Getting the $ from folks that come to Support Site

'How to get folks to buy more' is every marketer's problem.
Getting support folks to buy is the latest buzz in both offline and online contexts. In the offline world, when somebody calls in, the rep tries to sell -
Hey! you need more RAM OR your HDD is close to full - increase capacity OR there is a brand new processor that your motherboard supports
This is not tried on everybody - An experienced rep can make out who to sell and who not to - who to pitch and who not to

How do we replicate the same in the online world?
First step is to find out 'as-is' i.e. how much $ do I make out of the support site today? This is in the online context presents some problems.

Complexity 1: I came to the support site to check my order status :)
Online world presents a unique complexity because after making a purchase on any e-commerce site like Amazon, folks tend to visit the support site to check order status. These are not folks that are getting us revenue $ from the support site.
They have to be excluded

Complexity 2: X landed on support site while Y navigated to support site from purchase site. X and Y are different

The behavior of the folks that land on a support site and path over to the e-commerce site is very different from folks that navigate to the support site and then went over to the purchase site
Both of these have to be treated as separate segments

Complexity 3: I came to check my order status after purchasing from the support site :)

Visitors that bought from a link to purchase site from the support site may actually come back to the support site to check their orders.They should not be excluded



Here is my stepwise approach to solving this problem
Step 1: Separate segments for Landings and Non-Landings
Create 2 segments of visits:
a) Those that land on support site - call as X
b) Those that did not land on support site - call as Y
X and Y are mutually exclusive


Step 2: For X, the bucket that landed on the on the support site and buy in the same visit
The $ that results from these folks is the purchases that they made on the support site. Call this $A

Step 3: For Y, the bucket that did not land on the support site
Step 3a: Visit Segment of folks that made a purchase and checked order status. Call this M
Step 3b: Visit Segment of folks that made a purchase and did not check order status. Call this N
Step 3c: Visit Segment of folks that visited support before before the e-comm site. Call this P.
Now N intersection P -> Count the revenue for these folks. Call it $B
Step 3d: Visit Segment of folks that visited support and went to e-comm site before returning to the support site. Call this Q
Now revenue for Q intersection M is $C

Total Revenue is $A + $B + $C.
More on how to improve revenue for these folks in one of the subsequent posts.

If you need help in how to set these things up in a web analytics tool like Insight, feel free to drop a mail at rkirana@gmail.com