OVH: a web analytics “success-strategy”

OVH, A SUCCESS STORY 

OVH is one of the world’s leaders in cloud computing. Founded in 1999 by Octave Klaba, the group manages and maintains 28 datacenters in 12 sites on 4 continents. The French company counts more than 2000 employees and 1.4 million customers around the world. These impressive figures reflect a company that has never ceased to innovate since its creation. A true European success story, OVH’s success is a result of its leadership’s strong strategy with regards to management, organisation, values, and choice of tools to support growth.  

THE RIGHT VALUES FOR TACKLING DATA CHALLENGES 

“Customers entrust us with the thing most precious to them: their data.” The words of Octave Klaba, OVH founder and chairman, reveal a clear desire to leverage data that is reliable, lasting, and trustworthy. And these fundamental values are shared by both OVH and AT Internet – the web analytics solution provider offers solid guarantees when it comes to data reliability. Collaboration between the two companies began naturally: with AT Internet, OVH could tackle several challenges regarding optimal usage of data, especially around 3 key themes:  

• • boosting conversions on its website 

• • re-engaging abandoned shopping carts 
  • continuous UX improvement 

ANALYTICS STRATEGY & RESULTS 

OVH has 27 websites and responsive mobile sites worldwide, representing a powerful customer acquisition channel for the group. This linked and integrated digital ecosystem is the company’s main driver of business. This universe of sites must be analysed to measure performance in both an overarching and detailed way. Each department within OVH (marketing, sales, product, UX, …) must take ownership of data to drive the business forward. To enable this, AT Internet data is injected into the various tools OVH uses.  

Conversions grow by 10 pts during the purchase journey 

The challenge was to measure all conversion funnels dedicated to ordering Dedicated Servers (OVH’s core business). The goal: identify abnormal exits from the purchase process and potential points of traffic loss. After quick configuration of the funnels and a sufficient analysis period, the exit rates and completion rates reported enabled OVH to better understand and streamline the customer journey.  

“AT Internet’s funnel analyses really allowed us to measure each step of the purchase process, identify areas of traffic loss and confirm our theories. With the early data, we very quickly identified how critical it was to prioritise account creation at OVH. The previous form was quite problematic and had a high exit rate,” explains Julien Debriel, digital analytics manager at OVH, adding, “In one year, between revamping the login and merging the steps, the various optimisations made to the Dedicated Server order funnel led to a 10-point increase in completion rate.”   

Having quantified results allowed OVH to identify both areas of new potential and flaws in performance, as well as prioritise actions. Daily tracking was implemented to monitor variations in behaviours, for example, following a new release. 

Automatically re-engaging abandoned carts 

OVH’s website offers a multitude of products and services, and not all customers arrive at the end of the online purchase process. The OVH team implemented automatic retargeting campaigns on products which saw a high abandon rate. The wholly automated process involved injecting cart abandon data from AT Internet (via the Data Query tool) into one of OVH’s FTP servers on a daily basis. This data was then integrated into the CRM and then directly rerouted to OVH call centres. 

This retargeting operation mainly involved customer segments for major accounts whose average cart size was significantly high. By grouping all behavioural information together (service configurations, cart totals, product categories, etc.) and making it directly and rapidly available to sales teams, OVH vastly improved the quality of its retargeting: it had a better understanding of customer needs, could provide higher-quality service and support, and therefore accelerate the sales cycle, with a 17% conversion rate for outgoing calls. 

This specific and intelligent usage of analytics data differentiates OVH at a time when many other companies have neglected to ensure the reliability of their customisation efforts (at times resulting in real absurdities). OVH also tracks performance thanks to a dashboard that consolidates all ROI data for more efficient management of these types of campaigns.  

Better anticipation of homepage revamps 

For many years, OVH’s website has been the object of regular graphic redesigns, and these UX optimisation initiatives were costly in terms of time and resources. The problem: these efforts were not systematically paired with an analytics audit beforehand. With complex inner-site navigation and architecture, the results of certain UX projects were disappointing for the OVH team. 

By tracking all clicks on implemented CTAs, OVH was able to optimise the placement and arrangement of its site menus and the organisation of its content. Another key benefit resulting from this click rate analysis was the definition of a list of KPIs (clicks, visitors, visits) to be used during the pre-revamp design phase, as well as during the continuous improvement process after a redesigned homepage has been launched.  

“When revamping our homepages, click tracking has enabled us to create successively optimised versions, helping us increase clicks on our Cloud-related products by up to 10.5 points, without any negative impact on other products presented on the homepage,” concludes Julien Debriel. 

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