User journey definition
Chalarangelo opened this issue · 2 comments
As we move forward, we need to answer certain questions about the user journey in order to better align with our users' needs when making any decisions. More specifically, we should use data to answer:
- How many pages does the average user view?
- What page types does the user view and in what frequency?
- What are the top 1/3/5 user journeys by page type?
- What is the average time on page based on each acquisition medium?
These questions can help us better understand the intent behind the journey, its steps and deviations. We can then use these answers to improve the journey, by providing strategic solutions to problems users might face, understand issues in general and even decide on technicalities (e.g. does the average user journey cost more in terms of bandwidth loading a JS bundle and data for all its pages than it would if each navigation caused a reload and we served mostly static HTML instead?).
Average number of pageviews
The average user views 6 pages per session. This number is fairly consistent among different user segments, but seems to spike for users performing on-site search (13 pages) and users with conversions (23 pages). Mobile users tend to view a fraction more pages than the average user.
Average time on page
Average time on page is just shy of 3 minutes. Referral traffic tends to stay on page slightly below this number (about 5 seconds less) and search traffic seems to stay on page about 2 minutes in total. This makes sense as users in this segment have a different intent. Users performing on-site search seem to stay on site more than twice as long, averaging nearly 7 minutes.
Page flow
Roughly 50% of sessions start with a snippet page. Snippet pages have by far the highest drop off rate at 85%. About 25% of sessions start in listings with a drop off rate of 35% and another 25% start at the homepage with a drop off rate of 29%.
Out of about 43% of users that make it to a second page, 44% navigate to a snippet page and 56% to a listing page. Snippet pages have a drop off rate of 33% and listing pages a drop off rate of 11%.
Subsequent pages are similarly broken down. Third page interactions (35% of users) are 38% snippet pages (29% drop off) and 62% listing pages (13% drop off) and fourth page interactions (23% of users) are 33% snippet pages (26% drop off) and 67% listing pages (9% drop off). Further interactions were not considered.
Useful findings
- The average user will stay on page for 3 minutes.
- A total of 6 pages will be visited.
- At least one snippet and one listing page will be viewed on average.
- About 1 in 3 users will visit the homepage.
- Users that perform on-site search tend to stay on the website twice as long.
- Users coming from organic search tend to stay 30% less on the website.
- Users coming from referrals tend to stay 50% less on the website.
- Users that land on a snippet are more likely to not visit any other pages.
- Users viewing a listing page are more likely to continue their journey than users viewing a snippet page.