How to analyze a Menu

Set up 

If you do not have the following mappings, goals, and segments already saved to your Contentsquare platform you will need to create them before getting started. 

Mapping

• Either create a mapping with one page that contains ”all pages” with menu
• Or use the page on the fly option within the Zoning analysis with the 'path contains' condition to define all URLs containing the menu

Zoning

Create a zoning on the page containing all pages with the menu and zone the whole menu. You can find the steps for doing this in our How to create a zoning of dynamic elements article.

Goals

Create a goal “click on whole menu”.

• Be sure to zone your mobile menu separately if needed as it might not be considered as the same zone in your code.
• Before creating the goal, check if the subcategories are subzones of the main categories so that you are sure you are collecting the correct zone with the goal.

Segments

Create the segments “Visitors who clicked on menu” (based on goal), “Non bouncers AND did not click on the menu” (so that you exclude users who are not really engaging with your website).

Step-by-Step

Analyze the impact of your menu

Does the menu lead to deeper navigation? Is the menu enabling visitors to reach the goal of your website more easily?

A quick way to view your key metrics is through Dashboards, which provides a personalized interface for tracking KPIs all in one place.

1. If you haven't created a dashboard, easily set one up using built-in templates. Go to 'Dashboards' and begin with the 'Site overview' template for automatic population of your key metrics.

Learn how to create your first Dashboards and analyze your data using the Site Overview dashboard template.

2. Update the line chart that shows the Number of sessions/Conversion rate by incorporating Conversion rate by goal as a metric. Look at the following:

• % of users who clicked on menu (Segment “All visitors”, Goal “Click on whole menu”)
• % of buyers who clicked on menu (Segment "visits with transactions", Goal "Click on whole menu") OR
• % of menu users who transacted (Segment “Click on menu”, Goal “Ecommerce”)
• % of menu users who reach product page or other objective Segment “Click on menu”, Goal “Reach product page”)

Note! You can modify segments either within the Analysis context or by adjusting the widget settings in the dashboard.

3. Compare the two segments “Click on Search” vs “Not click on the Search” on the following metrics:

• Look at session time and number of viewed pages per session. Understand how the use of search impact the navigation. How deep is their visit?

3. Open Page comparator, set your Analysis context to All visitors, select a high level Mapping that includes all of your key page groups (Homepage, Product page, Product List page) and look at the the following metrics:

• Check the scroll rate and height of your pages. Are your pages relatively long (above 3000px page height) with people tending to scroll through a lot of content (above 50%)?

Analyze the performance of the different menu entries

Open Zoning analysis, select a zoning of the menu based on your 'All pages' mapping, and set your Analysis context to All visitors.

Analyze the following metrics: 

• Check the exposure and the hover rate of the whole menu. Is the menu visible enough? Are all entries equally visible or is there a hierarchy?
• Check the float line of the pages, are there some entries below the float line?
• Check the click rate to define the most used entries
• Check the engagement rate to define if the entries are well sorted. Entries with high engagement rate but a low hover rate may be more useful than others, but less noticeable
• Check the conversion per click with your main objective (reach product, categories, ...), to define the entries that perform better than others.
• Check if there is a high hesitation time or time before first click on entries. Does the menu have too many links? Are the wordings clear? 

Take action

• If the menu has a low exposure/attractiveness but aids the overall user navigation, the menu might not be easy enough to locate and distinguish from the rest of the header features. You might want to work on its contrast and color (try using an external contrast tool), the font size or/and the position and type of the menu (e.g., horizontal vs hamburger menu).
• If you have identified through your analysis that the menu is a key component of your navigation, but the pages are quite long and tend to have a high scroll rate, it might be worth manking your menu sticky.
• If the menu entries are performing well but their usage is low you’ll want to encourage visitors to use them. You may want to reorganize the order of the entries based on usage and/or identify underperforming links to remove.
• If you see a high hesitation time or time before first click on entries, there might be too many links or not clear wordings. You can try using icons instead of text and removing redundancy on the entries (based on Miller's Lat , a best practice is to have no more than 7±2 items )

Go further

Take the Analyzing a Menu CS University course!