HBOS puts faith in web analytics

Banking giant HBOS has invested £150,000 in web analytics software to better understand customer behaviour on its web sites and increase sales.

Late last year, the bank started monitoring how its 3.5m monthly online visitors used its web sites and where improvements could be made to convince more people to buy more products.

'Our goal is to drive as many people as possible through to our various finance application sites,' said Angus Kerr, HBOS's head of sales performance for retail ecommerce.

'Although we've been monitoring general online behaviour since as early as 1995, we've only now started tracking customer movements right through to the online point of sale,' said Kerr.

Since the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, HBOS has been operating two major 'brochureware' sites, halifax.co.uk and bankofscotland.co.uk, which receive about 3m and half a million visitors per month, respectively.

Kerr says that the goal is a double-digit increase in the number of people that click through from online banner advertisements and complete a transaction.

HBOS plans to have a full tracking solution, provided by analytics company SPSS, in place within the next few months, to track visitors throughout their time on the bank's sites.