UK marketers are wasting an estimated £2bn a year driving traffic to their websites, as millions of consumers baulk at the boring content as soon as they click through and click away, according to new research.
Fewer than one out of ten marketers says they use “bounce rate” to measure the effectiveness of online marketing, while over 40 per cent rely on traffic volume, and 65 per cent look only at the final sales generated – both metrics that taken alone do not provide a complete vision of their marketing activities performance.
“The fact is that the majority of organizations are still using pre-historic Internet metrics such as traffic generation, while ignoring key metrics that illustrate the true effectiveness and ability of a website to convert. Bounce rate may be the most overlooked, yet critical component to successful online marketing. Perhaps marketers don’t understand how to
Experts agree that bounce rate, or the percentage of visitors that “bounce” from, or leave your landing page immediately after engaging with an ad, is emerging as one of the most effective ways to determine if a marketing campaign is successful or not.
With industry-wide bounce rates close to 50 per cent, consumers are sending a clear message how they feel about the quality of content, says the study, further suggesting that UK marketing professionals are dishing out £330 million every month, half of which is wasted by directing traffic to pages that will not convert – but rather permanently detach its visitors.
“If half of the visitors from your paid marketing campaigns are leaving at the door step, it is a clear indication that you have ignored to develop a relevant first point of contact and struggle to communicate your value proposition. Long term, what is the potential harm to your brand from sending visitors to convoluted pages that just makes them bounce away in seconds?” said Imhoff.
Online marketing spend exceeded £4bn in the UK in 2010, with the majority spent on driving traffic to websites with the help of PPC, banners and emails. But while it is estimated websites undergo costly overhauls every 2 to 4 years, the study by House of Kaizen suggests that few organisations are willing to implement a programme of continuous improvement and site usability.
“Marketing organisations who want to build competitive websites need to start looking at metrics in a new light and focus on a continuous cycle of website improvements based on empirical data as opposed to assumption,” said Imhoff.
