Poor online customer experiences cost South African brands between R1.2 billion and R3.6 billion annually. Beyond the financial loss, bad customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) disrupt the entire marketing value chain.
“It directly impacts customer satisfaction, loyalty, conversion rates, and brand reputation,” explains René Fowler, head of ad operations at Juno Media. She stresses that successful marketing depends on “first impressions and the understanding that customers are at the centre of your business, and their perception matters”. Quoting Steve Jobs, she adds, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” This philosophy shows why UX matters in marketing.
Neil Pursey, CEO of Measurebyte, notes that poor UX wastes media budgets. “When UX fails to meet user expectations, users abandon the platform, resulting in wasted advertising spend,” he explains. This abandonment lowers conversion rates and hurts brand image, increasing customer acquisition costs. As users leave, brands spend more on media to attract new customers, which raises overall costs. What’s more, ineffective UX can affect data collection, complicate retargeting efforts and shorten customer lifetime value.
Estimating wastage
Wayne Wilson, COO of tech and media at RAPT, says that while it’s challenging to quantify wastage precisely, industry benchmarks can provide helpful insights. South Africa’s total digital advertising spend around R12 billion in 2022, and global estimates suggest 10% to 30% media waste due to bad UX. This could mean R1.2 billion to R3.6 billion lost annually. Wilson thinks South African figures may be higher due to poor connectivity and low smartphone use.
So why do these UX issues persist, despite the staggering financial implications of bad CX on media strategies? Tim Bishop, managing partner at Carbon1 explains, “Many mistakenly believe that merely investing in media and focusing on vanity metrics equates to success.” Media agencies frequently aren’t included in UX talks, leaving them out of the solution.
“Marketing often operates in isolation from UX, merchandising, and other crucial channels,” Bishop adds. “Metrics for media seldom account for drop-off rates and cart abandonment, making it vital to trace the entire customer journey to enhance UX.”
The financial toll of bad CX
Discussing the ramifications for media strategy, Charlie Stewart, CEO of Rogerwilco, puts it succinctly: “It just leads to wasted money — it’s as simple as that.” He highlights a prevalent issue: many organisations mistakenly allocate 80% of their budgets to media and only 20% to production. “This principle feels outdated and fails to resonate in today’s market,” he argues.
Stewart critiques the common one-size-fits-all approach to marketing, asserting that too much focus is placed on reaching broad audiences. “The emphasis is on the 80%, with the 20% treated as the poor cousin,” he remarks.
Stewart is the author of The 2024 South African Customer Experience Report [pdf file], which benchmarks CX across the country in collaboration with the research firm ovatoyou, Rogerwilco, and Julia Ahlfeldt of CX Consulting.
The report reveals a significant gap between businesses and consumers, costing brands a R12.148-billion opportunity. While businesses believe trust drives repeat purchases, consumers emphasise reliability and dependability. “Brands must get their house in order and improve CX across all touchpoints to encourage consumers to spend their hard-earned money,” says Stewart.
The 2024 report identifies the insurance sector as one of the poorest performers in terms of CX. “The insurance industry complicates its offerings,” Stewart notes, explaining that the purchasing process is often overwhelming. He says ads focus too much on price, creating unrealistic expectations. “This leads to customer disappointment, as getting to a price point requires users to share extensive information,” he adds. Stewart urges insurers to prioritise easy sign-ups and good claim handling.
The importance of good UX
Bishop stresses the challenge of crafting effective media strategies. “If you succeed in attracting users, ensure their landing is soft, pleasant, and rewarding,” he advises. A smooth user experience helps achieve campaign goals quickly.
When brands excel at UX, the transition from media engagement to conversion becomes effortless, leading to increased engagement, trust, and loyalty. Fowler notes that great UX, especially in e-commerce, enhances conversion rates and boosts SEO performance. “A negative user experience can prevent you from ranking well,” she adds, reinforcing the importance of good UX for brand reputation and search engine optimisation.
Pursey points out that effective UX yields valuable insights, reinforces brand assets, and generates cost savings. A smooth consumer experience reduces the need for customer support due to intuitive interfaces. Other savings come from fewer development revisions and decreased customer acquisition costs as conversion rates improve, creating a positive feedback loop of effectiveness.
Sandra McDiarmid, head of CX at VML, highlights the significant media wastage in South Africa due to poor UX. “A basic SEO audit will reveal high bounce rates and short time on site,” she notes. “If your bounce rate exceeds 70%, the ad’s call to action likely didn’t align with the landing page, resulting in wasted ad spend.”
The need for regular updates
McDiarmid says many brand managers lack the training needed to manage digital platforms effectively. Often, offshore teams control global websites, limiting local input. “Digital advertising isn’t delivering results, but we can’t pinpoint why,” she says. With the rapid pace of digital marketing, many reports are retrospective, and websites require regular updates. “Websites should be refreshed quarterly, not every two years,” she argues, urging a shift to customer-centric design.
“A frictionless engagement leading to conversion is our ultimate goal. However, even the best creative media campaigns can falter if the user experience is cumbersome,” Bishop concludes.
Neil Pursey on why bad UX is so prevalent when brands know there’s wastage:
- Lack of time and focus:
- Pressure to launch quickly often compromises UX quality
- Short-term goals are frequently prioritised over long-term UX improvements
- UX is often viewed as a “nice to have” rather than a core business function
- Limited resources allocated to UX research and testing
- Siloed teams and misaligned KPIs:
- Different departments work towards different objectives
- Some marketing teams focus on acquisition, disregarding retention metrics
- Development teams prioritise feature delivery over usability
- Design teams isolated from business objectives and user data
- Lack of shared KPIs across teams leads to fragmented user experiences
- Insufficient user research:
- Assumptions about user needs to replace actual user testing
- Limited budget for ongoing user research and feedback collection
- Technical debt:
- Legacy systems and codebases restrict UX improvements
- Short-term fixes accumulate, making comprehensive UX overhauls difficult
- Lack of UX expertise:
- Shortage of skilled UX professionals in many organisations
- UX decisions made by non-experts
- Resistance to change:
- Established processes and systems difficult to modify
- Fear of disrupting the existing user base with significant changes
- Inconsistent leadership support:
- UX initiatives lack sustained backing from senior management
- Insufficient understanding of UX value at a leadership level
- Difficulty measuring UX ROI:
- Challenges in quantifying long-term benefits of good UX
- Focus on easily measurable metrics over user satisfaction
Charles Lee Mathews is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives as well as co-founder of The Writers, a writing consultancy.
