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Hello there, I'm George Hall and welcome back to one of our analytics anonymous sessions

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where we take a bite-sized look at data, insight, analytics and more. I'm joined today by Ed

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Jackson, one of Good Growth's analytical managers. Ed, how are you?

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Good to be back George, I completely forgot about my new job title change until you just

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said it there.

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Always a nice surprise to be reminded, isn't it? Look Ed, great to have you back. We're

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here today to talk about what I think is quite an interesting topic really, this idea of

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where does data, where does insight come from when customers stop engaging with businesses

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online, be it websites, online stores, whatever it might be. Would you mind giving an introduction

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as to one, why that might happen and two, why would it be a concern for businesses?

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It's definitely a difficult challenge to get ahead around and understand that there are

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obviously macro and micro factors at play here. We could be talking about a whole industry

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downturn which is quite common to see, but as a brand you can always do things to protect

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yourself from that and be the brand that survives it. You look at the holiday industry, how

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we saw Thomas Kirk first choice all go under and two, we essentially absorb them all. But

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when customers aren't engaging with your brand in particular, what can you do? Why are they

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not engaging with your brand? Is it the proposition? Is it how easy it is to use your site? Really

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understanding what the problem is. I think the biggest problem for businesses in understanding

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this is it's quite easy when you're in the weeds of it and when you're in your data every

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day to know, I've had a bad month and the next month is slightly better. But how real

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is that? If you've had a bad October and November is slightly better, is November actually slightly

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better or year on year are you still further down? Is the delta a greater difference? So

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you might see it as a positive month, but in October say you were down 10% year on year

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and in November you're down 20% year on year, but your numbers are still better than October.

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You've not recovered actually and you're still on that downward trend. And I think that's

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the thing we see in businesses is very difficult for them to understand and for them to really

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get a grasp of until quite often it's too late.

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Now you mentioned getting a grasp there. If businesses are concerned about a lack of engagement,

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are there key data points that they should be looking at that will sort of be the telltale

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signs that there's a disengagement?

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Yeah. So like I discussed then, zooming out, I think is something that's very, very useful

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in these cases rather than looking at a week on week, month on month, look at year on year,

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look at the past 24, 36 months and see how you're performing. Looking at not only conversion

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rate to transaction of the site, but add to cart rate, views of PDPs, PLPs, the amount

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of time users are spending on your site as well. If you're spending a lot of money acquiring

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customers from social media, typically they're on the site for a lot less time. So as you

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end up in this sort of death spiral situation where engagement is lower, so you start investing

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more in social media marketing, you start investing more in TikTok, Instagram, wherever

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you're going, you get those clicks, you get those sessions up, but actually your page

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views per session, your session duration is just going down and down and down because

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you're buying customers, you're buying eyes from a less valuable resource.

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I guess when those traditional metrics in your classic clicks, those sort of engagements,

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when they start dipping, it makes sense to look elsewhere just to be sure and to get

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a better understanding.

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Yeah, absolutely. I think that's when it becomes, if you do start to see yourself in that sort

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of situation, look at what you're presenting to your customers in your marketing information.

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There are a few companies we work with where what they thought was their USP and their

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key selling point actually wasn't resonating with customers. And it's something entirely

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different that really is resonating. And that's where we can put our insight.

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And then would you say that there's early warning signs for businesses, sort of moments

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when the alarm bells start ringing or it might be a bit of a silence alarm. What should businesses

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be looking out for that would trigger kind of an awareness or a pre-warning of disengagement

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from consumers?

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It's a very difficult one. It's certainly a case by case basis. I would say looking

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at your acquisition channels and how that shifts over time. If you see a shift away

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from direct customers and more into your paid search, branded search, things like that,

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if there is a slow shift in those acquisition channels. But then also, like I said, if you're

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seeing a consistent decrease in session duration and the number of pages per session, that

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would also be getting alarm bells ringing for me.

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Sure. And then obviously, good growth, as you're well aware, we pride ourselves on the

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data, the insight and the tech as sort of a triumvirate of approaches. I'm interested

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in that tech part and how the tech can be used, I guess, one, to preempt this happening

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and two, to rectify it.

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It's quite an interesting one that we're actually currently working on building out schema for

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and understanding it. Obviously, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics are very, very good at understanding

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user purchase journeys, understanding that user who's got to a transaction, what have

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they gone through, how have they got there. But that ends up in a situation where we could

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have a bit of survivorship bias. We're only seeing the users that are successful. So we

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fail to see users that fail. And you can do things around segmentation to try and mitigate

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the risk of that. But understanding how user behavior is fundamentally different in users

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who are succeeding versus users that are failing is something that's very difficult to do in

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traditional analytics platforms.

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And then to start wrapping things up, there obviously might be people listening, thinking,

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I'm experiencing this right now, or I'm starting to see it, or maybe it's not happened yet,

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but I want to be aware of this and I want to take those steps. What actionable step

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could a business take to either prevent customers from disengaging or to sort of stop the issue

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in its tracks?

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I think a really interesting one is, so to say you don't know whether it's a whole industry

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downturn or whether it's you specifically that are struggling. You obviously can't go

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and look at your competitors' internal data. You can't see how they're transacting. Depending

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on the size of your business, you might be able to go look at earnings calls and things

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like that on Stock Exchange to see how they're performing there. But a really nice, simple

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indicator is something like Google Trends. So let's say, for example, we're working with

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Microsoft and they're saying, well, Xbox sales are down, but we think it's an industry-wide

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thing. It's really easy to see how the industry-wide engagement is. Go on Google Trends, put in

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Xbox, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch. If you see there is the trend that all of those engagement

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with them is going down, maybe you've got something there. But if you see that PlayStation

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and Nintendo Switch are performing better than ever before while you're still struggling

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at Xbox, I think there's something to look at there.

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We do seem to love a video game analogy on the Good Growth podcast, don't we? I know

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David Watkins has often mentioned his Google Stadia, which sadly is no more. Ed, it's

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been great to talk to you, great to get your thoughts on this topic. You've been listening

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to Analysts Anonymous on the Good Growth podcast. And if we've piqued your interest or you

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want to know more, please do get in touch. Thanks for listening.