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This article is an updated version of a post from August 2020
October 4, 2023
If you’re wondering how to attract customers online at a lower cost and higher efficiency, we have great news for you. SEMrush Traffic Analytics can now outline the complete traffic journey for any website, be it that of your competitor, client, or prospect.
Do You Attract Customers in the Optimal Way?
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half” — from the times of John Wanamaker, the problem has stayed the same for too many marketers.
On the one hand, there are always internal statistics available; if you detect underperforming channels, you exclude them. On the other, with the variety of promotional channels and platforms available online, there may be easier targets you hadn’t thought of.
Missing out on valuable opportunities is especially painful when you need new clients for your business. In a B2B market, the number of companies for collaboration may be limited, so it’s either you or your competitors — that simple.
On the one hand, there are always internal statistics available; if you detect underperforming channels, you exclude them. On the other, with the variety of promotional channels and platforms available online, there may be easier targets you hadn’t thought of.
Missing out on valuable opportunities is especially painful when you need new clients for your business. In a B2B market, the number of companies for collaboration may be limited, so it’s either you or your competitors — that simple.
How Your Competitors Could Help You in Traffic Generation
With competitive intelligence tools like SEMrush Traffic Analytics, getting traffic generation ideas has been simple: you would enter your competitors’ websites and break down their traffic sources within minutes.
You would then enhance your current campaigns with their best practices or adapt their marketing strategy to your client or market, and that would be it — you would start receiving traffic in a tested way.
However, winning a customer is not as easy as just knowing the best-performing traffic sources. To generate leads and close deals, you need more.
You would then enhance your current campaigns with their best practices or adapt their marketing strategy to your client or market, and that would be it — you would start receiving traffic in a tested way.
However, winning a customer is not as easy as just knowing the best-performing traffic sources. To generate leads and close deals, you need more.
More Than Just Traffic Sources: Complete Traffic Journey Analysis
To light your way to the client, SEMrush Traffic Analytics has added a comprehensive solution. The new Traffic Journey report combined the capacities of the Traffic Sources and Destination Sites reports and added more features.
The revamped report allows you to get a full view of the user journey across a website. In one graph, you can detect which sites visitors go to before a certain domain, and where they go next.
The revamped report allows you to get a full view of the user journey across a website. In one graph, you can detect which sites visitors go to before a certain domain, and where they go next.
The chart presents five Top Sources and five Top Destinations. The table below contains detailed data on the websites that users visited before and after the researched site: traffic shares, amount of traffic in absolute numbers, and its monthly changes.
You can add up to four more websites and switch between tabs to compare their visitors’ Traffic Journeys. Traffic Sources comparison with Group Traffic Split graphs is still available in the tool.
You can add up to four more websites and switch between tabs to compare their visitors’ Traffic Journeys. Traffic Sources comparison with Group Traffic Split graphs is still available in the tool.
It’s interesting to see how users flow from one website to another, but how can you derive business value from this data?
Improve Your Lead Generation with Customer Behavior Analysis
Marketing success is based on two pillars: frequency and quality of the contact. Traffic Journey can help you improve both:
Find ways to get the magic seven touchpoints with your customer (or as many as are necessary in your niche).
Select only the most relevant and efficient media and communication channels.
Let us dwell on this.
Attract Customers at Your Competitors' Touchpoints
With a complete overview of competitors’ Traffic Sources and Destination Sites, you get a double list of ideas of where to catch your audience’s attention.
You may want to arrange media placements on the same resources that generated traffic to your rivals. You can follow your competitors’ visitors to the websites they landed on next and divert users’ attention with your ads there.
Find ways to get the magic seven touchpoints with your customer (or as many as are necessary in your niche).
Select only the most relevant and efficient media and communication channels.
Let us dwell on this.
Attract Customers at Your Competitors' Touchpoints
With a complete overview of competitors’ Traffic Sources and Destination Sites, you get a double list of ideas of where to catch your audience’s attention.
You may want to arrange media placements on the same resources that generated traffic to your rivals. You can follow your competitors’ visitors to the websites they landed on next and divert users’ attention with your ads there.
Understand Which Alternatives Your Customers Consider
Studying the traffic journey is like getting into your target buyer’s head. You discover the websites they visit before and after your rivals’ — these could be your direct or indirect competitors, your product/service substitutes, or related brands.
This way, you follow your customers in the decision-making process, then clarify your positioning, brand image, and messaging, and foster growth.
Studying the traffic journey is like getting into your target buyer’s head. You discover the websites they visit before and after your rivals’ — these could be your direct or indirect competitors, your product/service substitutes, or related brands.
This way, you follow your customers in the decision-making process, then clarify your positioning, brand image, and messaging, and foster growth.
Set Remarketing Campaigns on the Websites Your Audience Also Visited
You may want to research where your own audience goes next and catch them there. Google Analytics does not provide this data, so we suggest it as one of those rare cases when SEMrush Traffic Analytics could be applied to your own website.
You may want to research where your own audience goes next and catch them there. Google Analytics does not provide this data, so we suggest it as one of those rare cases when SEMrush Traffic Analytics could be applied to your own website.
Approach and Convert Prospects Into Your B2B Clients
Search for High-Value Prospects [Case]
Take the example of a company developing software for hotel booking. Their solution costs less than the fee their clients would pay to a travel aggregator, which is a strong case in their favor.
The question is, how do they reach the hotel owners that would normally work with a large reservation site? And how can they prove that their software will be as relevant?
With Traffic Journey, the SaaS provider can study the user’s path through the travel aggregator and reveal that many of them use it uniquely for search and then move on to the individual hotel’s website. The booking is made there directly, which means the aggregator didn’t contribute a lot to the ultimate goal (booking).
So the software company may suggest its services to the hotel: they already know the platforms where travelers search for information, i.e. where they could locate the hotel’s promo assets. This plus the price of the software would cost less to a client than the reservation site’s commission, so they arrive with their offer to the hotel. Win-win.
Suggest Effective Promotion, Co-Marketing, and Media Placements [Case]
Imagine an advertising agency discovering that 17% of their client’s website visitors leave it for — who would have guessed? — Yandex, a search engine that is popular in Russia.
Without Traffic Journey, it would be hard to discover this. With Traffic Journey, the agency may approach the client with a proposition: they will hold promotion on this surprising destination site and will win back this 17% of the audience.
Potential customers of the client are retained; the client continues its contract with the agency. Win-win.
Take the example of a company developing software for hotel booking. Their solution costs less than the fee their clients would pay to a travel aggregator, which is a strong case in their favor.
The question is, how do they reach the hotel owners that would normally work with a large reservation site? And how can they prove that their software will be as relevant?
With Traffic Journey, the SaaS provider can study the user’s path through the travel aggregator and reveal that many of them use it uniquely for search and then move on to the individual hotel’s website. The booking is made there directly, which means the aggregator didn’t contribute a lot to the ultimate goal (booking).
So the software company may suggest its services to the hotel: they already know the platforms where travelers search for information, i.e. where they could locate the hotel’s promo assets. This plus the price of the software would cost less to a client than the reservation site’s commission, so they arrive with their offer to the hotel. Win-win.
Suggest Effective Promotion, Co-Marketing, and Media Placements [Case]
Imagine an advertising agency discovering that 17% of their client’s website visitors leave it for — who would have guessed? — Yandex, a search engine that is popular in Russia.
Without Traffic Journey, it would be hard to discover this. With Traffic Journey, the agency may approach the client with a proposition: they will hold promotion on this surprising destination site and will win back this 17% of the audience.
Potential customers of the client are retained; the client continues its contract with the agency. Win-win.
Outline the Customer Journey & Improve the Customer Experience
You can use Traffic Journey in customer research driven by long-term goals.
You can detect trends in audience preferences and make your brand messaging more relevant.
You can think of restructuring your website or improving your SaaS solution so that users don’t leave your site for competitors or have to continue their search on Google.
You can conduct in-depth customer journey analysis and reconfigure your marketing mix to attract customers more effectively than your competitors.
You can detect trends in audience preferences and make your brand messaging more relevant.
You can think of restructuring your website or improving your SaaS solution so that users don’t leave your site for competitors or have to continue their search on Google.
You can conduct in-depth customer journey analysis and reconfigure your marketing mix to attract customers more effectively than your competitors.
What Makes Our Traffic Journey Report Unique?
- Traffic Sources and Destination Sites in one chart — to get a complete overview of users’ website journey.
- All types of sources available: not just referring sites.
- Traffic Journey Details with a visual comparison of Traffic Shares — for faster and easier marketing research.
Why Knowledge of Individual Traffic Sources Is Not Enough
It is important to have access to the bigger picture, as well as having an opportunity to dive deeper into more detail.
When you only know how referring sites, for example, contribute to your competitors’ traffic generation, you can’t make solid conclusions on their marketing strategies, efforts, and effectiveness. You don’t set relevant benchmarks and, eventually, you may lose customers due to lack of data.
Hopefully, this won’t be the case for you anymore with the new Traffic Journey report.
When you only know how referring sites, for example, contribute to your competitors’ traffic generation, you can’t make solid conclusions on their marketing strategies, efforts, and effectiveness. You don’t set relevant benchmarks and, eventually, you may lose customers due to lack of data.
Hopefully, this won’t be the case for you anymore with the new Traffic Journey report.
Uncover Any Website’s Traffic Journey
About Semrush
Semrush is a leading online visibility management SaaS platform that enables businesses globally to run search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content, social media and competitive research campaigns and get measurable results from online marketing. Semrush offers insights and solutions for companies to build, manage, and measure campaigns across various marketing channels. Semrush, with over 91,000 paying customers, is headquartered in Boston and has offices in Philadelphia, Trevose, Austin, Dallas, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin, Limassol, Prague, Warsaw, and Yerevan.
