Listen to Your Document Analytics: Activity Tracking
Jan 19, 2024
6 mins
Congrats! You've started using Better Proposals and you're no longer sending important documents into the void. Now, you know exactly when they're received, opened, read, downloaded, forwarded, and signed.
You also know how long each recipient spent on each section and the order they viewed them in. Wondering how you can use this information to your advantage? Here's what your document activity tracking is trying to tell you.
Where to find your document tracking data
In Better Proposals, you get an overview of everything you've sent through the Documents view. All your documents are organized in four tabs:
- Draft, where you'll find documents you still haven't sent
- Outstanding, for sent documents that haven't been signed yet
- Accepted, where you'll see a list of signed documents
- Lost, for documents you don't want to count towards your pipeline financials
To see what's happening with your sent documents, navigate to the Outstanding tab. From there, click on a document you want to see detailed analytics for.
When you've clicked on a document, you'll be taken to our Document Activity page. From here, you can see who opened the document and from which device, how long they've spent on each section, and the order they've read your document in.
Analyzing your clients' document activity
Activity tracking gives you valuable insights for optimizing your content and structure. What's more, it's an easy way to see how engaging your offer is and helps you identify which clients might be on the fence about going forward.
To make all of this make more sense, let's break it down. Imagine you've sent a web design proposal to your client, John Smith. The activity tracking on this document looks like this:
Time from sent to opened
As you can see, it took John only a few minutes to open your proposal. This is a great start, since it signals a high level of interest for your web design services.
Viewing order
Our data shows that introduction and pricing sections are the most important ones for your clients. So, it's not surprising that John read the introduction and quickly skipped over to the pricing.
Usually, this isn't a bad omen for your deals. Most clients will want to see how much of a budget they'll need to go forward with their project before reading the specifics.
However, what happens next shows that John is on the fence. He went from pricing right into the benefits and the timeline, only to go back to pricing once again and then backtrack to the case study section. This could signal a few things:
- Your client is unsure whether the work is worth the price.
- Your client thinks the pricing is a bit steep, but is ready to pay more for quality work (hence going to the case study section).
- Your client is evaluating offers from a few different companies.
Whatever the case may be, this is a good time to follow up. The client obviously has some reservations, and you won't know what they are if you don't ask.
Reaching out to John through live chat and offering to help might be just what you need to get the deal over the line. It gives you a chance to provide standout customer service and clarify any details your client might be struggling with. What's more, it lets your client know you're a professional who doesn't see them just in terms of profit.
Viewing times
Another metric Better Proposals tracks is the viewing time per document and per section. Knowing how long clients spend on each document or individual pages can help you work out their level of engagement.
For example, if certain sections have consistently low viewing times, it's time to rethink their purpose. Generally, low viewing times mean one of two things: either your section is irrelevant and can be left out or it needs improvement.
To find out which one it is, try rephrasing, condensing, or reorganizing content to improve the relevance of the section. If low viewing times still persist, you can go ahead and leave the section out. (Hint: it's usually the Team section.)
On the other hand, longer viewing times usually mean you're doing something right. Since these are the sections that receive the most attention, focus on enhancing them by adding more details, examples, or visuals.
That said, there are exceptions. For instance, if a client spends half an hour on your pricing section, there's a complexity issue. Remember to keep your pricing section as straightforward as possible to avoid confusing your clients.
Completion
Since you get a detailed breakdown of how much time your client spent on each section, you'll also know whether they've actually read your entire document. This helps you identify two things.
First, you might notice common drop-off points where clients lose interest. This means your document is either too complex to read in one sitting or it doesn't meet the clients' expectations. If this sounds familiar, it's time to review your content and improve it.
Secondly, there might be sections of your document that clients usually ignore. Similarly to very low viewing time, this means you need to either make the section relevant or lose it altogether.
Number of opens
The number of times the same client has opened your document is another useful metric Better Proposals tracks. When assessing whether the number of opens is a good or bad sign, you need to take the document type into account.
For example, the same client opening a brochure multiple times signals interest in your products or services. A contract might require more careful reading that the client wants to do in multiple sittings.
However, a client repeatedly opening your proposal and going over the same sections is not a great sign. Ideally, the client will get everything they need to know from a proposal the first time around and won't hesitate to more forward.
But if they've gone over your proposal several times and you see they're getting stuck on the same sections? Clearly, there are some reservations on the client's part. What you can do is to reach out and try to resolve the issue to help move the deal along.
Data means nothing if you don't use it
While document activity tracking is a great way of seeing exactly what stage your deals are in in real time, it also helps you improve your documents. The trick is learning how to read it and acting on what it's trying to tell you.
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