Product Categories report

The Product Categories report offers Financial Services customers the ability to understand, analyze, and optimize product completions and affinities. Using Product Categories, you can measure the success of visitor interactions with specific products.

By identifying these interactions, you can attempt to offer popular products within varying site locations or on varying applications in an effort to increase revenue and customer satisfaction. Product Categories can be used to pinpoint which products do not have strong affinities and products that are often added to an application but rarely completed. The report shows product submission, abandonment, and viewing metrics aggregated by category.

The following examples show ways to use Product Categories data:

A high product views/items transacted ratio indicates a creative problem: This ratio is effectively a look-to-apply ratio. If this metric is high, then visitors are viewing a product frequently but often searching for more information and returning to the product page before converting. To correct the creative problem consider investing by improving content descriptions, images, and comparison tools.
High abandonment likely indicates a process problem: Visitors might have issues with the application process. Investigate application abandonment by using the TruePath report to address issues with key site processes. Also, consider a deeper evaluation of the forms within an application by using the Forms report to find high unloaded fields.
Items with high in-session (application) overlap present cross-sell opportunities: Capitalize on immediate cross-sell opportunities by presenting the items prominently on the relevant product and category pages.

Products versus applications

An application is a step-by-step flow to apply for a product.

Consider the following scenarios:

The one-to-one ratio between applications and products, in which each product has a different application flow.
One application flow that accommodates different products. For example, the same information may be requested for home loans versus car loans; or the process might have optional steps for different products.
Additional products, such as cross-sell or up-sell items, in an application. For instance, when you apply for a checking account you are also offered a savings account (there is one application but multiple products).

In each of these scenarios, you can use the Product Categories Report to understand the impact of specific products regardless of the application.

Common options and views

Consider the following options and views when analyzing data using the Product Categories report:

If your business is a financial services institution that has an authenticated space (such as online banking), consider setting up two key segments: one for authenticated sessions and one for unauthenticated sessions. Authenticated spaces might dominate traffic on your site, so being able to separate the two groups will allow for more meaningful analysis.
If you are unsure of the category in which your product resides, try using the full list view, which will allow you to see the product and the category or categories in which the product resides.
Consider creating a 'Top Browsed Products' report by sorting your report on the products selected, so you can rapidly identify the products. Further analysis and sorting can allow you to see which of the browsed products are high-value (low abandonment percentage). As a result, you can take action to effectively place the items prominently on your site.
Consider creating a 'Top Abandoned Products' report by sorting your report on the abandonment rate. This will show the products that visitors most frequently add to applications but do not end up purchasing. Further analysis can be initiated to investigate the reasons for such high abandonment.

Example Product categories

The following examples are product categories that can be defined in the Category Definition File (CDF) for reporting in the Product Categories report:

Navigation Categories
On-Site Search
Catalog Search
Promotions
Home page
- Such as Home page - feature 1
- Such as Home page - feature 2
Category/Department pages
- Such as Electronics - feature 1
- Such as Women's - feature 1
Cross-Sell
Clearance
Wish List
Landing Pages
Persistent Cart
Mobile
Product-related site tools
- Virtual model
- Product Zoom