeper dive of your UX to follow up the customer journey analysis.” 

Here are just a few of the metrics you can appraise for a granular UX performance check:

Hover Rate: The percentage of pageviews in which visitors hovered over the zone at least once, determining which zones are consumed the most. This helps you rank zones and assess if they are consulted properly, by weighing in factors like averages of other zones and the page length. 

Click Recurrence: represents the average number of times a zone was clicked when engaged with during a pageview. This exposes either engagement or frustration. For example, a high click recurrence on a carousel is good news, as it shows a high engagement with an element offering many clickable areas.

It can also point to frustration. For example, if users click on the same element multiple times — such as an image or link, it means the element is drawing up errors; it’s either unclickable or not performing its function correctly. 

Conversion Rate Per Click: Applying only to clickable zone, this metric relays if clicking on a zone impacts the user’s behavior or conversion goal.This helps you determine which elements contribute to or deter from conversions. A conversion can be any behavior you set. 

Exposure Rate: identifies how far down a page a user scrolls; it’s accounted for when at least half of a zone is viewed. This helps you understand how much users scroll, allowing you to make empirical sizing adjustments.

Attractiveness Rate: Relays the percentage of visitors who clicked on a zone after having been exposed to it. This informs you on optimizing the placement of content on your page. For example, if more users click below the fold, you should move that content further up for more of them to see it quicker. A high rate proves the high performing attractiveness of an element.

Segmenting Your Users for UX Comparisons

After you analyzed the elements of your page with granular behavior metrics, you’ll need to analyze further, by conducting comparisons. This will help you determine what comprises an underperforming UX more clearly. To do this, you would need to compare a good behavior with a bad behavior.

Comparing the experience of visitors who accomplished the goal of a page with those who didn’t, will further confirm what needs fixing. You can carry out a zoning analysis on these two segments as well as make comparisons on each metric. 

This allows you to catch where non-converting visitors tend to hover and where they are more inactive. But most importantly, it allows you to weigh this data against the users who did convert/ achieve what they came to your site to do. 

“For example, you can build a segment for the users who saw a 404 error page and compare it with the ones who had the same issue across different journeys or those who didn’t run into it,” explained Ying. “Additionally, you can create a segment around users who clicked on a CTA, deepening their journey against a segment of users who didn’t, or worse, ended their journey on that page.”

Main Examples of UX That Cuts the Customer Journey

One of the attributes of a broken UX is content that doesn’t engage users or is not seen, thus prompting visitors to exit the site. Pages that require too much scrolling, for example, may yield low engagement or little to no views.

For example, a particularly wide banner that takes up much of the screen may be obscuring other content that’s crucial to generating revenue. Some users may not even be aware of the content below the fold. 

“Most high-performing content should have real estate above the fold,” Ying advises. “Does your business have a major campaign or sub campaign running? Post more than one type of content about it above the fold. These can exist as tiles, a carousel or both.”

This source of friction is especially damaging to mobile UX, which has a much smaller screen size than desktop. As such, some functionalities aren’t well suited to be crammed in. “Big banners, images and accordions (vertical menus) push everything down below the fold, so don’t overuse them. You will probably need to scale back on some of these elements to avoid a UX that has turned sour.” 

Another example of poor content occurs when banner usage is slight and/or doesn’t achieve the goal of a page. For example, a banner can send users to a PDP (product details page) that cuts off their browsing journey.

“PDPs, in general, have high bounce rates, as in the case of our retail clients, so you need to be careful what products you send users to, should your banner send them to a PDP (or even a product landing page). Landing on a PDP is especially detrimental to the user experience when the real goal was to send users to a PLP (product landing page), which shows several product options as opposed to a PDP.”

Adobe Stock, via studiostok

Fixing Customer Journeys

Now you know how to move the needle from a high-level UX analysis to a granular level to spot what caused your customers to struggle or give up with your site. After you identify what leads to bad digital experiences, you are all set to start optimizing. Customer experience analytics are your best friend when it comes to augmenting your content ideation strategy.

Since it allows you to meticulously identify digital experience issues, it fastracks you to brainstorming sessions to rectify the issues in a data-backed way. Some things will be clearer than others. For example, if you find 404 errors and other dead-end pages, the quick fix is the get rid of them, or replace them with the proper pages. 

“For example, if an item is no longer in stock, or no longer being digitally offered, make sure it doesn’t yield the 404 error. But if it’s a product users can purchase, or if a page offers any other type of conversion (signing up for content, etc.), make sure your page is functional and devoid of any confusing elements,” said Ying.”

Hero image via Adobe Stock, by Marvi7

Wondering how best to set up your digital gift guides in time for the holidays? Follow these four tips to make sure your website is making the most out of its “featured gift” products, and is helping users navigate through the 2019 holiday season chaos with much-needed ease.

1. Avoid using content blocks that take up the entire length of a screen.

Steer clear of what we in UI call the “false bottom” — the illusion that a page has ended when it hasn’t. This UX misstep could stop your visitors from scrolling further down the page, and may restrict their exposure to content. Instead, let your visitors know there is more to see — the more categories they see, the more likely they are to find the one that is relevant to them.

Check which categories have the highest purchase conversion or conversion rate per click and prioritize these. It is possible that some categories drive higher engagement, but record lower conversions. This points to frustration and confusion, intel you can use to optimize a particular site element. 

2. Be specific with gift guide categories.

Your gift guide categories should be as specific as possible. It is harder for users to narrow down a large product catalog on a product landing page (PLP), than to click into a category that already has a narrower scope. 

It should be clear before users choose a gift guide that they will find on the gift guide list page. Is the category based on price, interests, demographic information..? Find out what’s most important to your visitors, and wherever you can, personalize suggestions based on these needs. 

Also keep in mind that in gift guides, users are likely to be shopping for somebody else, so recommending repeat purchases based on past sales isn’t always relevant.

3. Ensure that your filter and sort function on your gift guide PLPs are optimized and easy to use.

The more difficult your filter and sort function are to use, the more frustrated users will become when trying to find the most appropriate product on a gift guide list page. Avoid adding frustration to the already overwhelming task of sifting through hundreds or thousands of products. 

4. Provide a seamless way to access various categories from the gift list page.

Displaying shortcuts to other gift categories on the list page can help reduce navigation friction. Visitors shouldn’t have to go back to the homepage, main gift guide page, or use the global navigation to quickly access other gift options.

Examples of Online Gift Guides with Great UX

Here are some great examples of online gift guides:

J.Crew

On the homepage, the gift guide category features an eye-catching GIF that plays automatically. On the gift guide list page, there is a category dropdown that helps users jump to different gift categories. Users can also easily narrow down listings using categorization buttons like “Best Selling” and “Gifts under $25 

Madewell

In this example, at least 3 categories are visible on the homepage without the need for scrolling. Once the user clicks to the gift guide list page, they can also use a category dropdown to jump to more specific gift guide categories.

Macy’s 

Gift guide categories are specific and speak to users’ personalities. Above these categories, there are also categories based on price.

Hero Image via Adobe Slack, by Nnudoo

In retrospect, my first time at Dreamforce —  a summit for innovation and cutting-edge technology —  was much how I imagined it would be: a three-day techy delight party. Within an hour of landing, I noticed the groundswell badge-carrying, intentional session trekkers and got to key-note crashing. 

Salesforce knows how to set a conference vibe with the ukulele opening performance, with horn shell blowing duos wishing attendees “a wonderful and blessed Dreamforce event.” 

Salesforce Product Previews 

Amid the sensory overload of DJspinning, Obama-stanning, and expo hall cacophony were some of the most exciting Salesforce product previews I’ve seen to date. Starting with enhanced capabilities to Einstein, a service cloud, the A.I. algorithm is now powering customer call centers with natural language processing to understand the context of the conversation, and surface the most relevant knowledge-article for the associate. 

The pain this solves is reducing the hold time and consumer policy referencing, which enables Einstein to close customer cases 31% times faster. This cuts out 10 minutes in operation, making for workflow efficiency and overall better and faster work. 

I was left most curious about the future of Salesforce’s new, custom-built, multi-channel CMS, as it highlights agility for digital teams to organize and sustain every aspect of their asset creation. This allows them to hone in on their viable potential to tailor connector integrations to bolster their capabilities. 

Also exciting was the news rollout from Salesforce B2C Commerce LINK Marketplace,  confirming that LINKpartners like Contentsquare would be transitioning to the AppExchange, an online marketplace for Salesforce apps, components and services that connects customers with a business’s solutions. 

This will enable a deeper, more seamless deployment for customers, including ours. It is well in line with the Customer 360 mission, and underscores the substantial partner ecosystem investment they’ve made this year. 

3 Tips for Future Dreamforce Attendees

Interested in attending Dreamforce? Here are the three  tips I would give to Dreamforce novices moving forward to maximize time and energy onsite:

1. Map your business and product objectives to the right internal Salesforce teams, stakeholders and sessions. There’s an app for that, which was fairly effortless to navigate and use to schedule meetups 4-6 weeks prior to attending. San Francisco has phenomenal eateries and coffee shops; take advantage of the opportunity to treat stakeholders for 30-minute syncs away from the pandemonium.
2. (Dual) partner up: connect with mutual partner customer success teams to align on scaling integrations and for the best ways to measure and amplify results with joint-compelling narratives.
3. Double down: Salesforce soldiers and their respective trailblazers are in full-effect at Dreamforce. Therefore,  the best way to gain face time and address challenges live and direct is during the event where they are projecting motivation and building new-year momentum. 

All in all, I left Dreamforce too blessed to be stressed, and easily more informed on how Contentsquare can extend the value of Salesforce solutions than when I arrived.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and as we near this precious time of family reunions, hearty meals and giving thanks for all of life’s blessings, we thought it would be fitting to call out another source of our gratitude: good digital customer experience (CX). 

While gathering data is crucial to building a good UX — and we’re chock full of it — we thought it would be pertinent to get direct feedback from our lovely cadre of UX-perts through a VoC approach.

As such, we surveyed our own team members on some of the best digital experiences they’ve had and they responded with the websites and site features that they’re thankful for. 

Let’s read about the kind of user experience that completes our Thanksgiving, and our daily lives. 

What sites do you like to visit and are thankful for?

“I go to TechCrunch a lot. The way the site is designed and presented is easy to digest and view, as opposed to a regular news site. TheAwesomer is also a great site, not great-looking, but it curates cool stuff from across the internet, like news articles, product finds, Kickstarter projects, videos and more. Unlike Reddit, it’s not user submitted, so the quality is better. It’s filled with thumbnails.”
Greg Tessitore, Director of Digital Experience in Marketing

“Target, it’s super convenient and there are two stores that are in my path when heading home from work. ASOS has affordable clothes that are pretty diverse in the section. From beachwear to wedding attire, you can find it on ASOS.Nordstrom Rack has great sales on designer clothes. And when you order online or via the app, they often give you an additional 15% off already discounted items.”
Ebony Hester, Director of Demand Generation

“I’m thankful for Zara, Nordstrom Rack and Amazon, as they make shopping online rather easy, and I don’t feel the necessity to have to go in person to any store if I’m feeling lazy. I know what will fit me the majority of the time and the return policy/process isn’t an inconvenience.”
Ashley Ygarza, Sales Development Representative  

“YouTube – I’m thankful for the beauty bloggers’ recommendations!”
Emily Cawse, Strategic Consultant in Global Services

“ESPN, Foot Locker, CNN. For content sites, I like to be able to understand headlines quickly and dive in quick. For retail sites, I want to be able to either locate what I want asap or have appropriate browsing options.”
Joseph Schaefer, SDR Manager

“Twitter. It’s easy to navigate and I love the content.”
Tito Javier, Sales Development Representative

What subscription sites do you like and why?

UXPin, an open-source code forum, where you can submit pins — a pivot point/starting point on a development project, that’s in code like CSS or Javascript. Users can get involved in a project and put their own spin on it.  I’m subscribed to the newsletter and it’s all in code. It’s basically a digital sandbox that people build stuff in.”
Greg Tessitore

“Freshly.com — used the service and the ability to select meals, edit cart and pause the subscription, which was very intuitive and executable in a click or two.”
Marc Blum, Sales Director

“Birchbox + Careof. Prior to committing to either box, you have to fill out a questionnaire about your concerns and what you would like to implement in your self-care regimen that I truly like. The questions are well thought out and it makes you feel that the items you are getting are truly crafted for you. The packaging as well is very personable and I look forward to receiving them, let it be monthly (Birchbox) or when I finish my current supply (Care/of).”
Ebony Hester

“Curology; it’s easy to get around.”
Ashley Ygarza

“Spotify, because of its seamless experience across all my devices and more music than I could ever listen to!”
Emily Cawse

Adobe Stock, VIa Hurca!

What brands do you think have mastered good CX and why?

“It seems like Amazon already has an idea of my preferences based on the product suggestions I get recommended to me on the homepage. Sometimes I end up adding unnecessary items simply because it’s within the category that I’m already purchasing and looks kind of cool /have not thought about buying it before. <span

I also enjoy how easy it is to get to their review section and depend on those heavily if I’m buying an unfamiliar product. Sometimes I go on and buy stuff just bc I’m in the mood to shop and they have everything – they make shopping kind of addicting.”
Ashley Ygarza  

“Lush — I like the easy navigation and the ability to search box spend. Casper is just a clean layout. I like the social media UGC feed and that the pop up for additional offers is delayed just the right amount that you don’t feel bombarded.”
Ebony Hester

“Apple — you get what you pay for!”
Emily Cawse

“Foot Locker. I like the blend of lifestyle content and product pushes/CTAs.”
Joseph Schaefer

“Godaddy, because of the incredible customer support.”
Avi Mash

Can you give us an example of a UX function or individual site element that provided a great experience for you? One that helped you or left you in awe?

“The Digital Panda, a DX agency. They built out cool animated bits on their “what they do” section of their homepage. Instead of having the title of each service and a small paragraph alone, they’re topped with an animation of pandas doing what the services offer — they’re animated descriptions. So I don’t even have to read what they do if I don’t have time; looking at these animations lets me know in a unique way.”
Greg Tessitore

“Wayfair’s app lets you see their furniture in your own space with a 3D camera. It really helped when I redecorated my apartment last year, I had a graph paper floor plan with proper measurements but seeing how the furniture spacing would work in real life was awesome.”
Meredith Golden, Sales Director

“The filtering capability. Being able to drill down into exactly what I’m looking for without having to filter and then do an exhaustive manual search on top of it.”
Joseph Schaefer

“When Google populated my calendar appointments on to Maps.”
Emily Cawse

“Rio2rome.com. I like the functionality and predictability of being able to connect my travel journeys through a variety of transportation options.”
Ebony Hester 

“I didn’t know what size bag to get, but the site offered a great comparison guide.”
Marc Blum

“The Delta app is really clean and easy to use.”
Avi Mash

“Paypal and Apple Pay, because of their rapid loads and mobile checkout capabilities.”
Harold Padilla Villa, Product Experience Manager

Do you know what you want to buy on Black Friday? What sites will you go to?

Adobe Stock, via Estheroon

“I don’t really buy on Black Friday, it’s more of taking advantage of any sale. I’ll be on Wayfair, seeing if any of the couches go down in price. The couch I want is saved in my cart; it would be nice if they sent an email about this if there is a price drop, to show they’re paying attention.”
Greg Tessitore

“Electronics from Best Buy, because of the name recognition and comfort with the brand.”
Joseph Schaefer

“Yes, luggage. Have been on Monos.com a lot and will buy from them. I really like their UX.”
Marc Blum

“Definitely cleaning supplies or certain types of tech gadgets. Most likely Target and Amazon.”
Allison Choi

“A Lumie sunrise alarm clock — I’ll be checking Amazon of course.”
Emily Cawse

“Yes, for Black Friday, looking to purchase a TV and possibly an instapot. I start my Black Friday shopping with a direct mail piece. Target is now taking over as the big gift guide book since the end of Toy R Us. After that I view the website to gather more details about the Black Friday Preview sales. I’m more looking forward to Cyber Monday for flight deals.”
Ebony Hester

“I’ll probably buy some flights.”
Avi Mash

We’re entering the most hectic time of the year again — and it’s not even (officially) the holiday season. That’s because the holiday season doesn’t formally start until the holy grail of retail events. We’re of course alluding to Black Friday, the crème de la crème for boosting revenue.

Our globally-extracted data attests to the weight this pre-holiday season event holds. (Have you seen the stampedes and clashes over commonplace items on this day?) With strong expectations of drawing in higher volumes of customers who purchase, now is the time to make sure your digital CX is spot on. 

We analyzed 110 million visitor sessions and inspected the performance of 600 million pages during the 2018 Black Friday season, stretching from November 11th to November 27th. 

Our data validates the expectations of higher sales and shopping carts surrounding these retail affairs (in most cases). There was also less site abandonment — in some countries. Let’s look at some of the key insights we gleaned from those numbers.

Big Wins in the USA — Cyber Monday Rules

Black Friday — historically a brick-and-mortar affair — is today a major digital sales event. In 2018, Black Friday digital sales reached record highs, generating $6.22 billion in revenue. Cyber Monday, as its name suggests, has always been about promotions in the digital space, i.e, eCommerce.

The United States followed this rationale, as its largest sales were chalked up to Cyber Monday last year. Black Friday sales saw a 17% hike in conversions, but Cyber Monday sales trounced these, with conversion increases of 60%.

And conversions weren’t the only thing on the rise — in the US, average carts increased during Black Friday by 12%. 

These heightened conversions were made possible owing to the checkout in particular. This was the case for not solely the US, but also in the UK. Let’s look at the stats we crunched on the checkout portion of the customer journey.

Adobe Stock, via Ivan

The Checkout: Higher Conversions, Lower Bounce Rates & Less Logins 

The conversion rate among visitors who reached the checkout funnel was 25% higher during both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Pre-holiday shoppers who reached the checkout appeared to be more inclined to go through all the steps necessary to complete their purchase, from selecting a product to entering their shipping address. 

The checkout page spurred lower bounce rates in both the US and UK. In the US, the checkout bounce rate went down by 28.3%, and in the UK, it decreased by 32%. 

In the US, the checkout bounce rate went slightly up again on Cyber Monday, but was still lower than the bounce rate in the lead-up to the holiday shopping weekend.

Despite the good performance of the checkout page, it also incurred some engagement issues. Retailers in the UK saw half the checkout logins during Black Friday, and in the US, the logging in rate was 61% lower.

It could be that Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are in a rush to complete their purchase, or that they are already logged into their account. 

In any case, optimizing the checkout step with a quick and easy login process (think one-click, social login, etc) will only encourage more sign-ins. Encouraging guest users to create an account after they convert is another long term marketing opportunity.

Adobe Stock, Via AlexanderNovikov

The Search Bar & Category Pages: Higher Global Usage, Yet Higher Frustration 

In all the countries we analyzed, search bar usage saw a stark increase on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. US shoppers browsing retail tech sites drove a 31% increase to the click rate on the search bar. 

In the UK, specifically in the retail apparel sector, the search bar garnered a 3.16% click rate increase on Black Friday alone. The click rate rose to 10.01% on Cyber Monday. 

Visitors also browsed fewer category pages in general — 5% fewer in the US and 27% fewer in the UK — confirming the theory that, by the time Black Friday rolls around, shoppers have a good idea of what they’re looking for. 

The kickoff to holiday shopping season isn’t a time for idle window shopping, so brands should put their best offers on display well in advance of the big day.

Despite the seemingly good engagement coming from the click rate of the search bar, it can also be a source of frustration, as it drew in higher click recurrences across the board.

With an average of 2 clicks on the homepage search bar during Black Friday, the US felt the most acute wrath in high click recurrence. The UK followed suit, particularly in the fashion sector, where the search bar sustained a monumental 2,000% rise in click recurrence, from 0.08 to 1.78 clicks.

So while the search bar is a necessary element for possible conversions, it may not be very intuitive. It could be drawing up the wrong results or not pulling in products close to what users are typing in automatically.

Bad UX on the Add to Cart Button Globally

The search bar wasn’t the only element to incur a high click recurrence, as the add to cart button was racked by a similar fate. 

In France, particularly in the apparel sector, the add to cart button suffered a click recurrence increase of 5.85%.

It was slightly bigger in the UK apparel sector, having risen by 8%. Most notably, in the UK tech sector, it shot up by 62%.

The US was dealt the biggest blow on add to cart buttons, as they racked up a heaping 50% in click recurrence increases.

The root of this international UX trouble-maker could be error messages springing up when users clicked on the button, either due to a technical error or issues with inventory. 

The lessons to glean from this is to optimize the add to cart button and make sure you don’t run out of products. Pay special attention to best sellers and other popular items.

An Eclectic Set of Acquisition Sources

Traffic from emails was higher by a hulking 79% during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, compared with the prior period. 

Contrary to the US, UK brands received a higher-than-average visitor flow during this season. On Black Friday, organic traffic, or traffic from SEO, was 33% higher, and direct traffic also increased by 24%.

Cyber Monday did not follow suit in the UK. Instead, brands piqued the interest of incoming visitors through paid sources and CRM. Email-based traffic was 160% higher, while social media garnered a king-size 310% increase in traffic.

Whether your brand uses paid sources or goes the organic route, make sure your copy is compelling. Add your best deals to captivate more interest. 

And when creating SEA or paid social ads, make sure your landing pages are consistent with the messaging and offers mentioned in your ads. 

Capitalizing on Black Friday & Cyber Monday in 2019 & Beyond

As the drivers of major retail events, it is incumbent upon brands to create good experiences — digital and otherwise — to attract customers’ attention and most importantly, retain them. As our data shows, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are key forces for higher revenue streams and fewer bounces. However, there is plenty brands can do to improve the UX, reduce frustration, and engage higher add to carts.

For example, product and CTA findability carries a great deal of weight in user experience. As do elements that appear to be clickable, but turn out not to be. 

Read more about how The North Face leveraged granular customer data to optimize their gift guide. 

Luckily, you can refer to a slew of hard data, including industry benchmarks and see how to improve your digital experience for this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But it doesn’t end here. 

You’ll need a continuous stream of data to refer to — and we’re not only referencing industry criteria. You’ll need to have a sturdy set of data on your customers’ behavior. That way, you can determine where customers are struggling and where they’re having a good UX. Once you’re equipped with this data, you can proactively make optimizations so that for your customers, Black Friday and the holiday season will truly be times of giving, i.e., buying.

Not to be outdone by the wordsmiths of this world, the retail industry recently came up with its own neologism, coining the term “phygital” to describe a new form of commerce — one that blends the best of offline and online experiences for an elevated customer experience (CX). 

It may be early days in the world of phygital CX, but brands are experimenting away, and coming up with innovative solutions to fit the needs of today’s omnichannel customer.

But how do you build links between a digital platform and physical store? What experience transfers are already proving successful in terms of engagement and conversions? And how do you make digital features work in the physical world, and vice versa?

What’s certain is that the line between eCommerce and brick-and-mortar is more blurry than ever. The reality is that digital has transformed everyday life. Many of our daily activities — work, communication and of course, consumption — play out in the digital realm. 

In fact, we have fully become phygital beings, and retailers are racing to adapt the customer experience to reflect our evolving needs and expectations. 

THE CUSTOMER IS KING

Consumers today expect seamless omnichannel journeys. But that’s not all they are looking for — they also want choice, and they want to feel special. And VIPs love nothing more than customized product or services!  

Digital has unlocked new opportunities for retailers, but has also made things slightly more complicated. Consumers are no longer looking for the cheapest product or best customer assistance — they seek excellence throughout the customer experience.

“Today we’re seeing a real convergence between online and offline, with many advantages for consumers,” explains Jérôme Malzac, Innovation Officer at Wide Agency. 

“On the eCommerce front: easy search, time-saving, the ability to order wherever, whenever… When it comes to local shopping, the human and physical dimensions are incredibly important, as well as contact between the retailer and the customer — advice, service, getting more info on a product and how quickly it can be purchased.”

LEVERAGING CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE FOR A SUPERIOR CX

One of the main challenges for brands today is delivering intelligent customer journeys that are adapted to every customer. Collecting and aggregating customer behavior data can help brands identify pain points along the customer journey (both online and offline). But it doesn’t stop there, as a granular data collection allows brands to effectively personalize the experience and services. 

“Thanks to data, we can follow our customers along their journey both on and offline, and suggest relevant products to them. For example, a woman who has just purchased newborn clothes will get suggestions for baby shoes,” explains Vanessa Guignoux, head of digital and eCommerce at Gémo.

Integrating mobile app localization can also help brands deliver useful information to customers at the right time, and make their store visit more efficient. Brands can optimize a store visit based on a digital shopping list, for example. And understanding app behavior allows teams to maximize the role of smartphones in facilitating a great CX at every touchpoint.

“Digital makes omnichannel possible, and allows access to things that were only possible in the physical world, removing obstacles to purchase, understanding, sharing and knowledge. In the other direction, from digital to physical, we see gains on the human, emotional front,” explains Yann Carré, head of the marketing communication cycle for Decathlon. 

“But you need to maximize this potential. The most important thing is to have a completely responsive website, one that can be browsed and visited from any device, be it desktop, tablet or smartphone. To illustrate this, for over a year now, more people visit the Decathlon site on a smartphone than a desktop. All of our content (image, text, video, comparison tools, 3D) are conceived to be accessible digitally and to complete the offline and in-store experience.”

With consumer needs and expectations evolving fast, agility and continuous monitoring of customer behavior have never been more important. Digital teams need to analyze the way customers interact with their digital properties as part of their daily workflow. And adopting a design thinking approach and test & learn strategy allows teams to react quickly and keep up with customer expectations.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Armed with a better understanding of their customers, digital retailers and brick-and-mortar stores have started to adopt a phygital CX strategy. Drive-throughs, in-store lockers, click & collect and online reservation are just some of the ways brands have integrated offline and online to improve omnichannel CX. 

Brands have also been exploring the benefits of expanding the reliance on digital in-store, removing typical customer frustrations prevalent in physical stores such as: low inventory, or a certain size not being available. Sales assistants now use tablets to help customers complete an in-store purchase online. Some brands even mix in-store help with added online services to offer product personalization, for example.

“Our sales assistants and department managers have access to the same information as our customers via smartphone, tablet or interactive in-store touch-screens. But they’re also able to analyze buyer behavior from a mobile number or email address. By checking their information system, they can view the purchase history and searches, and engage Mr. D with advice, product suggestions, etc,” said Yann Carré. 

“And each department manager also has all the information that will allow them to make pricing, inventory and merchandising decisions. For example, if a competitor is offering a more competitive price on a particular item, they are empowered to change the price of this particular model to match or to offer a more competitive price. They can predict how this will impact sales either positively or negatively. They have all the intelligence they need to make important decisions completely autonomously.” 

Phygital logic also drives a store’s merchandising strategy. For example, if an item gets anything less than a 3 out of 5 customer score, it is removed from both the online and offline store in order to be improved.

There are many other innovations on the horizon. Monoprix, for example, is hoping to speed up in-store checkout with its Monop’Easy solution. It’s simple: customers scan their items via the mobile app, pay, and receive their receipt by email. 

Sephora also offers a mobile app that blends digital and physical realities, allowing users to test out makeup thanks to AR, and delivering info and advice to in-store customers as they are browsing the physical aisles. And beauty brand Passion Beauté has been inviting social media influencers into their stores.

Pure players have also been playing the phygital game, coming up with concept stores that allow them to get closer to their customers. In New York, you can rent pajamas and a book a bed for a 45-minute nap at Casper’s Dreamery. 

Sezane, which started off as a pure player, has opened showrooms it calls “apartments,” where shoppers can browse exclusive designs and new releases in a cozy, trendy setting. 

Brands are constantly coming up with unique ways to explore the transitions between digital and physical, and elevate the click-and-mortar experience. “We want to be (to sports) what Airbnb is to accommodation and travel,” says Yann Carré. “We want to offer more than just the value of the product and create value around sports, too. 

The more people do sports, the more opportunities there will be for us to connect with them, and sometimes, even if not always, that will transform into a purchase.”

Travel UI design can be a hard nut to crack, especially when it comes to conversions. Our recent analysis of 2,100 Million visitor sessions across several verticals found that travel and tourism has one of the lowest mobile conversion rates of all sectors (0.90% average).

Desktop reigns over mobile within this sector on every performance metric, touting higher conversion rates: 2.90% vs 0.90% on mobile, and average cart values $1,860 vs. $1,790 on mobile.

Visitors spend almost double the amount of time on desktop as they do on mobile sites — 6 minutes 4 seconds on average, suggesting a less than optimized experience. The bounce rate appears to confirm this story, with a considerably higher rate of bounces on mobile than on desktop visitors bounce less, bearing a bounce rate of 39.80% (45.70% versus 39.80%). 

It is clear that even in this mobile-first age, booking an international flight or a train ticket on your smartphone phone may still be far from being user-friendly, let alone instinctive. Since travelers are largely defined by their mobility, developing headache-free solutions is paramount. Take advantage of the following tips to optimize your site for mobile users.

Make it Easy to Navigate Your Site

Whether you provide a multitude of transportation options or accommodation around the world, it’s imperative to optimize your website or app for booking on-the-go.

The best way to achieve this end is by ensuring your users can easily find what they are looking for on your site or app. 

That’s where the navigation menu comes in handy. By providing a clear navigation menu, visitors can quickly navigate the myriad of information and deals you have on offer. The more frustrated visitors become trying to navigate your site, the more likely they will bounce or exit without having converted.

Make sure that the most important parent categories are visible upon reaching the site. Avoid using ambiguous wording for navigation links so that hesitation times remain low, especially for featured content, offers, or features. Don’t leave users guessing what kind of content they’ll be directed to before clicking on something.

In addition to a clean navigation, use category or product pushes throughout the site in relevant areas so users don’t always have to rely on the global navigation (especially if it isn’t sticky to the page.) This can help keep your users engaged even after they’ve found what they’ve been looking for.                                          

An example of good travel UI design: On JetBlue’s homepage, the focus is solely on searching for flights, vacations, hotels, or cars. However, upon opening the menu, users are presented with key categories and CTAs dedicated to booking, managing, or exploring travel options. Categories and subcategories are written in large text and use helpful icons. The contrast in the background of the sub-categories makes it easier to read.

Create Seamless Experiences between Mobile, Web and Mobile Apps.

Many travel apps, especially those for booking transportation and accommodation, require specific functions and features that use the native capabilities of mobile phones.

For example, users are able to add their boarding passes, pull up their tickets or even track their baggage through mobile apps. Are travel brands replicating these essential features for their mobile websites? If not, they’re missing out on key mobile UX improvements. That’s because equipping users with access to the same types of features across platforms is key to providing a seamless travel UX. 

Surface Upsells and Cross-Sells When it’s Relevant

Users are easily overwhelmed when presented with too many options to choose from or multiple tasks to complete. Focusing the user on the most important task, such as booking a flight, is much harder when users are bombarded with a variety of extras or promotions they are encouraged to take advantage of. 

You wouldn’t put every checkout step on one page; the booking process should take a similar approach. It should be spread out across several steps to make it more easily digestible. 

The same goes for any upsells or cross-sells. Options should be progressively surfaced during different stages of the journey and in places where they are most relevant. 

When a flight is selected, the users are immediately provided an option to upgrade their seat. It clearly lists the benefits and price to upgrade. Bold colors that pop from the screen are used to indicate these special options.

That Does it for Travel UX 

Overall, your travel website should make any booking or research process as easy as possible. With mobile users increasingly on the move, any process should be made simple and easy to understand. That includes reimagining and optimizing crucial features so they take into account the context and goals of distinct audience segments. Learn what works best by studying your users’ behaviors and putting customer intelligence at the heart of your experience decisions.