Features used: Benchmarks, Merchandising
Time: 20 min.
How to use Benchmarks to understand your performance against competitors
Set up
Benchmarks allows you to track and compare the performance of your important user experience metrics with your competitors.
1. Go to the Benchmarks feature from the Menu.
2. Use the Analysis context to set your analysis parameters (time period and device).
3. Deep dive into the different key business and performance metrics and see how they compare with those of your competitors.
Here you can learn more about Benchmarks.
Common use cases for Benchmarks
Understand if your metrics trends are linked to market conditions
1. If you haven't already, set up the time period you want to analyze.
2. Navigate to 'Trends & Insights' section.
Note! 'Trends & Insights' is part of the premium add-on.
3. For the metric you're interested in, compare your trend with competitors’ ones and look at the following:
- Your metric value and a highlighted gap with the competitors. Is your metric higher or lower than your competitors? What is percentage difference?
- Competitive Progression. Determine the extent of change in your metrics for the chosen timeframe. Assess your peers' performance as well. If you observe any variations between your metrics and the market, investigate sudden drops or spikes in the data to see if they align with the line representing the 'Competitors ave.'.
Benchmarks Report Example: The 'Trends & Insights' drill down on Bounce Rate reveals that the difference between the CStore demo's bounce rate (59.9%) and the average bounce rate of the competition is 30%. During the period from March 1st to April 30th, the bounce rate for the CStore demo increased by 9%, while the competitors' bounce rate only grew by 1%.
4. Size the impact of optimising KPI performance by using the Impact Quantification module. Once you've identified a KPI that requires improvement to align with your competitors', access the Impact Quantification module.
5. Set the Analysis context by comparing the 'good segment' (users achieving a goal, e.g., non-bouncing users or users making a conversion) with the 'bad segment' (users not achieving a goal, e.g., users bouncing or users not making a conversion).
6. Change the ‘Improvement Scenario’ to match the difference between yourself and your competitors and look at the following:
- Detected opportunity: Are the results statistically significant? Is there a difference between the conversion rates of the two segments? This is your ‘revenue opportunity’ for bringing the specific metric in line with your competitors? For example, what is that 2% difference in bounce rate worth to my site?
Example of Impact Quantification Analysis: By aligning the opportunity parameter in the Opportunity widget with the bounce rate difference highlighted in the Benchmark (a difference of 30%), the analysis indicates that a 30% reduction in the bounce rate can potentially lead to an additional revenue of $1,197,624.
Monitor at a glance key events/launches/campaigns
1. If not done already, configure the time period to encompass the dates of significant events (e.g., sales, Black Friday), special launches, or campaigns that you wish to monitor.
2. Navigate to 'Trends & Insights' section and look at the following:
- Your metric value and a highlighted gap with the competitors. Is your metric higher or lower than your competitors? What is percentage difference?
- Conversion rate evolution. Look for any abrupt drops or spikes in the metric during that time. Are these fluctuations connected to the market changes observed in the 'Competitors average' and 'Top to low performance averages'?
Note! 'Trends & Insights' is part of the Premium add-on.
Benchmarks Report Example: The 'Trends & Insights' drill-down on Conversion Rate and Bounce Rate indicates a decline in the Conversion Rate on May 17th (the start of the Sales campaign) and a significant increase in the Bounce Rate on May 20th (the day of the new product launch).
3. Identify issues caused by a campaign page/acquisition source. Go to Journey analysis and compare user journeys before and after the campaign. If there's a problem with your landing page (e.g., high bounce rate or unexpected looping behavior), look for variations among your primary acquisition sources. Keep an eye out for an increase in visitors encountering error pages, as this could indicate redirection issues.
Learn how to optimize your Landing pages and Acquisition sources.
4. Investigate and troubleshoot errors and frictions. If you have Experience Monitoring, continue your analysis by drilling down into the errors appearing for that timeframe in Error analysis.
How to use Merchandising to optimize your price strategy
Contentsquare's Merchandising surfaces insights on your retail site's categories, brands, and products.
Here you can learn more about CS Merchandsing and Visual Merchandising.
Common use cases for Merchandising
With Merchandising you can improve your users’ digital buying experience and drive revenue by pushing them the right product, in the right place, at the right price.
Below you can find a few examples of how to use Merchandising:
How to analyze product exposure
How to optimize your product rankings
How to analyze your categories
How to conduct a Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis helps you compare your merchandising strategy to competitors' strategies and track overall market competitiveness.
1. To start your analysis, navigate to your competitor's data by going to Categories or Brands and clicking on the Competitive data tab. Look at the following metrics:
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Number of products in common. See how many products each competitor has in common with your own catalog.
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Price difference. What is the average price difference between products shared with your competitors? Are your competitors generally cheaper or more expensive than your offerings? Use the filters to isolate specific types of products or focus on retailers referenced on Google Shopping to assess your performance against them.
- Utilize the price comparison visualization to understand your price positioning compared to competitors. How many competitors offer products that are 10% more expensive or 50% less expensive than yours?
2. Click on any product from your product list or select a specific competitor. Scroll down to the 'Product Performance VS Price' visualization to compare your price with the market price. Evaluate how your Conversion Rate and Revenue stack up relative to your pricing strategy in the market.
Go Further
Explore the following CS University courses to learn more about using Merchandising to optimize your product catalog and visual merchandising strategy from every vantage point.