What Is Behavioral Analytics?

Short Definition: Examination of how users interact with web-based platforms and why they perform certain actions.

Behavioral analytics is a branch of business analytics that focuses on the series of online actions people take to reach specific goals. It involves looking at user event data to answer certain behavioral questions, such as: How do web users respond to my exclusive email discounts? What online channels do customers use to buy my products? and How often do repeat customers make purchases from my site?

Types of Behavioral Data

Behavioral analytics can include any data related to the online actions of a consumer (or business buyer). Examples include:

• Eye tracking (i.e. heat maps showing where users are looking on a web page)
• Scroll depth (i.e. heat maps showing how far users are scrolling down a web page)
• Click data (i.e. what users are clicking on a website)
• Social media activity (i.e. user engagement such as like, shares, or comments on a brand page)

Behavioral Analytics in Action

Marketers can use insights from behavioral analytics to help move their target customers down the sales funnel. Essentially, behavioral analytics allow marketers to target the right potential customers, in the right place, at the right time. Here are a few examples of ways behavioral data may be applied:

• To determine why ecommerce site visitors are abandoning their shopping cart before making a purchase
• To incentivize people who have abandoned their shopping cart to complete a purchase
• To make personalized product recommendations to returning customers based on their purchase history
• To segment email subscribers so that recipients receive the marketing emails that are most relevant to them
• To create buyer personas (i.e. profiles) of different categories of customers, leading to marketing efforts that are tailored to specific personas

By studying behavioral analytics, businesses gain a better understanding of the path to purchase their target customers take. Savvy businesses use this information to improve the online customer experience and remove any friction their customers may encounter.