RAPA kills Conversion Rate!
This interesting research from Google highlights the complexity of the ‘path to purchase’ for the digital age consumer. Online and offline activity are blended by the consumer to meet their distinct needs as the table below shows.
Google Research into consumer behaviour
Would you have guessed that 7% of people were doing post purchase research? Presumably to validate their decision, but maybe to understand what they bought. WSJ also writes ”..a new area of focus for retailers isn’t online buying at all. Rather, it us using the Internet and mobile technology to influence sales that happen in stores. Already Forrester’s study found that 42% of all retail purchases in 2009 – worth some $917 billion – were influenced by the Web in some way. By 2014 that figure is likely to jump to 53%.”
The data presented by Google validates our own findings across more than 60 retail and e-commerce sites; consumers are complicated and are getting harder to understand as the number of touch points grow. We are all multi-channel now! However the simplistic ‘Research online, Purchase offline’ model, aka ROPO or ROBO, really does not do justice to the way we behave, as the Google research shows its way more complicated. So how do we describe this behaviour?
Well here at Logan Tod we have started to use the term RAPA – Research Anyhow, Purchase Anywhere. It’s what we do, and it poses big issues for retailers as Ashley Freidlein points out over at Econsultancy.
How important is RAPA to you? Last week the E-commerce Director of a multi-channel retailer we are working with said she no longer cared about her conversion rate as it did not come close to explaining the role the website played in driving business growth. She is totally right – if you understand your customers RAPA behaviour then you will see how pointless conversion rates really are.
Great post, Matthew!
However, rumours of the death of conversion rates may be greatly exaggerated. Certainly, people have wasted a large amount of energy chasing the elusive “on-line attribution” model, and RAPA takes us to a more sensible place…especially as I have been banging on about “nonline marketing” since 2004!
However, micro-conversions are altogether more exciting. If I were an e-commerce Director I would love to know my “paid search to engaged visitor” conversion rate, or my “off-line campaign landing page to email subscriber” conversion rate, or even my “Twitter follower to Facebook friend” conversion rate. Just keep filling that funnel!
RAPA is a great concept because it allows us to answer clever questions like “I wonder how many people who I sent that direct mail campaign to bought on-line last week” or “who ordered via my call-centre but were sent an email”. I had a stab at explaining this in my blog here:
http://www.nonlineblogging.com/blog/2009/9/15/are-you-living-in-the-digital-marketing-analytics-bubble.html
Anyhow, hope the RAPA idea gains traction – it deserves to!
Thanks David, agree totally about micro-conversion rates and will write more on this later. Nice post on your blog, a clear description of the basic problems with attribution.
Cheers
Matthew