Using Common Website KPI’s to Analyze 2020 Candidates Digital Impact
When I’m not writing cheeky political commentary i’m shilling for businesses. As a marketing and analytics consultant a big part of what I do for brands is trying to measure their digital impact and strategize how to maximize that impact. There are dozens of metrics I look at to grade how a website is performing. Through black magic I’m able to get data on most websites I visit and turn that data into insights.
Out of the many metrics you can use to evaluate a website there are 4 in particular which usually give a pretty holistic view on how a website is performing. These metrics are:
- Website Visitors: The number of people that visit a website every month. Obviously a political candidate wants a lot of people visiting their website because this means they have awareness and can educate the voter and convince them to take action whether that be through voting, volunteering or donating.
- Time on site: The average amount of time someone will spend on a website per session. Once the window is closed the session is over. This time does not stack if you close the window and re-open it. Data overwhelmingly shows the longer someone spends on a website the more likely they are to convert. For a voter, this could mean opting in to an email list or donating.
- Pages Per Visit (PPV): The average amount of pages visited on your website. Candidates want this number to be high because it shows potential voters are taking the time to learn more about the candidate and possibly working their way over to the donate page. More on this later.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who only view one page on your website and then leave. A high bounce rate is bad. People who only view one page of the website are likely people who will not be voting for you or donating to you. Rarely do people land right on the donation page and donate without viewing a few pages first.
Seems simple enough right? These are some of the most common metrics in the industry because they are both simple to understand and are predictive of digital effectiveness. These metrics work for businesses and they can work for candidates.
I took the time to analyze the websites of all presidential candidates. If you don’t see your candidate on this list or on a graph it’s not because I hate them it’s simply because their numbers were lackluster and not worth discussing… Sad!
So lets dive in!
Website Visitors
Before we get too far it’s important to note that Joe Biden didn’t announce his candidacy until April so his numbers are artificially lower early on. That being said, from all the data I currently have available Biden’s high water mark was when he first announced his candidacy and has consistently been either stagnant or slipping in visitors since. One could argue this is simply because Biden already has name recognition compared to someone like Yang so there’s no need to visit his website. However, website visits are critical for small dollar donors and Biden's ceiling has never reached the floor of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang. Not a good look for the VP. While Trump is not on this graph he is well ahead of everyone else by several million visitors which makes sense considering he is the POTUS. His numbers were too bigly to include on the chart.
Time on Site
For this chart I was able to fit in a few more contenders and Trump. Yang is dominating the pack and it’s not close. The top three candidates on this list make sense as they have the most policy proposals on their website and are generally more wonky so there is more content on their websites to read. The top three candidates on this list are also varying shades of progressive which is a good sign for progressives.
Pages Per Visit (PPV)
Yang wins again in the PPV category although it’s much closer this time. Progressives again own the top three spots here. I do more of a deeper dive on my theory behind the results of this chart later in the article.
Bounce Rate
Based on the results of the previous metrics the bounce rate results surprised me. It’s nearly a 3-way tie for first between Harris, Biden and Warren with the other candidates lagging behind pretty significantly. The candidates that are doing better in small-dollar donations are lower on this list which is surprising.
Key Takeaways
So what can we learn from some of these metrics? I have a few takeaways.
- Biden is struggling online.
There’s a stereotype that most of Biden’s supporters are technologically illiterate boomers that like Obama. These results don’t quell that stereotype. If Biden has a base it’s certainly not online. It doesn’t help when you tell people to “visit 30330” during a debate.
2. Yang does well online (DUH!)
Yang really outperforms the competition in a lot of key metrics and it’s no surprise he’s nudging his way into the top 5. The Yang Gang is one of the most active and loyal bases out there and the coalition he has built is impressive. However, his bounce rate is alarmingly high for someone with such a high amount of average page views. Common sense would tell us these two metrics would have an inverse relationship wouldn’t it? If people are visiting 3.54 pages on average (the most by quite a bit) then how the heck is his bounce rate so high compared to some other candidates? The answer could be bad news for the Yang Gang. You see, bounce rate is a metric that puts website visitors into two segments:
A. People who visit the website and view other pages.
B. People who visit the website and close it after only viewing that page.
So the bounce rate is simply the percentage of people that fall into that second bucket. However, pages per visit is the mean (aka average for those rusty on their basic math terminology) number of pages visited by users in total. For example, if my website had 2 visitors:
A. Visitor A goes to my home page and then closes the website.
B. Visitor B goes to my home page and clicks on 10 pages and closes the website.
Because it’s an average of total page views our PPV would be 5.0 based in the above example.
So… what does this mean?
My hypothesis is that while more than 60% of people visit Yang’s website and exit shortly after his base of very loyal fans are likely sifting through his website looking at every single policy page he has which is driving up that PPV figure. This makes sense, considering Yang’s website has the most pages for policy by far compared to the other candidates. The data tells me Yang’s coalition is strong but it may need to expand to more people. Lowering that bounce rate should be a priority for the Yang campaign.
3. Progressive candidates perform well online. Maybe it’s because progressive voters are more active online or maybe that’s truly where the energy of the party is. Either way, it’s hard to spin these results into a positive if you’re a centrist democrat.
4. These results are not meant to predict election results. If anything, it shows which candidates are doing the best with their digital strategies and the demographics and behaviors of voter bases. To just take these 4 metrics to try and make an accurate prediction of who will win the presidency would be a fools errand.
I left a lot of metrics on the table. I can look at voter sentiment, social media analytics and a lot of other things to get a much clearer view of the candidates digital landscape. If any thirst for such insights exist shout me out on Twitter and I’ll do it.
Ignore the default it’s Yankee playoff szn baby!
I write about politics and business. I don’t proof my work and still don’t fully understand how to use a semicolon.
