As more and more companies continue to leave store-front businesses in exchange for e-commerce sites, one important question that these businesses must ask themselves is if they really understand their customers. While it is easy to say you made a hundred sales in one month, the more important question is why your customers chose to buy your products and how you can replicate the same results.

With user information becoming increasingly valuable, being able to understand your customers behaviors, trends as well as likes and dislikes can be the key to whether or not you have a successful business.

The Importance of Data

As a business, each and every user that visits your website forms a relationship with you. Some may be long-lasting, while others may be one time ‘flings.’ Whether it’s long-lasting or not, understanding the reasons behind this is important. By capturing visitor data, businesses can learn how to better improve both their marketing and product development.

On the marketing side, by analyzing data to find correlations between purchases, you can determine how you should proceed as far as allocating funds for online advertisements, adwords, and how items are presented to visitors. Additionally, product development can benefit from knowing specifics such as what accessories are most often purchased with certain purchases as well as how often users come back to buy a particular type of item.

Lower Bounce Rate, Increase Relevance

Aside from being able to better tailor your website to your customers individual preferences, knowing how customers interact with your website will allow you to best optimize your site for when a customer lands on your site for the first time. For example, if you know that 90% of users scroll down and click on the About Us tab, by moving the About Us to the top of your website you are increasing the chance that they will stay on your site since they don’t have to search around for it. Too often are website content with leaving things the way they are out of their own convenience which means they are missing out on potential sales.

When a consumer first arrives at your website, you typically only have between 1-3 minutes to ’show’ them something relevant to what they are looking for. If you don’t, the chances of them coming back your website are drastically lower.

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While it may seem difficult, there are many tools out there that enable you to understand your customers and allow you to optimize your site in real-time. Being able to tell others how much money you made is great, but being able to tell them how and why is even better.

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Joseph Yi is the Director of Marketing at Viralogy.com and works in social media and sports consulting. Find more about him on his website.