Six key-points to note when tracking the behaviour of visitors to your site

When managing a website, especially an e-commerce store, it is crucial to analyse the behaviour of Internet users. Where do they come from? How long do they stay? Where do they go? What do they do? How can you keep their attention longer? And how can you optimise the customer journey? If you consider these issues important, we definitely recommend that you read this article.

Why is it necessary to analyse the behaviour of users on your e-commerce site?

Tracking and analysing the actions of visitors on a website is very important. It will allow you to collect valuable information about their preferences, purchasing habits, what products are frequently bought with others, purchase frequency, etc.

This data enables you to personalise your marketing strategy, improve customer experience and increase sales on your e-commerce site.

Let’s look at six effective methods to track and analyse how visitors interact with your site.

Six methods for tracking how visitors behave on the internet

1. Define clear objectives and KPIs

Before diving deeper into the subject, it is crucial to define your objectives and how you want to achieve them:

• Who is your target customer?
• What is your turnover objective?
• What is your value proposition?
• What differentiates you from the competition?

Once your objectives are set, you will be able to choose the right performance indicators to measure your progress.

For example, if your target is 30-year-old couples living in large cities, you could study the demographic data of your website (available on Google Analytics). This same tool will give you different strategic data such as traffic sources, bounce rate, time spent on the page, conversions, turnover, etc.

To take it further, we encourage you to take a look at the 10 e-commerce KPIs to monitor.

2. Use an analysis tool such as Google Analytics

There are many analysis tools to help you track how visitors to your e-commerce store behave. We mentioned Google Analytics above, but we can also mention Adobe Analytics, Matomo and Hotjar, for example.

These tools can help you collect, organise and visualise data on the performance of your website, what the users do on the site, and the performance of your marketing campaigns. They can also show you page by page where users click when browsing your site.

These software programs create heat maps to demonstrate this. This allows you to identify places and areas where user engagement is high or low on your pages. You can thus reduce certain content areas or, on the contrary, enrich them.

For example, you might notice that users read your blog posts to the end and that many internet users click on CTAs (call-to-action) and internal links. If that is the case, you might decide to invest more in your SEO strategy by hiring more writers, for example.

3. Deploy and manage tracking tags

This technique for tracking what a visitor does on a site is called tag management, and while it is certainly the most technical, it is also extremely effective. For it to work, you will need to have some programming knowledge or call on a developer.

You will need this in order to set up tracking codes and tags.

Tracking codes are pieces of code that you insert into your website’s HTML or JavaScript files. Tracking tags are elements that you add to your website’s content or links.

For example, you can integrate tracking tags into the CTAs of your blog posts that redirect the user to a product on your e-commerce site. This will enable you to know the number of sales of this product generated by your blog posts. Make sure you use a unique code and tag for each element you want to analyse.

Tip: you can use tools such as Google Tag Manager or Adobe Tag Manager to manage your tracking codes and tags.

4. Conduct surveys and collect feedback

Another way to track how visitors to your website behave is to carry out surveys and collect feedback from your target audience. This will allow you to obtain information on their interests, opinions, preferences, etc.

You can use software such as SurveyMonkey, Typeform or Google Forms to create and share surveys about your site’s performance, design and user experience. These answers will help you implement changes based on tangible items, such as the opinions of your customers and prospects.

Did you know? Customer reviews have a strong impact in the e-commerce sector.

5. Pay attention to social networks

In addition to satisfaction questionnaires and surveys, you can monitor mentions of your brand in your customers’ stories on social networks.

This will allow you to identify your brand’s strengths, what concerns your customer may have, and their levels of engagement.

Be proactive in responding to comments, direct messages and mentions in order to establish a strong connection with your audience and quickly resolve any issues you come across. You can also use your story to republish posts that mention you. This will further strengthen the engagement of your followers and customers.

Platforms such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social can make light work of tracking mentions of your site on social networks.

6. Carry out A/B testing

Finally, we recommend that you carry out A/B testing to see if visitors to your site change their behaviour based on certain criteria.

For example, you can mention a discount for new customers in a black banner at the top of your site. Then, the following month, use a white banner.

After the two months have passed, you can compare the results to see which colour recorded the most clicks and/or improved the conversion rate. Creating variations will allow you to optimise each element of your site to ensure its quality is the best it can be.

We recommend that you carry out A/B tests regularly to continuously improve the user experience (UX) and maximise the performance of your online store.

How can tracking consumer behaviour boost your sales?

Understanding how customers interact with a website allows its administrator to better target its offers, personalise the customer experience and improve overall satisfaction.

The aims of this approach are to:

• personalise your offers and product sheets
• improve your marketing campaigns
• optimise the user experience of your site
• identify popular products or services
• create an effective loyalty programme
• manage promotions more effectively
• anticipate trends in your sector.

Is your goal to increase your e-commerce sales? See how an online chat can boost your turnover!