Behavior analytics are so powerful because they give you the information you need to turn website visitors and first-time buyers into loyal customers. By understanding how your customers move through your web store, you can make more data-informed choices that allow you to optimize their experience, and thus web store growth.
Types of user data
Behavior analytics puts you on the inside track on how your customers interact with your online channels. This cross-channel data – gathered from all their devices – is usually divided into three types:
Registered data: This is the information stores in your CRM, ERP, or marketing tools.
Observed data: A summary of your user experience, this includes interactions with different elements on your web store.
Voice of the customer: This is how your customers might feel and choose to express their sentiments with you.
Get inside your customers’ heads
Want to know what your customers are really doing on your site? Here’s what to track:
Page views + time on page: Which pages are getting the most love? Are visitors sticking around, or bouncing quickly? This tells you what’s resonating (or not) with your audience.
Bounce rate: How many visitors leave after viewing just one page? A high bounce rate could signal that your content isn’t relevant, your site is confusing, or your page loads too slowly.
Click-through rate (CTR): How often do visitors click on your links and calls to action (CTAs)? This reveals which messages and offers are most enticing.
Event tracking: Want to know how many people downloaded that whitepaper, watched your product demo video, or filled out your contact form? Event tracking gives you those juicy details.
Heatmaps and scroll maps: See where visitors are clicking, hovering, and scrolling. This visual data helps you understand how users interact with your pages and identify areas for improvement.
Session recordings: Watch replays of real user sessions to see exactly how visitors navigate your site. It’s like having a front-row seat to their experience.
Who benefits from behavior analytics?
Once you start using behavior analytics to better understand your customers, everyone in your organization – from marketing to sales to customer service – can reap the rewards.
Marketers: Want to nail your campaigns, attract the right customers, and keep them coming back? Behavior analytics can help you build detailed customer profiles, personalize your outreach, and see what’s really resonating.
Sales: Looking to cash in on the ROI of your marketing efforts and fill your sales funnel with qualified leads? Behavior analytics can help you spot upsell and cross-sell opportunities and identify the customers most likely to buy.
Data analysts: Want to map out the customer journey and pinpoint areas for improvement? Behavior analytics gives data analysts the tools to turn complex data into actionable insights, helping marketers make smart, data-driven decisions.
Customer service: Sometimes even the best predictions miss the mark. Behavior analytics can help your frontline team understand why customers are unhappy, equipping them with the right responses and providing valuable feedback to sales and marketing.
In short, behavior analytics is like giving your entire organization a superpower – the ability to truly understand your customers and make decisions that drive growth.
How to turn data into actionable strategies
Here’s how you can use behavior analytics to drive real improvements:
Identify your top performers (and underperformers): See which pages are shining and which ones need a little love.
Optimize your user experience (UX): Use heatmaps and session recordings to pinpoint areas of frustration and improve navigation.
Understand your customers’ journey: See how visitors interact with your products, content, and calls to action.
Find and fix leaks in your sales funnel: Identify where potential customers are dropping off and optimize those steps to boost conversions.
Why you need to embrace behavior analytics
By now, you should be convinced that behavior analytics is not just a buzzword, but a crucial tool for understanding your customers and driving growth in the competitive B2B e-commerce arena.
By harnessing the power of data, you can:
Craft a customer-centric experience: Tailor your website, marketing campaigns, and even product offerings to resonate with the specific needs and preferences of your audience segments.
Optimize for maximum impact: Pinpoint areas of friction in your website, identify high-performing content, and streamline the customer journey to boost conversions.
Stay ahead of the competition: Make informed decisions based on real data, not guesswork. Anticipate trends, identify opportunities, and adapt to changing customer behavior.
Ideally, your e-commerce platform should provide you with most, if not all, of the data mentioned in this article. If you’re curious to learn more about tooling that can help you gain these insights, read on.
