Teleconference The Metrics That Matter To Financial Services Web Sites Brad Strothkamp Senior...

TeleconferenceThe Metrics That Matter To Financial Services Web SitesBrad Strothkamp

Senior Analyst

Forrester Research

March 30, 2007. Call in at 12:55 p.m. Eastern Time

2Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Theme

Few financial services sites have effective measurements to run the eBusiness channel


Agenda

• Why should you care about Web metrics in financial services?

• What are the benchmark metrics you need to measure? What metrics are specific to financial services?

• How to use metrics to drive sales goals


Agenda





Consider these facts

• Gen Yers would choose their computer 2 to 1 over their television if they had to choose just one device to not live without.

• 91% of online households use search engines, up from 71% just four years ago.

• In 2005, 47% of financial service shoppers researched their purchases exclusively online.


“For any financial products you purchased during the past 12 months, please indicate where you conducted your research.”

Base: US consumers who conducted research online or offline for anyfinancial product they purchased during the past 12 months

Source: Forrester’s NACTAS Q4 2006 Finance Online Survey

Online only

Online and offline only

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

US Gen Yers(18-26)

Gen Xers(27-40)

YoungerBoomers

(41-50)

OlderBoomers

(51-61)

Seniors(62+)

Offline only

Consumers prefer the Internet to research


Tomorrow’s shoppers may ONLY visit your Web site

before buying


Web siteWeb siteusageusage

Web site usage: How users navigate on the site

Referral source: How users get to the site

Referral Referral sourcesource

Purchase channel: How Web site visitors purchase their product

Purchase Purchase channelchannel

Consumers’ path to purchase

Tracking Web shoppers is imperative


Agenda





The Web Analytics Association (WAA) is a non-profit organization that is made up of key Web analytic vendors, clients, and individuals to set standards for analytic measurements. The WAA defines itself as the group that “unites and fosters the interests of industry practitioners, vendors, consultants and educators who use, sell, install, implement, consult, teach or train in the field of web analytics.”

Web Analytics Association (WAA)


Metric basics: the BIG three

• Unique site visitors:

» The number of inferred individual people (filtered for spiders and robots), within a designated reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to a site. Each individual is counted only once in the unique visitor measure for the reporting period.

Source: Web Analytics Association



• Visits/sessions:

» A visit is an interaction, by an individual, with a Web site consisting of one or more requests for an analyst-definable unit of content (i.e., page view). If an individual has not taken another action (typically additional page views) on the site within a specified time period, the visit will terminate.




• Page views:

» The number of times a page (an analyst-definable unit of content) was viewed.



Financial services: basic metrics

• Unique site visitors (by product area)

• Top search terms (by product)

• Tool usage

• Started/completed applications (by product)

» Started application is generally defined as the first page where the consumer enters personally identifiable information, and a completed application is defined as the page where he/she receives a “thank you” or “completion” page.


Financial services: conversion metrics

• Site conversion rates (by product)

» What percentage of unique site visitors to the credit card pages completed an application or lead form?

• Search term conversion rates

» What percentage of site visitors who searched on “blank” term completed an application or lead form?

• Content/tool conversion rates

» What percentage of site visitors who viewed a certain content type (e.g., rate page, comparison chart) or used a certain tool (e.g., payment calculator) completed an application or lead form?


Financial services: application metrics

• Application completion rates

» Completion rates by:

– Segments: new versus existing customers

– Product: checking versus savings

– Functionality: prefill, save/retrieve, etc.

• Dropoff rates per page

• Errors per applicant (i.e., incorrect information)


Agenda





Search marketing


Measurement helps focus marketing dollars

Mortgage applicants by search category

“What type of search terms resulted in converting search users into serious prospects?”

General

Rate and fee

Product

Tool

Top mortgage search categories

20%

15%

7%

59%

37%

16%

9%

38%

Base: Compete survey respondents who recently applied for a mortgage loan


Top mortgage search term: 8th in conversion

5th highest mortgage search term: 1st in conversion


Site development


Justify site content and functionality decisions

21%

8%

8%

5%

2%

1%

13%

9%

7%

2%

1%

20%

ProspectsApplicants

Rent versus buy

Amortization

Should I refinance?

Affordability calculator

Product selection tool

Payment calculator

Base: Compete panelists who accessed mortgage pages at a target Web site


Quicken Loans uses metrics to drive site development


E*TRADE uses metrics to target “engaged” site visitors


Application effectiveness


Application metrics can solve completion issues

Case study: A large multinational bank tracked the dropoffs by page and errors that consumers had during the application process and was able to determine:

»A large percentage of applicants dropped off on the first page of the application for no discernable reason. In fact, most of these dropouts never completed any application information.


Early dropouts had no intention of applying

Source: A large multinational bank survey of consumers who dropped out of application*Denotes coded open-ended responses

“When you began the online application,did you intend to complete it today?”

Base: 622 respondents

Yes70%

No30%

Wanted to see what informationwas asked for in the online app

Was looking for more informationabout the product

Clicked into the applicationby mistake

Changed mind about applying

Not ready to apply*

Don’t know

Other

42%

35%

5%

4%

4%

2%

6%




» A large percentage of applicants dropped off on the first page of the application for no discernable reason. In fact, most of these dropouts never completed any application information.

» Significant dropouts past the first page were a good indicator of a problem with the application itself or information asked.


Source: A large multinational bank survey of consumers who dropped out of application*Denotes coded open-ended responses

Base: 622 respondents

No30%

Yes70%

Required info not on hand

Technical problem

Not eligible/not qualified

Prefer to apply another way

App loaded too slow

App timed out

Didn’t understand what info was required

Didn’t like product info (rates/fees)*

App was too long

Confused; made error; in wrong app*

Didn’t want to send to bank

Didn’t want to answer

Required minimum deposit too much*

Other

14%

11%

10%

10%

8%

5%

4%

4%

3%

3%

3%

17%

22%

14%

“When you began the online application,did you intend to complete it today?”

Didn’t want to send info online 3%

Mid-application dropoffs lack required info




» A large percentage of applicants dropped off on the first page of the application for no discernable reason. In fact, most of these dropouts never completed any application information.

» Significant dropouts past the first page were a good indicator of a problem with the application itself or information asked.

» Sophisticated page-level reporting revealed problems with the application (e.g., front-end logic problems).


Summary

• The Internet provides a unique opportunity to track prospects and customers like never before.

• Firms should sweat metric basics. All subsequent metrics will be built off these metrics.

• Strong metrics can help inform marketing, site development, and online application decisions.

• Metric understanding is key to successful use of new technologies like online chat.

• Few financial services sites have “cracked the nut” on metrics, so don’t feel that you are too far behind.


Thank you

Brad Strothkamp

+1 650/581-3838

[email protected]

www.forrester.com

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