Demystifying the Scenario Analysis Report, Part I: Understanding Fall-out
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009One of the most complex reports we have available in Webtrends is the scenario analysis report. It’s also one of our most robust, and can provide you with worlds of good information to help you optimize scenarios on your site. But I’ve found that a lot of people aren’t exactly sure what the report tells them. They see the information, but they don’t understand what insights are being given.
That’s what this series of blog posts is about: demystifying the scenario analysis report and making it work for you.
Let’s start by talking about a concept that’s bandied about a lot when talking about conversions: abandonment. In a lot of conversion funnels, abandonment equates to visits that did not “funnel through” to the following step in the scenario. Not so with our scenario analysis reports; we focus, instead, on fall-out.
Here’s a sample scenario analysis report (click on it for a clear image):
At first glance you may think that this scenario has a 73.51% abandonment rate on step one, since that’s the first percentage to appear on the right. On this, you’re right, but it’s not quite what it seems. Here’s what that number tells you: Of the 38,232 visits to the “Product Page View” step in this scenario, 28,264 (or 73.51% of) visits did not on to the next step, but also did not entirely abandon your site.
From there, we get more detail on what happened with those 28,264 visits:
- · 619 (2.19% of the 28,264) visits did actually abandon the site entirely. The product page view was the end of their visit, hence the “End of Visit” label.
- · However, a full 27,645 (28,264 – 619) did not leave your site. Instead, they went elsewhere on your site. In the case of the first number (27,082, or 95.82% of the 28,264), they went to the Video Recorders page. How do I know this? I hover my mouse over the little blue name, and voila!
So, only 619 people from step one actually abandoned your site altogether; the others got distracted and did something else on your site, so they’re not completely gone yet.
How do I know what they did? Well, if they went elsewhere on your site, this view of the scenario analysis will tell you, and will provide you with truly actionable information. Here, for example, I see that the vast majority of people leaving my scenario on the very first step are looking for video recorders, so why not promote those video recorders on your home page? Or maybe you could set up a bundle: your most popular products with a video recorder at a reduced cost. Upsell!
Now, let’s shift to the Step Transitions view. I do this by clicking the “View Step Transitions” button above the report (again, click for clarity):
This view provides us with completely different information. Instead of telling you whether a visit ended or continued someplace other than the scenario, this process shows you two things:
- · The number of visits in which the visitor did not continue directly on to the next step, yet remained within the scenario process as a whole, and
- · Where that visit went when it left that step.
So, let’s look at what the numbers on this first step tell us here: 6,733 visits did not convert to the “Cart Add” step. However, they still interacted with the scenario: 6,731 (99.97% of the 6,733) viewed another product page (so, they were still shopping), and 2 (.03%) actually started checkout (which probably means they’d already added something to their cart and decided not to buy what was on the last product page they viewed).
So, we can say that, of the 28,264 visits that did not convert from step one to step two, 6,733 did not leave the scenario entirely. Instead, they either skipped a step or stayed on the same step; they didn’t abandon. That’s almost a quarter of the visits that didn’t convert to step two – and that’s a great opportunity to ensure that, now that they’re in the scenario, they stay there. Note, for example, that 317 visits went back to the “Product Page View” after they started checkout. Is that a result of your efforts to offer them similar items or accessories on your checkout page? Or, if you’re not making such offerings, could you increase that number by doing so?
Of course, these opportunities may seem fairly obvious; after all, we’ve been tracking shopping carts for a long time on the web. But imagine tracking your three-step application/registration process, or your five-step “Give me more information” process, and you can see how this information becomes useful quickly. You might be able to reduce the number of steps and increase conversions, or note where people are getting distracted and provide them, within your scenario, the information they need to stay on track. That’s so much more helpful than just tracking abandonment, isn’t it?
I’ll discuss the left side of this report in an upcoming post – stay tuned.










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