Executive Summary
We surveyed our customers over a period of just over three years.
3,412 of our customers took a survey at the start of using A1WebStats.
We then surveyed those customers after 6 months.
Mindsets changed about what actually matters in analysing website visitors data, after using A1WebStats.
What we asked our customers
Our customers came to us with a specific need in mind.
We asked them a series of questions about what they wanted to discover from their website visitors data and these were the most significant of those questions:
- Names of companies visiting your website and what they looked at page by page
- More enquiries about/sales of products or services
- Stronger return on investment from marketing activities
We asked each customer to rank (from 0-10) for each area of interest.
Data from the start of using A1WebStats
The chart below shows the average ranking taken from the survey of 3,412 customers.
At an average rank of 8.6 out of 10, Companies Tracking (identifying companies that visited the website and what they looked at page by page) was considered more than double the importance of:
- More enquiries about/sales of products or services (average rank of 4.8 out of 10)
- Stronger return on investment from marketing activities (average rank of 4.1 out of 10)
That wasn’t a surprise to us, but it did raise concerns about what businesses focus on within their website visitors data.
What happened over the next 6 months
In the first 6 months of each customer using A1WebStats, we encouraged focus on different aspects of the A1WebStats system that would help each customer to gain more business from their website and the marketing that drives traffic to the website.
We then surveyed each customer again to see what difference there was in mindset about what matters.
Here are the areas that we focused on …
Names of companies visiting your website and what they looked at page by page
Most people initially came to us because they became aware that it was possible to identify the names of companies that visited their website, and see what they looked at page by page.
For example:
You can see more about how A1WebStats helps with companies tracking (including a video and free 30 day trial offer) on this page.
Typically, people had trialled a competitor product and were looking around for other options with better pricing and differentiators in functionality.
So it was no surprise that ‘Companies Tracking’ averaged 8.6 out of 10.
The belief of many was that if a company could be identified, and that company hadn’t made contact, then it was purely a case of finding ways to reach out to people within that company, to see if they could salvage something.
While that can sometimes work, it doesn’t address the core problem – the people from those companies didn’t find enough reason to make contact with the business.
Our view at A1WebStats is that there are benefits in identifying companies that visited a website, but the bigger gains are achieved from focusing on ways that more people could be encouraged to make contact, having visited the website. In fact, we actively encourage customers to think beyond chasing companies.
More enquiries about/sales of products or services
A website that generates more enquiries about/more sales of products or services, would appear to be a sensible objective.
However, this subject had an average interest level of only 4.8 out of 10 before people started using A1WebStats.
We discovered that people find products such as Google Analytics to be too complex but at the same time limited in what can be uncovered about website visitors patterns.
So people often believed that it wasn’t possible to dig deeper.
We showed our customers, using the A1WebStats system, that it was possible to look at individual products or services that they offer and identify weaknesses within their websites that could be fixed.
The starting point was basic math – comparing relevant visits to product or service pages to the levels of enquiries/sales gained about a specific product or service.
This page (which includes a video and free 30 day trial offer) focuses on how the A1WebStats system (and our support) leads to more sales and enquiries being gained from website visitors (without having to chase identifiable companies).
Stronger return on investment from marketing activities
You would think that most businesses are closely analysing what return on investment they’re getting from time and budget spent on marketing.
Whatever form of online marketing it is (including paid traffic, organic SEO, social media), A1WebStats can provide detailed insights into every person that arrived at the website from that form of marketing – including what they looked at page by page after landing.
This was an eye-opener for many of our customers.
For some it was a bit scary and made ROI too visible.
But the clever people were those that identified weaknesses that were stopping them getting stronger results from their marketing. Typically those weaknesses weren’t in the marketing themselves, but were mainly in blockers on the website that restricted the ability to convert clicks to engagement.
Those same clever people then fixed weaknesses (often supported by what the A1WebStats data highlighted was a problem), which gained them stronger return on their marketing budget and time.
This page (which includes a video and free 30 day trial offer) focuses on how the A1WebStats system helps to gain more results from marketing time and expenditure.
Survey results 6 months later
After 6 months using A1WebStats, benefiting from our support and insights, we surveyed each customer again, focusing on what’s important to them about website visitors data.
Here’s the outcome of that …
This graph compares the ranks of importance at the start of using A1WebStats to the view 6 months later …
What it shows is:
- The importance of companies tracking is still highest (7.5 average out of 10).
- Although companies tracking is still given the highest priority, the other two categories significantly increased compared to the previous position.
- At the start of using A1WebStats, ‘Companies Tracking’ had an average rank 3.8 points higher than the next important factor. 6 months later, ‘Companies tracking’ was only 0.7 points higher than the next important factor.
Summary of what all this means
People came to A1WebStats initially focused on what they thought was most valuable to them – identifying companies that visited their website, and what they looked at page by page.
By allowing us and our system to show them how it was possible to focus on data in a more intelligent way, those same people applied less importance to ‘companies tracking’ and more importance to finding ways that they could make their websites and marketing stronger, leading to them getting higher levels of enquiries and sales.
It is worth noting that ‘Companies tracking’ was still the strongest category, which focuses our (A1WebStats) attention on working even harder to raise awareness of how to use data to make businesses stronger than their competitors, rather than taking the seemingly easy path of chasing companies that visited their websites.