• Maximilian Lindhe

Shawn Hansen – 4 kinds of marketers + 3 kinds of CRO to keep track of

Shawn Hansen CMO Heap Analytics

Last Updated on February 7, 2022 by justin

Shawn Hansen, CMO at Heap Analytics, and who previously worked at Mixpanel and Microsoft, says that marketers today can be business leaders because with the help of data they can keep track of the complete customer journey, and can see and influence which customers give the highest LTV ( Customer lifetime value).

Shawn points out, however, that it is more common for marketers to only have the task of driving clicks or pulling in leads, in an isolated part of the customer journey. But the marketing role is maturing.

The different types of marketers

Shawn divides marketers into four different groups, based on their level of maturity or “insight maturity level”:

  • Level 1 (“Measurement”) are the marketers who stop at measuring the behavior of anonymous users in bulk. For example, how many people have visited a site, how many conversions have taken place, or which page is most visited.
  • Level 2 (“Segmentation”) are those that segment, ie that divide users according to which country they come from, which browser they use, or if they come from desktop, mobile or tablet.
  • Level 3 (“Behavior”) are those who dive deep into cohorts and try to find insights from customer behaviors. For example. by trying to find out if visitors who watch a video convert better, or who try to find out if a product comparison feature leads to more larger volumes in the shopping cart.
  • Level 4 (“Journey”) are those who follow the entire customer journey and who try to optimize Customer Lifetime Value (LVT). They ask themselves e.g. what behaviors that lead to customers who have bought to become repeat customers, or what customer experiences that make visitors leave the site for good.

Marketers who want to be able to do analyzes at the behavioral and customer journey level can do this today, he says. It takes some manual implementation and coding knowledge to get started, but there are also many tools that can automate data collection, such as their own tool, Heap. With analysis at this level, it is possible to obtain valuable insights such as that “it takes an average of four visits for a visitor before a purchase is made”, or that “re-marketing works best on those who have already made at least two purchases”.

3 types of conversion optimization – CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)

He goes on to mention that there are three types of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization):

  • Convert
  • Replicate
  • Discourage

Convert

Convert is about working with startup metrics and following the customer journey in a conversion chart. The goal here is to try to find out what the visitors are already doing in terms of behavior. By analyzing what visitors actually do on the site, you can make sure to reward intuitive behaviors instead of punishing them. It is e.g. It is common for visitors to click on elements on a site because they intuitively believe that these elements are clickable, e.g. if they want more information. By paying attention to this, companies can make sure to make these elements clickable so that the visitor gets what he expects, instead of feeling an experience of disappointment. Another example is that visitors to e-commerce sites often put two similar items of clothing in the shopping cart because it is intuitively a good way to compare two different colors or sizes. A company that sees this as the case can use that insight to create a comparison system to make it easier for visitors to compare alternatives and decide on their purchase.

Replicate

Replicate is about identifying behaviors that exist in a company’s best customers, and then trying to encourage similar behaviors in other customer groups. The company’s best customers are valuable not only because they shop a lot, but also because they leave behind data when they do so. It is possible to save data on every single behavior that your customers do; such as click, mouseover, swipe or scrolling or other interaction.

Discourage

Discourage is about finding the moments where visitors almost convert, but there is something stopping it. A major reason why visitors are not kept engaged all the way is because something makes them confused or distracted. It may be that they come to the wrong landing page, that the site does not load, that the product is sold out, that the product information is unclear, that it is difficult to find what is the right size, or that there are too many information fields to fill. By looking at the data in this way, companies have succeeded in developing solutions such as Amazon’s one-click checkout, which increased their conversion rate by more than 10%.

Summary of tips from Shawn Hansen

  • As a marketer, it is easy to get caught up in anonymous users when analyzing metrics. Instead, try to create analysis of segments, cohorts and customer behaviors as well.
  • Keep in mind that CRO can be attacked from 3 different directions:
    • Conversion – learn from the behavior of users and customize the product / website accordingly
    • Replication – identify the behavior of the best, most active customers, and try to encourage it in others
    • Blocking – Identify where and when a customer gets confused or does not move on and eliminate it

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