Multi-Channel Funnels are a new set of reports that show which marketing channels your customers visited your site from during the 30 days prior to a conversion or purchase. In this series of three posts, Michael Fox, co-Founder and Director of Operations of Shoes of Prey, shares how he uses these new reports to improve sales for the business. You can read Part 1 here. - Ed.

In our first post, I discussed why we like Google Analytics’ new Multi-Channel Funnels reports, and how we improved our website and our customers’ experience based on insights gained from the Top Conversion Paths report. Today I want to focus on another equally insightful report: the Time Lag report.


Time Lag report
The time lag report shows how many days passed between when the visitor first came to our site and when they made a conversion (i.e. in our case, sales). This provided us with useful insights into the length of our online sales cycle.


Insights: Make the design process easier for our customers



When analysing our sales cycles earlier in the year, we noticed that 40% of our conversions (and 37% of our revenue) happen one or more days after the first visit. Furthermore, we could see that 13% of total conversions happen 12 or more days after the first visit. This reinforced our conclusions from the last post that our customers take time to make a decision on which shoe design they would like to purchase. We need to take steps to shorten this for them.

Actions: Email campaigns to help customers make decisions sooner
These insights convinced us to put into action a number of email campaigns to help our potential customers make a decision sooner.

We first developed an email marketing program that keeps in regular touch with our customers over time. We knew from the report that for every day that a customer stays away from the design process, the more likely they will drop off without making a purchase. These emails were designed to remind them about their unfinished designs and also provided design tips.

We also tested another email campaign where we sent customers content related to their unfinished design. We tested offering free shipping or free leather samples of the leathers used in their design. The leather samples offer got a reasonable take up but hasn't shown a big uplift in sales yet. The free shipping offer didn't perform very well though. We hypothesise that our customers care more about the quality of the product over saving a few dollars on shipping. Moving forward, we’ll focus on the quality aspects of our products when doing this kind of outreach.

We also started an email campaign targeting visitors who abandoned their shopping cart. We ask for feedback on why customers abandoned their cart and offer to answer any questions they might have. We’ve received some great feedback, but most importantly, we were able to “re-activate” shoppers who abandoned the purchase process. This campaign has not only lead to a 7% increase in sales, but has also provided valuable learnings on how to fine-tune our purchase process.


Results: Shortening the time-to-purchase
In combination with what we have done here, and with our actions we shared in our first post, we have seen a decrease in the time to purchase. Over the course of 4 months, we’ve seen same-day purchases increase by 20% and 12+ day purchases fall by 8%.




Multi-Channel Funnels helped us understand the time lag between when a visitor first comes to our and when they complete a purchase. These insights helped us formulate a “continuous touch” strategy that has helped us increase sales. I would be interested to hear what your ideas are for reducing the number of days between a first visit and purchase.

Posted by Michael Fox, co-Founder and Director of Operations, Shoes of Prey

Last month we ran a series of GoMeasure with Google Analytics events across Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. In those four events, Googlers and Google Analytics Certified Partners shared insights into how to get the most value out of Google Analytics’ new features as well as sharing site optimisation and conversion tips.

Today we’re releasing the videos of the presentations from the Singapore and Kuala Lumpur events. The videos are of easy-to-digest bite-sized lengths. So you should be easily able to watch them in between meetings or while taking a break. You can also download the slides if you would like to view them on a bigger screen.



Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

Multi-Channel Funnels are a new set of reports that show which marketing channels your customers visited your site from during the 30 days prior to a conversion or purchase. In this series of three posts, Michael Fox, co-Founder and Director of Operations of Shoes of Prey, shares how he uses these new reports to improve sales for the business. - Ed.

What are Multi-Channel Funnels reports?
We were excited to be one of the earliest testers of Google Analytics’ new Multi-Channel Funnels reports. Multi-Channel Funnels are a new set of reports that show how customers arrived at our site (i.e. which channels they interacted with) during the 30 days prior to a conversion (e.g. newsletter sign-up) or purchase. We get a better understanding of what role website referrals, searches and ads play towards influencing a purchase; and how much time passed between the visitor’s first visit and their purchase. What this means is that we no longer have to base our decisions based on the source of the last click. Using these reports, we can now look at all the channels that visitors may have used prior to converting. This gives us much more powerful insight into which channels are working for us.

I would like to walk you through how Shoes of Prey gained useful insights that helped our business through these sets of reports. Today, in the first of our three articles, I’ll focus on the Top Conversion Path report.



Top Conversion Paths report
We use the Top Conversions Paths report to understand the sequence of channel interactions that led to conversions. For example, if we study this conversion path (the number of times a customer visited our website, and from where) below, we can see that two conversions happened due to a series of interactions where the visitors:

1. First visited us three times via a direct visit (i.e. using a bookmark or typing our URL directly into their browser)
2. Then visited us by clicking on a paid ad
3. They returned twice more to our site, but this time from clicking on organic search results
4. Then they visited us again directly three more times
5. Finally they came to us through organic searches. They ended up purchasing a pair of shoes on the very last search.

We could then further break out these results to see more details, for example, which particular keywords attracted the visitors when they came to our site via Paid Advertising and Organic Search.



Insights: Is there confusion among some of our customers?
When analysing recent top conversion paths, we realised that a significant number of sales occur due to a series of direct visits from people who had typed in the URL or came from a bookmark. Some visitors were making up to 30 direct visits before purchasing a pair of shoes!

It was heartening to see a lot of all-direct visits, as it signified that these visitors had made up their mind to purchase their shoes from us. We realised, however, that we need to take efforts to help our customers design and purchase their shoes in a fewer number of visits. We understand that our offerings could be overwhelming for some customers when they could choose from over four trillion shoe combinations!





Actions: Reducing the number of visits to purchase
We took steps to drive more of our potential customers to our leather videos. We wanted them to learn more about the products in a shorter period of time and encourage them to design their shoes sooner.

We also implemented a website chat solution that allows customers to ask us questions while browsing the site. We can answer their questions in real-time and hopefully help them arrive at a decision sooner.

We have also been continually testing changes to our user interface that would help customers reach a decision on which pair of shoes to purchase. These include testing different forms of wizards and guides, and even highlighting how to get started.

Results: Shortening the purchase cycle
Taking these steps have helped our customers make a purchase decision sooner. In the last three months we’ve seen a 40% increase in our conversion rate and a shortening of all-direct paths before a sale. We’ve seen same-day purchases increase by 20% and 12+ day purchases fall by 8%.




We found the Top Conversion Paths report to be an eye-opener. It clearly demonstrated to us how our potential customers were interacting with our site prior to making a purchase. I encourage you to start looking at your Top Conversion Paths report now - I guarantee that you will find at least one conversion path worth exploring that you had never considered before!

Posted by Michael Fox, co-Founder and Director of Operations, Shoes of Prey

What a crazy two weeks it has been! GoMeasure with Google Analytics did a whirlwind tour through Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. In those four events, Googlers and Google Analytics Certified Partners shared insights into how to get the most value out of Google Analytics’ new features as well as sharing site optimisation and conversion tips.

You can view the presentations from the four events via the below links. We’ll also be providing the videos of the talks from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur next week. Stay tuned!

• Southeast Asia Leg: Kuala Lumpur (Sep 8 2011)
• Southeast Asia Leg: Singapore (Sep 6 2011) 
• Australia Leg: Melbourne (Sep 1 2011) 
• Australia Leg: Sydney (Aug 30 2011)

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

Are you eager to optimise your Conversion Rate, but feel a little bit overwhelmed by all of the tools available to help you? Today we're delighted to introduce ‘Improving Online Conversions for Dummies’!

We have just released a simple, easy to follow mini book, in conjunction with John Wiley Publications, to help you get a better grasp of the conversion improvement tools offered by Google. Improving Online Conversions for Dummies explains how you can make sure your ads show on searches that are most likely to convert into sales. Understand which ad clicks and impressions lead to conversions, better apportion your marketing spend and even develop your own conversion attribution model. Discover the secrets to getting more bang for your buck with this ebook!

For more information, visit www.google.com/conversion/fordummies

Posted by James Toepfer, Google Customer Marketing Manager

If you only had 5 seconds to sell your product, what would you do? Your landing pages have, on average, about 5 seconds before visitors decide to stay or bounce.

So how can you make sure your landing pages do their job and captivate your visitors? Antoine De Saint-Exuperyonce said:

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

The problem for landing pages is that often the opposite is true. In an attempt to satisfy the needs of every possible visitor, landing pages are often crammed full of text, graphics, special offers and sometimes even advertising banners. Your call to action is competing with all that noise. Visitors are often left confused and unsure what to do.

Below are some suggestions to improve your call to action. As with any new changes you make to your website, we strongly recommend using a testing tool such as Google Website Optimiser to confirm any changes you make have a positive impact.

1. Good ol’ large call to action buttons

Perhaps the most obvious and definitely an oldie but a goodie when it comes to landing page design. Big call to action buttons really do work, because they are just so blatantly obvious.

Tips for big glossy buttons

• Place your call to action buttons above the fold
• Size does matter. Make sure it’s the biggest, especially if you have multiple buttons on the page
• Start your button’s call to action text with a verb such as Sign Up, Buy, Order, Learn, Donate, Discover
• Use a contrasting colour to the rest of your design

By default HTML buttons are not very exciting and not very good at conveying the strong message you want to show your visitors. With a little bit of CSS, HTML and your favorite graphical editor you can create a great call to action button as this tutorial demonstrates.

2. Support your call to action

• Use graphics that support (not compete) with your call to action
• Use bullet points (around 8 max) to emphasise your offer and its best attributes
• If applicable consider using genuine customer testimonials
• Use plenty of white space in your design and make use of grids
• Avoid placing lengthy paragraphs of text above the fold
• Use a compelling heading

• The 8 bullet points list the benefits of the product
• The testimonial is supported by a photo of someone playing guitar
• The graphic in the top left supports the core message - someone playing guitar
• Good use of white space and grids
• The main focus in this design is still on the call to action buttons
• The call to action is placed above the fold

It also tells visitors...

3. What’s in it for me?

This is the question your visitors are asking themselves. To truly strengthen your call to action make sure you address this question in your landing page design. Here is how you can do it.

• Spend less time talking about yourself and more time talking about how you can help your visitors
• Use a 50 words or less introductory paragraph to describe what makes your product or service wonderful
• Tell them why they should choose you over the competition (example: price comparison)
• Use upbeat positive language
• Be personable - speak on a person to person level
• Address any possible concerns (example: No Spyware / Adware)

This website tells you exactly who the product is in the headline Email marketing software for designers and their clients. Then it tells you why you should use the product in the introductory paragraph. Earn a tidy profit by letting your clients send at prices you set.

4. Reduce the number of choices

When it comes to landing pages, offering more choice is not necessarily a good thing. Barry Schwartz talks about the Paradox of Choice (20 mins) which discusses how reducing choice can result in selling more.

Brandon O’Dell discusses how reducing menu items in a restaurant is a good thing. When Gordon Ramsay went to Paris to help a struggling vegetarian restaurant he only offered 1 item at lunch, soup. In fact Gordon uses the same kind of formula (step #5) often in his Kitchen Nightmares show.
Apply the same formula to your landing pages. Simplify what you are offering and remove any competing choices a visitor has to make.

• When possible create unique landing pages for each product
• Simplify your offer and focus on its core benefits
• Experiment with creating category pages that show less items per page
• Aim to have only 1 call to action on a given page
• If you must have more than 1 offer on the same page, help customers decide by telling them what offer best suits them based on their experience, budget or other relevant attributes

5. Competing offers

Sometimes you can’t avoid having more than 1 offer on a page. Let’s take a look at 2 example pages where multiple offers are displayed to visitors.

Both pages have multiple plans on offer. However, in the second example we can see that visitors are given some guidance as to what plan they should choose. Use of graphical hierarchy and the wording most popular plan helps visitors decide. Also worth mentioning is that the free plan has been de-emphasised but is still available.


6. Repeat your call to action

If you need more than one page to convince your visitors to take action, feel free to repeat yourself. If you offer a product tour or use several pages to explain complex features and options, place your call to action in a consistent position. This way visitors will know where to go when they are ready to take action.

On both sites above, you can see the call to action buttons Sign up now and Sign Up For Free on the upper right hand corner of the screen. The left hand navigation pane allows visitors to navigate through various sections of their site. Each page has the call to action button in exactly the same position.


7. Category pages and a call to action

These pages are often overlooked when it comes to improving your call to action. However have you ever tested allowing people to directly add an item to their shopping cart from this page?

• The price comparison showing the price £RRP and YOU SAVE £X.XX assists the primary call to action
• The buy now button allows visitors to add the items directly to their cart

This category page allows visitors to select a number of items they want to add to their cart, saving them time and making their shopping experience better.

Case study analysis

Take this case study by Tim Ferriss for example. The original landing page was good, but over time the page has changed and evolved as a result of continued website testing:

Original page (before testing)

After several tests

• Reduced choice (only 1 large glossy button)
• Repeated call to action (in 5 other sections)
• Headline changed from Workout and Food Tracking to Better Fitness Results in Less Time (what’s in it for me factor)
• Plenty of white space and clarity in design
• Latest blog posts were removed
• Latest member list was removed
• 3 bullet points used to support the call to action
• Media buzz (credibility badges) moved above the fold
• Improved graphical elements (assist call to action)

1. apple represents healthy eating
2. dumbbell, water bottle, measuring tape represents workout/gym
3. program screenshot ties them all together

The overall message has been simplified and anything deemed as a distraction has been removed from the overall design. The call to action button Join for Free! literally screams for attention. For additional case studies check out the Expert Help tab above.


How to test for success

When testing your call to action it’s a good idea to test micro conversions. This helps reduce experiment duration because your test pages and goal pages (micro-conversion points) are closer together.

You are also likely to have many more micro conversions than macro conversions on your site. This gives Google Website Optimiser more data to work with in a shorter time period, quickly giving you the winning variation. Example: If you decided to test your category pages by adding a call to action, select your add to basket page as the goal page in Google Website Optimiser (not your final checkout page).

The aim of your Google Website Optimiser experiment should be to determine if you get more visitors adding an item to your shopping basket (micro conversion) as the diagram below indicates.

Visitor conversion path flow

Hopefully you now have some fresh ideas to improve your call to action. Have any tips of your own to share? Leave a comment and let us know.

Gavin Doolan, Google Analytics team