Did you know I have 15 seconds to catch your interest long enough for you to decide if you want to carry on reading this blog? In other words to maximize visitor engagement.

“55% of Visitors Spend Fewer Than 15 Seconds on Your Website. Should You Care?”

Or at least that’s according to Tony Haile, former CEO of social metrics monitoring company Chartbeat. Back in 2014 he wrote an article for Time in which he stated: “Spurred by new technology and plummeting click-through rates, what happens between the clicks is becoming increasingly important and the media world is scrambling to adapt.”

What Haile was referring to was the original click driven advertising method which measured performance success based on how many times an advert was clicked on. However, this didn’t take into account what happened after the click.

Native advertising, advertising designed to hold your attention rather than simply gain an impression, is growing at an incredible pace. This also applies to companies wanting to direct potential clients and customers to their website. Another way of referring to this is – visitor engagement.

Apparently, by this point in my article, a third of you who initially started reading it will have left. So my thanks to those of you who stayed. This is where we look at the data a bit more closely and see what you can do to keep visitor engagement high.

Measuring Visitor Engagement

Measuring time spent on site, multiple page visits and actions taken online are key metrics which can determine if the visitor is interested in your content. Engagement is defined as the amount of time, measured in seconds, that a person is actively interacting with their browser.

• If they are happy when they leave, they have been engaged.
• If they found information they needed, they were engaged.
• If they bought something, they most likely were engaged.
• If they signed up for something, they most likely were engaged.
• If they got in touch for more information, they were engaged.
• If they return a second time, they were engaged.

Chartbeat research showed that if you can hold a visitor’s attention for just three minutes, they’re twice as likely to return than if you hold them for only one. This ties in with our often repeated mantra that a successful social content strategy will focus on having relevant, informative and interesting articles which will keep and encourage repeat visits.

Getting It Right Is Vital

Here’s some more useful facts from Neosperience for focusing on getting your client and customer journeys right:

1. Customers who are fully engaged represent 23% premium in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth compared with the average customer (Gallup): sales pass, loyalty stays – potentially – forever.
2. 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated (McKinsey): the experience is the key factor to differentiate yourself from competitors.
3. 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience, but only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations (Forbes): a major rule to engage clients and reach satisfaction is to anticipate their needs and constantly exceed their expectations.
4. Customer retention is 14% higher among companies applying big data and analytics to deal velocity (Aberdeen Customer Engagement Report 2014): the spread of mobile devices enables you to gather all sorts of data about customers. Use these numbers to improve customer experience.
5. A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10% (Emmet Murphy): loyalty is not just a fancy name, it is a matter of business.

How does Veracity help?

With Veracity, you can see the average time spent on site and which posts have driven traffic through, alongside multiple pageviews. With Veracity you can create tracked links to measure your marketing, as well as manage your campaigns.

You can also set targets for these Key Performance Indicators to measure success rates during a campaign and use those results to streamline further ones. Post by post, the analytics can be drilled down into to see which social channel sent the most traffic to a page. Lower Bounce rates, higher page views per visit and higher times on site all indicate greater engagement and a more successful post.

Get started today with your no obligation demo and add real intelligence to your social content strategy.

21st Mar 2024