Teleconference The Metrics That Matter To Financial Services Web Sites Brad Strothkamp Senior Analyst Forrester Research March 30, Call in at 12:55 p.m. Eastern Time

2 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Theme Few financial services sites have effective measurements to run the eBusiness channel

3 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Agenda Why should you care about Web metrics in financial services? What are the benchmark metrics you need to measure? What metrics are specific to financial services? How to use metrics to drive sales goals

4 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Agenda Why should you care about Web metrics in financial services? What are the benchmark metrics you need to measure? What metrics are specific to financial services? How to use metrics to drive sales goals

5 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Consider these facts Gen Yers would choose their computer 2 to 1 over their television if they had to choose just one device to not live without. 91% of online households use search engines, up from 71% just four years ago. In 2005, 47% of financial service shoppers researched their purchases exclusively online.

6 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. “For any financial products you purchased during the past 12 months, please indicate where you conducted your research.” Base: US consumers who conducted research online or offline for any financial product they purchased during the past 12 months Source: Forrester’s NACTAS Q Finance Online Survey Online only Online and offline only 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% USGen Yers (18-26) Gen Xers (27-40) Younger Boomers (41-50) Older Boomers (51-61) Seniors (62+) Offline only Consumers prefer the Internet to research

7 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Tomorrow’s shoppers may ONLY visit your Web site before buying

8 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Web site usage Web site usage: How users navigate on the site Referral source: How users get to the siteReferralsource Purchase channel: How Web site visitors purchase their product Purchasechannel Consumers’ path to purchase Tracking Web shoppers is imperative

9 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Agenda Why should you care about Web metrics in financial services? What are the benchmark metrics you need to measure? What metrics are specific to financial services? How to use metrics to drive sales goals

10 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. The Web Analytics Association (WAA) is a non- profit organization that is made up of key Web analytic vendors, clients, and individuals to set standards for analytic measurements. The WAA defines itself as the group that “unites and fosters the interests of industry practitioners, vendors, consultants and educators who use, sell, install, implement, consult, teach or train in the field of web analytics.” Web Analytics Association (WAA)

11 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Metric basics: the BIG three Unique site visitors: »The number of inferred individual people (filtered for spiders and robots), within a designated reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to a site. Each individual is counted only once in the unique visitor measure for the reporting period. Source: Web Analytics Association

12 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Metric basics: the BIG three Visits/sessions: »A visit is an interaction, by an individual, with a Web site consisting of one or more requests for an analyst-definable unit of content (i.e., page view). If an individual has not taken another action (typically additional page views) on the site within a specified time period, the visit will terminate. Source: Web Analytics Association

13 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Metric basics: the BIG three Page views: »The number of times a page (an analyst-definable unit of content) was viewed. Source: Web Analytics Association

14 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Financial services: basic metrics Unique site visitors (by product area) Top search terms (by product) Tool usage Started/completed applications (by product) »Started application is generally defined as the first page where the consumer enters personally identifiable information, and a completed application is defined as the page where he/she receives a “thank you” or “completion” page.

15 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Financial services: conversion metrics Site conversion rates (by product) »What percentage of unique site visitors to the credit card pages completed an application or lead form? Search term conversion rates »What percentage of site visitors who searched on “blank” term completed an application or lead form? Content/tool conversion rates »What percentage of site visitors who viewed a certain content type (e.g., rate page, comparison chart) or used a certain tool (e.g., payment calculator) completed an application or lead form?

16 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Financial services: application metrics Application completion rates »Completion rates by: –Segments: new versus existing customers –Product: checking versus savings –Functionality: prefill, save/retrieve, etc. Dropoff rates per page Errors per applicant (i.e., incorrect information)

17 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Agenda Why should you care about Web metrics in financial services? What are the benchmark metrics you need to measure? What metrics are specific to financial services? How to use metrics to drive sales goals

18 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Search marketing

19 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Measurement helps focus marketing dollars Mortgage applicants by search category “What type of search terms resulted in converting search users into serious prospects?” General Rate and fee Product Tool Top mortgage search categories 20% 15% 7% 59% 37% 16% 9% 38% Base: Compete survey respondents who recently applied for a mortgage loan

20 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Top mortgage search term: 8th in conversion 5th highest mortgage search term: 1st in conversion

21 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Site development

22 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Justify site content and functionality decisions Rent versus buy Amortization Should I refinance? Affordability calculator Product selection tool Payment calculator Base: Compete panelists who accessed mortgage pages at a target Web site

23 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Quicken Loans uses metrics to drive site development

24 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. E*TRADE uses metrics to target “engaged” site visitors

25 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Application effectiveness

26 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Application metrics can solve completion issues Case study: A large multinational bank tracked the dropoffs by page and errors that consumers had during the application process and was able to determine: »A large percentage of applicants dropped off on the first page of the application for no discernable reason. In fact, most of these dropouts never completed any application information.

27 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Early dropouts had no intention of applying Source: A large multinational bank survey of consumers who dropped out of application *Denotes coded open-ended responses “When you began the online application, did you intend to complete it today?” Base: 622 respondents Yes 70% No 30% Wanted to see what information was asked for in the online app Was looking for more information about the product Clicked into the application by mistake Changed mind about applying Not ready to apply* Don’t know Other 42% 35% 5% 4% 2% 6%

28 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Application metrics can solve completion issues Case study: A large multinational bank tracked the dropoffs by page and errors that consumers had during the application process and was able to determine: »A large percentage of applicants dropped off on the first page of the application for no discernable reason. In fact, most of these dropouts never completed any application information. »Significant dropouts past the first page were a good indicator of a problem with the application itself or information asked.

29 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Source: A large multinational bank survey of consumers who dropped out of application *Denotes coded open-ended responses Base: 622 respondents No 30% Yes 70% Required info not on hand Technical problem Not eligible/not qualified Prefer to apply another way App loaded too slow App timed out Didn’t understand what info was required Didn’t like product info (rates/fees)* App was too long Confused; made error; in wrong app* Didn’t want to send to bank Didn’t want to answer Required minimum deposit too much* Other 14% 11% 10% 8% 5% 4% 3% 17% 22% 14% “When you began the online application, did you intend to complete it today?” Didn’t want to send info online 3% Mid-application dropoffs lack required info

30 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Application metrics can solve completion issues Case study: A large multinational bank tracked the dropoffs by page and errors that consumers had during the application process and was able to determine: »A large percentage of applicants dropped off on the first page of the application for no discernable reason. In fact, most of these dropouts never completed any application information. »Significant dropouts past the first page were a good indicator of a problem with the application itself or information asked. »Sophisticated page-level reporting revealed problems with the application (e.g., front-end logic problems).

31 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Summary The Internet provides a unique opportunity to track prospects and customers like never before. Firms should sweat metric basics. All subsequent metrics will be built off these metrics. Strong metrics can help inform marketing, site development, and online application decisions. Metric understanding is key to successful use of new technologies like online chat. Few financial services sites have “cracked the nut” on metrics, so don’t feel that you are too far behind.

32 Entire contents © 2007 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Thank you Brad Strothkamp /