Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) is an approach that uses the end-user's point of view to assess and optimize usage and performance of digital services, applications, and websites. It is a relatively new "functional dimension" of application performance monitoring (APM), which, according to Gartner, entails STM or synthetic monitoring and real user monitoring (RUM) for both mobile- and web-based end users.
Organizations use digital experience monitoring software to identify and track traffic, monitor user behavior, and keep an eye on several other application- or website-specific elements to develop a better understanding of the usability and performance of their products. DEM products merge real user monitoring and simulated traffic monitoring to evaluate both real-user experience and theoretical performance.
Who Needs DEM?
With the majority of modern-day consumers preferring to transact digitally or at least interact digitally with a business before transacting, there has been a growing need for businesses to develop a robust online presence. Virtually every business is online now, and going digital is not the masterstroke it used to be anymore. The playing field has been leveled, and extra steps are needed to separate the great from the good. One of those steps is adopting a DEM strategy.
DEM applications help businesses find useful insights into application and website performance as well as user behavior. As stated above, most businesses have mobile applications and websites now, and digital customers have a vast range of options to choose from. Besides your website being resourceful, they need it to be straightforward and easy to maneuver. The pages should load quickly and the links should be easy to locate.
A study shows that businesses suffer an estimated 7% decline in web conversations with every second of delay. What's more, a whopping 75% of prospects will seek alternatives elsewhere if a business website crashes, lags, or is too slow when they are using it.
With this, it's clear that customers are using websites and applications to judge brands. A few years ago it was about having excellent services and complementing it with a website. That's not the case anymore. Now it is about having a good site or mobile application and backing it up with quality services.
The Benefits of Implementing a DEM Strategy
Having a digital experience monitoring tool offers the following benefits to the organization:
Using Synthetic Monitoring in your DEM strategy
Synthetic monitoring complements real-user monitoring (RUM) by issuing automated transactions that simulate clients and their expected actions on a website or app. The technique can be applied both inside and outside the firewall to ensure systems are working properly and to provide crucial information on the application's performance respectively.
Unlike RUM, synthetic monitoring lets you keep track of the performance of your application and server even when the traffic is too low to make credible inferences. It may also come in handy for developers or organizations that need to test new applications or capabilities before rolling them out. Here are more reasons why you should implement synthetic monitoring:
Summary
The best business decisions are made when an organization views and understands its service from the end user's point of view. Digital experience monitoring helps you anticipate and track user actions in real-time and make performance inferences and changes where necessary. Both real user monitoring and synthetic monitoring can be useful depending on your application and what you want to achieve. Get in touch with us today for more information on digital experience monitoring and to request a free trial of our synthetic monitoring tool.