The secrets of high-performing websites: Wolfgang Digital’s annual e-commerce study

Wolfgang Digital’s annual report for e-commerce websites has launched, lifting the lid on some highly sensitive numbers that have remained largely unreported until now.

The growth in revenues from mobile plus social media’s purchasing influence is among the key insights to be gleaned from the study.

The multi award-winning digital marketing agency analysed 250 million e-commerce website sessions and €500 million in online revenue to find out what drives today’s consumer to click and buy.

For the first time, the study delved into Facebook’s new analytics tool, merging it with Google analytics and an online survey, to give a more accurate picture of a person’s path to purchase.

Commenting, study author and Wolfgang Digital founder and CEO, Alan Coleman said: “For this study, we’ve gone bigger and broader with our analysis to produce some really interesting findings. We’ve filled some holes in Google Analytics by tapping into Facebook’s new tool to see which patterns of user behaviour, on and off-site, correlate with higher than average e-commerce revenues. This year we’ve some of the strongest correlation scores seen yet.”

The key findings are:

• Mobile’s a big mover. Revenues for purchases on mobile devices is the big mover, growing by 23 per cent to account for 32 per cent of overall revenue. Mobile dominates as a traffic source with 53 per cent coming from a smartphone, versus 37 per cent for desktop and 10 per cent for tablets. Big ticket purchases are still more likely to take place on desktop or tablet.
• Google dominates but share of pie declines. Google delivers the majority of traffic (60 per cent) and revenue (56 per cent). However, its share continues to drop, with still no visibility from Google Analytics into who’s winning that share.
• Websites slow down. Average page load times were 6.8 seconds, far slower than Google’s recommended 2-second threshold for e-commerce websites.
• The value of the returning visitor. The strongest trend the study has ever seen is the value of the returning visitor. Websites that attract a user back time and time again are thundering ahead of their one-click-wonder competitors when it comes to sales. The more visits per user, the higher the revenues. Currently, e-commerce websites are averaging 1.5 visits over 12 months. Anything you can do to increase this return visit rate is about the best marketing you can do.
• The true value of social revealed. It’s not just user interactions on your website that count. Facebook analytics reveal a social media engager is TWICE as likely to buy from you than a website visit (4.4 per cent conversion versus 1.8 per cent). Messenger was notable for having extraordinarily high conversion rates (9.9 per cent).
• Facebook’s advocacy advantage. 48 per cent of people are more likely to buy from a brand they see a friend or family member interact with. With the average Facebook user having 338 friends, a single share can bring you up to 162 eager potential customers in an instant.
• Big ticket travel purchases are harder to convert. Hotel websites convert three times the number of customers than package holiday websites (1.99 per cent conversion rate versus 0.68 per cent), perhaps due to the much higher Average Order Values – €378 for hotels and €1078 for package holidays.
• Average conversion rate is 1.8 per cent. Travel websites average 2 per cent, retail websites averaged1.7 per cent, with online-only converting 11 per cent more than their multi-channel counterparts.
• UK tops conversion rates. European conversion rates (1.5 per cent) are higher than the US (1.3 per cent) . The UK is streets ahead of the two. (1.8 per cent).

Speaking of the challenge for e-commerce website businesses Coleman says: “Right now e-commerce websites are spending the majority of their budget with Google and Facebook, but struggling to understand the conflicting metrics being provided by the two platforms. When Amazon grabs a large chunk of e-commerce ad spend in 2019, the complexities around this are certain to intensify.”

The Wolfgang Digital E-commerce KPI Benchmark report will be available to download for free on the Wolfgang blog from September 25^th.