A new study into e-commerce has revealed a mass of lost opportunities for Australian etailers.
The Australian and New Zealand study, conducted by Dgm and Adobe, looked into what types of optimisation were being used by retailers, banks, insurers, travels sites and other transactional businesses, and the effects.
According to the results, Australian and New Zealand businesses are spending a paltry amount of their digital marketing budgets on optimisation, despite evidence showing those who optimise are reaping thousands of dollars return for every dollar spent.
While web analytics is the most popular tactic for optimisation, the results show that the use of testing – which should form the backbone of any optimisation strategy – is falling far short of the mark.
Local businesses are spending a little more of their budgets on optimisation than the global respondents.
However, the 12 per cent of local respondents who are spending more than a quarter of their budget on optimisation are also receiving substantially higher conversion rates than the total sample.
Mobile was sluggish, with 44 per cent of respondents saying they still don’t have a mobile optimised site and more than half don’t know their mobile conversion rate.
Dgm head of strategic development Tom Edmonds, added that while local results showed that Australia is just as sophisticated as digital marketers in more mature markets such as the US and UK – more needs to be done.
“However, despite the availability of new tools and technologies designed for optimisation, few businesses have invested the time and money to implement ongoing optimisation initiatives,” he said.
“We are seeing among our clients – and the results of the survey certainly support this – those companies who invest in optimisation gain a competitive advantage as well as significant new revenue as a results of continuous incremental improvements.”
Edmonds noted, however, that local businesses are catching on to avoid missing out on vital sales opportunities.
“The momentum is slowly building in the demand for optimisation strategies and we predict more businesses will adopt a culture of continuous improvement this year,” he said.