Building trust and increasing performance with clearer analytics

Analytics are the north star for marketers

When marketers launch a campaign, numbers help them determine whether it’s successful or not.

For ReferralCandy, an app which helps online store owners run a referral marketing campaign, analytics serve as the north star. They flag up when a campaign is performing poorly and guide them towards next steps.

Key issues with the existing analytics included unhelpful stats and confusing terminology

After hearing that the customer success team was receiving more and more comments about analytics, my PM and I took a deeper look.

Issues included:

1. Customers weren’t sure how numbers were being calculated. The lack of definitions and variations in terminology added to the confusion.

2. Customers were unhappy with numbers that included repeat views or purchases. They found these numbers inflated and unhelpful.

3. Customers were requesting for custom reports as they found the existing “Referral Report” insufficient. This took up time for the customer success staff.

Improving analytics as a whole

Instead of only revamping the analytics on the “Referral Report” page, we took a holistic look at analytics used throughout the app.

We began by adding definitions via tooltips or caption text.

This removed questions as to what X meant or how it was calculated.

Analytics were organised like a funnel so customers could understand the flow of their money. Revenue was broken down into granular details.

As a majority of customers (online store owners) hosted their store on Shopify, we designed an “Analytics” page that was modelled after Shopify’s own analytics page. This would make the page more intuitive to navigate and reduce cognitive load.

Key analytics on the homepage were moved above the fold

Additionally, top-level analytics on the home page were moved above the fold so users could view them quickly. Cards which received little to no clicks/activity were removed.

Impact

By providing customers with useful analytics, we were able to rebuild trust and give them tools to improve their campaign.

Team

Alayne Loo, Project Manager