User Engagement is an important aspect in the eCommerce space. Failing to engage users on your website results in a high bounce rate and eventually losing out on potential customers.
Brands try to implement multiple strategies to increase user engagement. But before we delve into the user engagement strategies, let’s try to understand what it is and why is it important.
What is User Engagement?
In simple terms, User Engagement, or Customer Engagement is the interaction, or say the behaviour of users towards your website, product or services. It can be measured by certain activities such as clicks, downloads, shares, etc.
To be precise, customer engagement and user engagement are generally considered the same but there is a slight difference between both.
Customer engagement is the interaction of customers, people who buy from your brand and have much more knowledge than random or anonymous visitors to which we term as users, and hence the term user engagement.
A customer is always a user but a user cannot always be a customer. Highly engaged users are an asset for any business as they keep coming back to the website. And the more time they spend on your website, the more likely they are to turn into your regular or loyal customers.
Why is User Engagement Important?
User engagement has a key role to play in the success of your products or services. If users are spending time on your website or on the mobile app, it means it is providing them with some value and they are liking you as a brand. For example, let’s say you have a blog. You are getting good hits. People are coming to your blog, reading the information that you have put, leaving comments, checking out the products that you have enlisted in your blog content. What is it? This is all user engagement.
Highly engaged users are good brand advocates. They will not only purchase themselves but would recommend your brand or its products to others as well.
User Engagement Metrics
The definition of user engagement varies from business to business. Depending on the niche, businesses measure user engagement through certain factors.
For example, for a blogging website, the bounce rate and the average time spent by a user would reflect user engagement. For online streaming platforms like Netflix and Hotstar, user engagement would be determined by how much time people spend on watching. E-commerce websites would track how often users are interacting with the products or adding the items to the cart.
How to Increase User Engagement?
There are certain ways to increase user engagement. In this article, I have put up 5 best strategies to increase customer engagement.
1. Cut-down the Page Load Time
The primary thing to do to increase user engagement is reducing the page load speed. I mean, there is no point of talking about increasing user engagement if your website takes too much time to load.
A study says that users bounce off from the websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Your website design, products, offerings, none of it really matters if your website does not load quickly.
Eliminate unnecessary and clunky elements that are causing slow loading. You can download a few plugins that will help you improve your page load speed.
One of the few plugins that I would recommend is the Accelerated Mobile Pages plugin. The AMP module increases the page load speed in mobile devices, thus reducing the bounce rate and the page load time.
Related: Benefits of Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for eCommerce
2. Have Clean and Appealing Web Pages
You do not want your users to cringe when they enter your website, right? Your motive is to engage users.
So, it is important that your web pages are well set up and do not look cluttered. If you want users to take some action, you need to make them comfortable first.
Who would not want to spend a little time browsing through a website that looks pleasing?
Pay most attention at your home page. It is the interaction point of your website. Fill it with elements that leave a strong impression and encourage users to take action.
If it is packed with some exciting information, users will interact more and you will surely witness higher user engagement.
3. Easy Navigation
Before you aim to increase user engagement, make sure you have optimized your website for great user experience. User engagement is directly proportional to the user experience.
And one of the best ways to increase customer engagement is by having a simplified and attractive navigation bar. There must be enough space between the tabs, proper listing of categories and sub-categories. In short, it should appear professional.
Also, have an easy to spot search bar. It should be eye-catchy so that if a user visits your website to make a search, the search bar is instantly spotted.
Do not forget to optimize your checkout page. It holds the utmost importance for user engagement.
4. Optimize your Website for Mobile
M-commerce has already gone past eCommerce and it is going to be a dominating factor in the upcoming years as well.
The count of smartphone users has increased too. So, it is to be kept in mind that your website is equally optimized for mobile devices as it is for desktop. To put it simply, it should be responsive.
A non-responsive eCommerce site will look bulky and unorganized in mobile phones and might compel users to take an exit. This can have a severe effect on the bounce rate.
Thus, having a mobile-friendly eCommerce website is necessary to increase user engagement.
5. Encourage Cross-selling and Up-selling
It is always a good idea to display related or even better versions of your product. Browse Amazon or Flipkart, they have a separate section that says “Similar products” or “Frequently bought together”.
You can follow the same approach on your website too. Up-selling and Cross-selling are some effective ways to engage users.
Related: A complete guide to Cross-selling and Upselling in eCommerce
User Engagement Tools
I am putting forward a list of tools that will help you increase user engagement.
1. Increase User Engagement with “Spin and Win”
One of the best ways to engage users on your website is by incorporating a Spin and Win popup on your website. Today, it has been adopted by many eCommerce brands.
It adds a Gamification element to your website and engages users in a fun activity, persuading them to spin the wheel to win some exciting offers.
Not only it works as a user engagement tool but also helps you grow your email list comfortably and boosts your conversions.
2. Place a Scratch Card on the Header with “Scratch Coupon” Module
The Scratch Coupon module integrates an unscratched coupon on the top of your website and makes it an amazing technique to draw user attention.
Curious to see what’s behind the scratch card, users scrape the coupon. The coupon contains your website deals and offers which the user can avail after scratching it.
This proves to be an effective way to increase user engagement.
3. Test with “Infinite Scroll”
You can give a thought about implementing Infinite Scroll on your website. The Infinite Scroll module converts the pagination process into continuous scrolling.
Users do not need to click on the next page to visit it. With Infinite Scroll, the next page content is automatically fetched and displayed within the same page, as the user scrolls down.
But this user engagement tool does not fit with every eCommerce business. So, before you decide to opt for the Infinite scroll, check whether it would suit with your business niche or not.
Related: Pagination vs Infinite Scrolling
4. Leverage “Web Push Notifications”
Web Push Notifications have proved to be effective in increasing customer engagement.
With Web Push Notifications module, you can reach out to your subscribers even when they are not present at your website. You can use this tool to send abandoned cart notifications, stock alert notifications, price alert notifications, flash sale notifications, etc.
The Bottom Line
For a successful conversion, or taking users onboard, user engagement has a significant role to play.
User engagement will automatically increase if you focus on improving the user experience and manage to reduce the bounce rate.
Apply the above-mentioned user engagement strategies, try out the user engagement tools and see if they have helped you achieve desired results.
For any doubt regarding the modules, you can contact us at support@knowband.com
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