What happens during the customer journey from advertisement to purchase?

About the project

Together with a company, we investigated whether it is possible to use eye tracking-technology to follow the customer journey from advertisement to purchase, in order to optimize the conversion rate. The company describes how only 40% of visitors that enter their website via external channels, choose to interact further with their website. Their product page is their most common landing page where about 60% of visitors end up, visitors get there via Google Shopping or via ads on social media, for example Meta ads. To study the issue, we have collected 21 participants for the study to observe how they behave during the customer journey. The start page for the participants became Google images, as it was not possible to start from Google Shopping. From there, participants had to select an image that took them directly to the company's website via the product page that was linked to the image. After that, the participants were free to decide whether to continue looking around on the website or if the original product was the right one. The final step was to make a "purchase" to simulate a real case as close as possible. Afterwards, each participant had to answer questions about the eye tracking experiment, describing their decisions during the study and what led them to the product they ultimately chose.

Results

The result was not as planned as it was not possible to conduct the study as the company had wished for. Among other things, it was because the Google images were different for each participant and that many of the participants chose an image with the aim of entering the website, rather than finding something that appealed to them. An alternative would have been to observe how the participants interact with ads in general instead of limiting them to only the company's ads, it could have contributed to equally useful information that the company could have used in its operations.

Project details

Title: Can an eye tracking study follow a customer journey from an external platform to purchase, to understand how it can optimize the conversion rate?

Year: 2024

Authors: Stefani Cardenas Janson, Emma Rönbeck and Liam Frisenbrink

Course / Programme: Field study, Bachelor programme Textile Management, with specialization in Fashion and Retail

Supervisor: Lars Hedegård / Marianne Louwerse

Technique: Eye tracking on screen