bc web analytics benchmark report

Web Analytics Benchmark Why the corporate website is different Challenging conventional wisdom on devices, home pages and social media ff

By Jason Sumner and Andy McNair December 2014

Bowen Craggs & Co Ltd E-mail [email protected] T +44 2071 937554 M +44 7786 707434 www.bowencraggs.com

Contents

1 Web Analytics Benchmark December 2014

Introduction 2 The ‘mobile first’ mistake 3 Death of the home page? Reports are exaggerated… 4 If you post it, will they come? 5 Join the Web Analytics Benchmark 6

Introduction


Data beats hype The 2014 Web Analytics Benchmark pooled Google Analytics data for 14 major corporate websites, which shared their figures with Bowen Craggs on an anonymous basis for 12 months, from May 2013 to April 2014.

Want to join the project? As a participant in our ongoing benchmarking project you will receive free access to numerous data points on devices, session duration, referrals and much else, with the ability to see how your company compares to peers. To find out more, please contact: Dan Drury: E-mail [email protected] T +44 2071 937554 M +44 7786 707434

Mobile is the new desktop. The home page is dead. Social media is the future of online. None of this conventional wisdom is completely wrong, but it is true only to a point and in the right context. Some web designers and digital consultants would have us believe that what is true for websites such as Facebook, BuzzFeed or Upworthy is true for every other online estate. We know, however, based on the evidence of the Bowen Craggs Web Analytics Benchmark study, that corporate websites are different. Our research pooled Google Analytics data for 14 major corporate websites, which shared their figures with Bowen Craggs on an anonymous basis for 12 months, from May 2013 to April 2014. Chart 1: Bowen Craggs Web Analytics Dashboard (Each coloured bubble represents an individual company, with the largest bubble representing a ‘selected company’ for benchmarking purposes. The vertical grey line is the average value of all companies represented.)

Source: Bowen Craggs & Co. Data: May 2013-April 2014. Participating companies were from a variety of sectors. The number of annual visits to their websites ranged from 300,000 to 13.7m, (with a median of 1.6m and mean of 2.4m). Although the number of visits varied, in terms of serving visitors – whether jobseekers, customers, investors, CSR analysts or journalists – the goals of the participating websites are broadly similar. Our research also shows that the behaviour of visitors was markedly similar across all sites. The uniformity of goals and visitor behaviour means our analysis and comparisons are robust for the very busy sites and the relatively quieter ones. We examined the types of devices used to access corporate websites (mobile phone, tablet, laptop/desktop), where visitors arrive from (direct, organic, paid search, referral, social media) and where visitors land (home page or elsewhere). In each case, the data challenge conventional wisdom.

The ‘mobile first’ mistake


Don’t ignore the desktop Our analytics benchmark suggests you should think twice before relegating desktop design in favour of a ‘mobile first’ approach. Nine out of 10 visits to corporate websites happen on desktops.

Should ‘mobile first’ be the mantra for corporate websites? After all, smartphone sales overtook sales of regular mobile phones in 2013, and tablet shipments are within a year or two of outstripping PC shipments for the first time. A study by Pew Internet reported that 55% of US adults accessed the internet via a mobile device in 2012. BuzzFeed, one of the internet’s most popular news destinations, saw traffic from mobile grow five times in the last year, and Facebook now gets almost half of its traffic from mobile users. Yet, for corporate websites, our analytics benchmark suggests you should think twice before relegating desktop design in favour of ‘mobile first’. The desktop is the single biggest platform by far for viewing corporate websites. Nine out of 10 visits to corporate websites happen on desktops (See Chart 2, below). Chart 2: Desktop first: traffic by device

Source: Bowen Craggs & Co. Data: May 2013-April 2014.

Yet don’t ignore mobile either… Mobile is an important and growing platform for corporate websites – our own benchmark research shows that visits from mobile devices and tablets doubled from 2013 to 2014. Some corporate websites receive one-fifth of traffic via mobile, and in Asia, anecdotal evidence suggests figures as high as 80% of visitors come via mobile for some companies. But in terms of absolute numbers and for most corporate websites, mobile is still insignificant compared to the desktop. A responsive strategy Corporate websites are a complex source of information for multiple audiences, and those audiences will want to view and interact with content in different ways. Other research by Bowen Craggs suggests that people are more likely to use a desktop for time-intensive tasks such filling out an online job application. A mobile is used to find quick information. Visitors on tablets are more likely to watch videos, for example. In theory, responsive sites that reformat automatically according to screen size should be the best of all worlds, but implementation has often been flawed (abolishing left navigation, for example, which is essential for getting around on a desktop). The lesson is: accommodate the rising importance of mobile but don’t ruin the way your website works for the majority of users – those on desktop or laptop computers.

Death of the home page? Reports are exaggerated…


The doorway into the estate The home page is becoming less important for some websites, but not for the audiences corporate websites serve. Seven in 10 visits to companyname.com arrive via the home page.

In May 2014, BuzzFeed, a media website, revealed a leaked internal memo from the New York Times showing that the number of visits to its home page had fallen by 42% from 2011 to 2013, even as overall traffic to the newspaper’s website remained steady. It showed that visitors were coming through the ‘side door’, via social media and email. This unleashed a flurry of media stories announcing the ‘death of the home page’. Clearly something is changing in online media and news consumption, where the home page has become less relevant, but does this translate to the corporate website? The home page is indeed becoming less important for some sites, but not for audiences corporate websites serve. Our analytics show they are the most important doorways into corporate estates, with seven in 10 visits to companyname.com arriving first at the home page. Chart 3: No place like home: arrival page %


If you post it, will they come?


Social media is important, but not for visit acquisition Although there are many reasons why a social media presence is important for corporates, for the moment, social media channels contribute relatively few click-throughs to companyname.com. Organic and direct together account for 77% of visits to corporate websites.

Facebook is the king of traffic acquisition online – as of March 2014, it was driving 21% of traffic to websites, according to Shareaholic, a software developer that monitors referrals to 300,000 websites including independent blogs, publishers and e-commerce sites. This type of data has encouraged some to base their social media strategy on the potential for click-throughs. Chart 4: How sites acquired visits

Source: Bowen Craggs & Co. Data: May 2013-April 2014. Our analytics research shows that for corporate websites, this is not happening. One per cent of visits to companyname.com arrived via social media channels. The most visits were acquired via organic and direct, on a whopping 77% together. It is important to note that this trend was recorded across all of the sites in the study, not because one particular corporate website is doing badly. Useful channels Although click-throughs from social media lag far behind

organic and direct acquisitions, in terms of absolute numbers, these channels still drive thousands of visits for high-traffic sites. For example, LinkedIn contributes the most social media traffic to the corporate websites in our benchmarking research, accounting for just over 0.5% of all companyname.com traffic. If a site receives 1m visits a year, a not insignificant 5,000 arrived via the professional networking site. Moreover, all traffic is not equal. Visitors arriving from LinkedIn, for example, are likely to stay longer and view more pages than visitors arriving via a search engine. Social media presence also contributes to organic search rankings in Google’s algorithms. In China, the mobile app WeChat is a major online communication tool, where some corporates maintain a presence in order to interact with stakeholders. So there are many reasons why social media are important channels for corporates, but visit acquisition is a much less important part of the mix and social media strategies should reflect this. Chart 5: LinkedIn best for social media traffic


Join the Web Analytics Benchmark


The Web Analytics Benchmark is free to join. Participating companies share their Google Analytics data with Bowen Craggs on an anonymous basis. Benefits include:

• Quick and easy to take part.

• Access to full online dashboard with detailed metrics on traffic, device and social media trends.

• Ability to benchmark figures against

similar corporate peers, strategic information that is of big concern to bosses.

For more information please contact: Dan Drury, CEO Bowen Craggs & Co. e-mail: [email protected] office: +44 2071 937554 linkedin.com/in/dandrury

Granular detail for each metric For companies participating in the Analytics Benchmark, the online dashboard contains several levels of detail for each metric. As one example, there are a several metrics relating to bounce rates (see Chart 6, below). Although the overall bounce rate varies widely among the companies in our sample, clustering around 40% to 50%, the average bounce rate for desktops is better than the overall average; tablets are slightly worse than desktops, and mobile is much worse. Interactive company comparisons The online dashboard also allows for precise company comparisons. Participants can highlight a particular company in the dashboard and follow its performance through the metrics. For example, the chart below shows which companies are doing well on bounce rates by device and those that are not. For some individual companies, almost seven in 10 mobile visitors don’t interact any further with the website after landing on the home page. Chart 6: An example of detailed analytics under ‘Bounce rate’ (Each coloured bubble represents an individual company, with the largest bubble representing a ‘selected company’ for benchmarking purposes. The vertical grey line is the average value of all companies represented.)
