Case Study: How We Protected Electrical2Go’s Data During a Website Migration
Overview
Electrical2Go’s website was built on an older version of Magento which made it hard to make website changes and implement more advanced forms of tracking. The website’s design was also outdated and provided their clients with poor usability which was causing frustration.
Having been through a bad migration before, Electrical2Go understood how critical a well-planned migration was, and got us involved at the early planning stage. This allowed us to input at all stages and ensure that data was considered at each step.
In this case study, we’ll explore how we’ve supported Electrical2Go from a data and Analytics perspective.
If you want to know more about how we supported the migration holistically, which included our SEO and content marketing services, you can read the case study here.
Highlights of the Migration:
- Targets were achieved earlier than expected
- GDPR compliance was maintained
- We prevented any data loss
- Enhanced e-commerce tracking was implemented
How We Tackled the Data Aspects of the Migration
Stage 1: UX Feedback on Wireframes and Designs
Our knowledge of Electrical2Go’s website, its users, and how the experience was in need of improvement, allowed us to provide informed feedback on the new website’s design at the wireframing stage.
We provided feedback on the wireframes themselves, the design prototypes and the staging site.
Connecting the new design to the insights we gained from Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) and UX analysis (from heatmaps, surveys and anecdotal qualitative feedback from their clients) was really important to us.
Knowledge is power and knowledge comes from data.
Stage 2: Setting Targets
Being a data-led agency means we wouldn’t be able to classify the migration as successful or unsuccessful without having targets that define what a positive migration looks like.
We focused our targets on the Organic Search channel as it was the main channel we were responsible for and its performance would be directly impacted by the migration.
We set targets to return to pre-migration Organic Search monthly session and product revenue volumes within 4 – 6 weeks of the migration.
Pre-migration Organic Search traffic and revenue volumes were defined as an average of the 12 months prior to the migration date, adjusted to the data collection volumes after the website became GDPR-compliant.
Stage 3: Configuring Tracking
This migration presented an opportunity to take Electrical2Go’s tracking to the next level by giving them more comprehensive data on their user’s behaviour throughout the purchase journey.
We were responsible for ensuring all tracking was implemented correctly through Google Tag Manager (GTM). This meant that every snippet of code that was previously hardcoded, i.e. Google Analytics and Google Optimize, was now moved into GTM for ease of management, and we became responsible for configuring and maintaining the tracking.
We also configured enhanced e-commerce through GTM to allow Electrical2Go to access detailed data about product impression, promotion, and sales inside Analytics, which they previously didn’t have access to. All the events that were configured as part of this implementation (e.g. addToCart and productDetail) now give them a more comprehensive view of their users’ journey.
If you want to learn more about the process we follow for data migrations, check out our blog post and free downloadable checklist here.
Stage 4: Protecting GDPR Compliance
Having been through extensive work on their existing website to ensure GDPR compliance, it was now important for the new website to not only launch compliantly but for compliance to be protected at all stages.
The existing Consent Management Platform (CMP) was configured by Electrical2Go, with our guidance.
In GTM, we configured tags to fire only when a user consented to the appropriate cookie category.
Stage 5: Data Safeguarding Tests
As the website was experiencing a particularly good sales period and most sales happen during weekdays, Electrical2Go opted for a weekend migration to mitigate their losses as the website needed to be down for the duration of the migration.
In the week following the migration, we conducted daily data safeguarding checks to ensure that no problems had been created by the migration. We catalogued bugs and problems and classified them by severity, which were then addressed by both the Electrical2Go and development teams.
Stage 6: Achieving the Targets & Reporting
Within two weeks of the migration, we had already achieved 67% of our product revenue target, and we didn’t experience the traffic or product revenue drops that we were expecting to happen in the days after site launch. This initial drop is normal and something to expect when you migrate your website. As search engines crawl and index your new pages you can experience a knock-on effect on traffic and revenue for a few days post-migration.
A page in the bespoke report we built for Electrical2Go was added so that we could visualise how we were progressing against our targets during the measurement period.
If you want to know more about how our reports help our team and clients surface insights, take a look at this case study: How Our Fur-Midabble Reports Helped Cats Protection Surface Insights.
Results:
Once implemented, our solutions enabled Electrical2Go to have:
- Exceeded our session target by 43% and our product revenue target by 95%.
- Maintained GDPR compliance.
- Prevented data loss and inaccuracies.
- Enhanced data collection.
- Launched a website that provides better usability.
Achieving our targets earlier than expected allowed us to shift our focus to the future and start planning how we could capitalise on the new website’s success with our client. We’re excited to see how the website evolves and look forward to improving the user experience further with a mix of UX techniques and CRO experiments.
SiteVisibility was instrumental in our migration’s success. Tracking was maintained, which meant data accuracy was upheld. We also had clear targets, so we could measure the new site’s success.
Contact Us:
If you want to find out more about our website migration services, you can do so here.
Alternatively, if you want to know how we can help you protect your data during a website migration, leave a message via the contact form below or give us a call on 01273733433.