The use of digital touchpoints with shoppers has steadily increased over the last 7 months and many of these new habits are here to stay. So, it’s more important than ever to understand how to optimize your digital communications to grow your sales. While many of our clients are looking at how they optimize their touchpoints along the Path to Purchase, prior to optimization, you can focus your efforts by understanding which touchpoints should be optimized.
So, what are some of the approaches that can be used to understand the importance of digital touchpoints and which approach is right for you? As part of our DecisionPATH, there are 3 key methodologies you can consider incorporating into your Shopper Journey research. Here are the 3 key methodologies you can use to optimize digital touchpoints.
- Passive tracking
Usually, as part of a broader online shopper Journey study, the respondent agrees to have a cookie track their behavior from their browser and from devices (including mobile) up to the past 90 days. The types of information that you can get from passive data are what search terms are being used, what websites or apps are visited when they are being visited, and with what frequency. Shopping habits and activity levels by different categories can be understood. This passive data can be compared to the stated data from the survey and we can attribute importance to each of the touchpoints used. Also, through understanding search terms we can better understand how consumers think about your category and what role or “job” your product has in a consumer’s life.
Think of passive tracking as helping to identify what are the important touchpoints to optimize.
- In-depth UX research
In-depth UX research incorporates more task-based exercises and think out loud techniques. This is often a qualitative based stage that then can be used to help inform a larger quantitative phase of final optimization research. In-depth UX research can either be conducted in person or online. Often this can be conducted prior to a final validation phase and can be a qualitative portion to DecisionPATH studies.
- Behavioral Assessments of Live Websites
This approach can be conducted with online research where we will expose respondents to content (ads, promotions, product thumbnails, or new products) and we can incorporate behavioral measurements such as eye-tracking, clicks, purchases, and recall measures. Our behavioral approaches are ideal for improving standout of ads, providing menu guidance, improving promotions, enhancing ad, and promo page recall.
Behavioral assessments of live websites can also be conducted in lab environments where respondents are exposed to different ads, promos, etc. and behavior is also measured via eye-tracking and other behavioral measures.
With the increased importance of digital touchpoints and shifting consumer behavior to online, it is important to test and optimize the important touchpoints for your shopper. Contact us to learn more about our digital testing approaches.
