Why marketers should begin using Sitecore Engagement Value
November 03, 2017
Sitecore XP offers a range of capabilities, all with the intention of offering the right content, to the right website users, at the right time.
Capabilities like offering the right content to the right website users can be categorized based on the amount of effort and data required (as seen in the table below).
| Short time to impact capabilities | Longer-term capabilities |
| Engagement value | Profile-based implicit personalization |
| A/B & Multivariate testing | Explicit personalization |
| Rule-based implicit personalization | Lead scoring |
| Engagement plans |
When looking at the vast capabilities that Sitecore XP offers, one question that often arises is: Where do I start?
Look no further than Engagement Value as the fuel to kick-start your Sitecore XP experience.
What is Sitecore Engagement Value?
Engagement Value is Sitecore’s means to quantify the micro conversions a user experiences on their journey to conversion. Think of when you’re buying shoes online: you know how much that final purchase is worth based on how much you paid for it, but what about all the steps you took that lead you to this final purchase, such as using a product comparison tool or reading a review? Worth as much as the final purchase? No. Valuable touchpoints worth tracking? Definitely.
Sitecore will allow you to tag this content with a numeric value in lieu of a hard conversion metric in order to glean greater insights into your user’s behavior and customer journey.
Where do I start with Engagement Value?
Using Engagement Value takes five simple steps:
- Identify your site goals
- Determine their value (normally between 0-100)
- Build goals in Sitecore
- Tag the respective pages with the goals to which they align
- Watch the data collect!
How do I get value from my Engagement Value?
Tagging your website content with the appropriate engagement value opens your business up to a world of possibility with regards to tracking, testing, and reporting. Read on to understand how engagement value will enrich your data.
Sitecore Path Analyzer
Sitecore’s Path Analyzer is a tool that examines the journey users take to achieve a goal or on-site action. Engagement Value informs the data by identifying which paths render the highest level of engagement. With this knowledge you can better optimize this path to increase conversions, or optimize other paths that are perhaps underperforming.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a method to help you determine the content that is most effective for achieving your site goals. An example of an A/B test is where one group of website visitors is shown one version of a webpage, and the other group is shown another. Visitor actions are tracked. From there, site owners can use the results to determine which version is most effective at achieving the site’s goals.
Sitecore’s Engagement Value makes the distinction between the winning and losing content clearer using a metric called: trailing engagement value. Trailing engagement value is a metric that identifies how much engagement value a user generated through interacting with your website after seeing Version A or Version B. The test with the highest trailing engagement value indicates that more users were implored to take action on the site after seeing one version over the other, and thus, is the winner of the test.
Personalization
Personalization is a useful tool that seeks to optimize the web experience based on existing user behaviours. Using the findings from Sitecore Analytics, content authors can create a personalization rule that acknowledges when a user has reached a specified engagement level threshold and then presents the user with a pertinent call-to-action. The effective use of this tactic exemplifies Sitecore’s promise of providing the right users with the right content at the right time.
Audience Segments
In addition to understanding common user journeys, engagement value can offer valuable insights about the various types of visitors to your website, and how engaged they are with your website. The example below is from Sitecore client: the Rotman School of Management. This table shows that creative thinkers tended to produce an average of 5.68 value-per-visit after reading a blog post, versus finance thinkers, who produced a mere 0.68. This data gave Rotman insight into the differing value of user behaviour for two key audience segments.
Engagement Value’s Return on Investment
Engagement Value complements your existing marketing efforts with refined data insights that help you to drive incremental conversions and improve upon operational efficiencies. This Sitecore XP capability has a short-time to impact, with a strong return on investment, making it a true quick win Sitecore XP owners can take advantage of today. Contact us to learn more about our Sitecore marketing science practice to find out how we can help.
