Hands together on a Manduka yoga mat
  • Data Analysis
Challenge

Despite experiencing a significant increase in traffic for several months, Manduka noticed a decline in their conversion rate. This combination of high traffic growth and low conversion rate made it challenging for the company to develop a successful growth strategy.

Solution

Pactx aimed to understand the root cause of the problem by comparing current data to historical data and conducting a thorough analysis of the site. They also checked for any potential bugs in the tracking system to ensure accurate data. The goal was to restore the brand’s performance, as the sudden increase in traffic and decrease in conversion rate deviated from the established trend.

Purple Manduka yoga mat and bricks
Woman laying out her Manduka yoga mat
Results

By doing a thorough data analysis we identified 2 major issues with the data:

Pactx uncovered two main causes for the decline in traffic and conversion rate. Firstly, the site was being targeted by a bot that was spamming two specific pages. This was identified through a review of various metrics and tracing the source back to a single user using a VPN.

Secondly, an installed plugin was double or triple counting users who hadn’t opted out of the privacy notification.

By addressing these issues, Pactx successfully restored the traffic and conversion rate to normal levels, enabling the company to make informed decisions for future growth.

Light purple Manduka yoga mat and bricks
By The Numbers

Pactx analyzed the data to identify any discrepancies from historical trends. They discovered a spam bot operating on iOS 10, which was specifically targeting two pages and spending less than 2 seconds on the site. Before the issue, iOS 10 accounted for less than 5% of all traffic in the previous 6 months, but during the issue, it jumped to 30% of all traffic. Pactx resolved the issue by blocking the specific IP address and user, effectively removing them from the data calculations.

Additionally, Pactx uncovered a plugin that was causing double or triple counting of users by clearing cookies after each page unless the user clicked the “Acknowledge” button on the privacy pop-up. Pactx collaborated with the Manduka team to reach out to the app developers and resolve the issue, successfully fixing the traffic and conversion rate problems they had been facing.

Fixing this issue created the following benefits for the brand:

  1. Pactx successfully restored the traffic to its normal levels, reducing the decline by 200%. They also significantly improved the bounce rate and exit percentage on the site, which had been heavily impacted by the surge in “new” traffic.
  2. Conversion rate was also returned to its normal state and increased by 10% year-over-year, after previously being down 30% due to the traffic issue.
  3. With the resolution of these issues, the organization now has accurate data insights into the performance of the site, enabling them to make informed decisions for long-term growth.