Tableau takes eteamz to the Major Leagues
Itโs helped us say, hereโs the issue, hereโs the problem, and hereโs what weโre going to do.โ
Eric Ramos came to Tableau with a problem. He needed a simple and effective way to understand conversion rates on The Active Networkโs eteamz site. Getting at the data wasnโt the problem: making sense of it was. What Ramos needed was a way to get all his data in one place and use it to create multi-dimensional charts. โTrying to do all this in Excel was taking far too much time,โ Ramos said. Thatโs where Tableau came in.
Eteamz is a publishing platform that coaches and players create Web sites for their teams or leagues. Users can choose between a โBasicโ free membership or upgrade to the paid โPlusโ level. This setup funnels users through the site in three ways: Free, Paid and Upgrade. The Free membership lasts three weeks, after which the customer must upgrade the account or lose premium features. Ramos used Tableau visualizations to plot the relationship between Free and Upgrade, and determine which funnel generated the most conversions. After only a few weeks, Ramos could identify and track a decline in conversions. โThis information allowed us to quickly focus on improving the process and generate new sales,โ he said.
Covering Your Bases: Great Visuals Begin With Great Data
To get the most effective visualizations, Ramos took the important first step of getting at the right data. He started by analyzing each page in the funnel on a daily basis. From there, Ramos calculated the conversion (or retention) rate, the number of visits to the site and the number of page views per visit. His analysis showed that users were making multiple visits and navigating through several pages to find the right information. Building on this data, Ramos looked into how users moved through the membership levels. โIn the upgrade process, we found that 36% of the time was spent on the last page before the transaction,โ he said. โOn the last page, people are spending over four minutes, much longer than the others, so perhaps people are confused.โ
These findings were combined with Omniture Web analytics and other data sources such as eteamzโs marketing notes. Looking across the data, Ramos compared membership confirmations by sport type. For example, how many baseball teams signed up vs. softball and soccer? This data surfaced a number of trends and membership patterns. For example, eteamz learned that spring and summer sports bring early peaks in membership. This information will allow eteamz to create more targeted promotions. โNext year I can start telling them two months early to start optimizing pages for baseball,โ Ramos said.
Rounding Home: What the Right Visuals Can Tell You
The visualization above showed exactly what Ramos expected: Upgrades follow Free registrations closely, with a three-week delay. This chart helped eteamz put things into focus and better understand the relationship between Free and Upgrade. โWhen you look at it overall, itโs hard to tell the drop off,โ Ramos said. โBut we realized we had conversion drop off after August - thatโs where our problem is.โ Eteamz ultimately decided that focusing on Upgrade flow would produce the best return on investment.
The next step will be to bring the trend lines between Free and Upgrade closer. With Tableauโs advanced visuals, Ramos and eteamz can gain more clarity around these findings and make decisions which will drive revenue. โTableauโs scatterplot diagram shows that lifting the Upgrade conversion rate by 1 percent would generate more revenue then a 5% lift in Free conversion rate, hence the team will focus first on the upgrade conversion rate via various strategies,โ Ramos said.
Note: The data underlying the visuals has been changed slightly to protect proprietary information.
For More Information About This Case
Contact: visualanalysis@tableau.com or call (206) 633-3400 x1