Qubit Releases Data on More Than Two Billion User Journeys to Help Brands Take on the Ecommerce Giants

Personalization is no longer just promise by online marketing giants: Alexa and Google Home are sidestepping the on-screen interface and talking to consumers directly, and Siri has been around a while to “find a local Asian restaurant with gluten-free dumplings”. However, even as the mall and brick-and-mortar sales tumble, the majority of retailers are putting their faith and money into visually-driven online storefronts. And Amazon hasn’t reduced its constant user-experience (UX) research practices to hone its skills at selling through their website with no voice interaction, not to mention the apps for every individual store and brand you can think of.

A desirable (from the customer’s POV) online, onscreen user journey becomes paramount to success, regardless of the type of online storefront or shopping cart, and there is enough data available to do more than make assumptions on what will give a site a boost. As Amazon and others learned with constant testing, straightforward design changes that have less to do with specific products or services being offered than understanding what improves the customer experience is crucial. There is no doubt that the more we gather data on online shopping habits, certain aspects of human nature play a key factor in getting attention and closing sales. Appealing to people’s foundational “hunter gatherer” nature can play a vital role, as noted in the table below breaking down techniques identified as giving sales sites a boost through personalization.

Qubit, a leader in marketing personalization technology, working with PwC, has released the results of an unprecedented analysis of more than two billion user journeys and 120 million purchases to determine the potential revenue uplift that ecommerce businesses can expect from specific optimization techniques.

The report reveals that ecommerce businesses could add as much as six percent to their revenues, representing tens of billions of dollars globally, by focusing on the most effective optimization and personalization techniques.

The report sheds light on the effect for online revenue when businesses engage in high performing website optimization and personalization strategies such as scarcity, urgency, or social proof messaging. These types of techniques perform functions like displaying current stock levels for products being viewed, or alerting shoppers when a sale is ending soon. The report also highlights areas where ecommerce businesses may be allocating resources to lower performing strategies.

More from the press release announcing the study and offering a complete copy of the report, follows:

“Now is the moment for transparency in our industry,” says Graham Cooke, founder and CEO of Qubit. “Ecommerce leaders have to get personalization right when they’re trying to compete against the likes of Amazon, and yet it’s so hard to know what really works. We want every marketer to know precisely what tactics will help them beat the 800-pound ecommerce gorilla, and I invite other vendors in our industry to do the same.”

The top techniques measured in the report were:

RankMeasured techniqueDefinitionMean uplift (RPV)
1ScarcityHighlighting items that are low in stock.2.9%
2Social proofLeveraging the behavior of other users to provide information
about currently trending and popular products.
2.3%
3UrgencyUsing a time limit to promote urgency to complete an action before a deadline.1.5%

A number of common, less effective techniques measured in the report:

RankMeasured techniqueDefinitionMean uplift (RPV)
7Page redesignSignificant changes to the design of a page, usually involving multiple elements changing on a page.0.2%
16Button changesAny change that involves a button.-0.2%
19Navigation changesTechniques focused on altering the navigation bar or link structure.-0.2%

 

The data shows that programmatic and personalization experiences that tap into customer, product, or business data are providing anywhere from two to 14 times more incremental revenue per visitor (RPV)2 versus traditional optimization efforts, which focus mainly on cosmetic changes such as colors and location of buttons. Conversely, experiences like popups or buttons that take a user back to the top of the page, can even have a negative impact.
The study also finds that businesses that engage in targeted personalization based on user behaviors and preferences can expect a three times better result than untargeted marketing tactics. The complete report is available through a sign-up screen at http://www.qubit.com/research/journey-to-personalization-at-scale?utm_source=businesswire&utm_medium=press&utm_campaign=2017Q2-Global-PwC.
The Effectiveness Fog
A survey of nearly 250 marketers shows that more than a quarter (26 percent) of brands spend over $51,000 on website testing and optimization tactics, and of those, nearly one in ten (8 percent) spend more than $100,000 annually. Yet many of these basic tactics are highlighted in the report data as having limited effectiveness.
The survey also highlighted transparency concerns similar to those seen in the advertising industry, with 72 percent of respondents agreeing that tech vendors could be more transparent about the effectiveness and measurement of their solutions.
“At Arcadia we have always been focused on making sure our digital marketing investments drive true, incremental value to the business. Personalization is helping us build relationships with our customers that translate into increased engagement, loyalty and revenue,” said Simon Pritchard, group digital director at Arcadia. “All of the Arcadia brands – Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Topman, Topshop, and Wallis – are working with Qubit and seeing great returns by investing in a platform that delivers personalization at scale. This report backs up our trust in Qubit and I’m delighted to see that they are the first to take a stand, releasing the results of this study to call for greater transparency and rigor in the market.”

 


Consumers Demand Personalization
Qubit’s research also reveals the highly competitive online environment brands face, with almost three quarters (73 percent) of online consumers4 spending most of their money on between just one to five websites.
Consumer sentiment also appears to support the report’s findings, showing that customers value data-driven personalization. Half of the respondents (50 percent) said they enjoyed receiving product recommendations that fit their interests or preferences, while almost half (49 percent) said they were willing to share their preferences with a business in order to receive a better shopping experience.
A majority of respondents (81 percent) said it was either ‘very important’ or ‘somewhat important’ that a website provided targeted promotions based on their own preferences.
“We’ve performed the most comprehensive study of marketing personalization in the industry,” said Will Browne, data scientist and product manager at Qubit. “What is particularly exciting is the size of the cumulative effect we see for our top performing clients; with some personalization strategies having up to a 6 percent impact on ecommerce revenue.”
“There are clearly longstanding issues around transparency in marketing, which will only be solved by advertisers and providers rigorously and openly assessing whether the services that marketers are paying for are actually delivering results” said Sam Tomlinson, partner at PwC. “My team worked with the Qubit data science team to subject their methodology – i.e. their data capture, calculations and reporting – to our rigorous independent assurance procedures. The report by Qubit provides a detailed analysis of today’s marketing toolkit and, given the scale and depth of data analysed, is a first of its kind that I have seen . “