2018 Online Appointment Booking Statistics [infographic]

Hold your breath, I’m about to take you on a deep dive.

Let’s look at BookedIN’s online appointment scheduling statistics. Where clients are finding your business, how they’re booking appointments online, and 11 key actions you can take today to make your business more efficient and save yourself heaps of time.

Sound good? Let’s dive in. (Scroll down for full analysis)

Source: Three months of anonymous traffic from public BookedIN directory pages.

Who was creating the most appointments? 

There was a fairly even split between bookings created by staff vs. online bookings created by clients.

Let’s forget about those staff-booked appointments for now. We’re more curious about the client-booked appointments. Here’s a further breakdown of activity on all public BookedIN booking pages:

BookedIN directory activity April-June 2018

• 621,305 sessions
• 359,799 unique visitors
• 162,674 appointments booked by clients
• 1.73 sessions per visitor
• 790,163 pageviews
• 0:57 average session duration

Observation: Your clients are visiting your booking page more than once, and are spending a decent amount of time browsing your services list. Almost one full minute is equivalent to like 17 years in internet time!

TAKE ACTION:

• Spice up your service copywriting. Log in to BookedIN and make sure your services list is complete, organized with titles/categories/prices. Make sure every service includes a short compelling description that will entice your clients to book. Learn how here.
• Always share your booking link with clients. The more clients book themselves in online, the less time you’ll have to spend on scheduling. (Pssst, here’s a sample booking link: directory.bookedin.com/your-business)

Related: 9 Ways Online Scheduling Will Transform Your Life

Which devices are clients using? 

The lion’s share of activity came from mobile phones. Keep this in mind when marketing your business. Your clients are on-the-go and can be easily distracted when trying to book appointments online.

TAKE ACTION:

• Make sure you are very brief when reaching out to clients regarding online booking. Always give them your booking link and use a very clear call to action. Example phrase you can use on Instagram posts: “Click the link in our bio to book your appointment now”.

When are clients booking online? 

The most active days for appointments booked are without a doubt Monday – Wednesday, with a distinct lull on Saturdays and Sundays. On average, Tuesday was the most active day.

TAKE ACTION:

• Consider scheduling your marketing campaigns early in the week.
• Don’t forget to include your booking link in all communications with your clients. Even on weekends as it helps clients who are still thinking about booking and might take action later. Example: “Click here to book your appointment online: directory.bookedin.com/my-business“

How are clients finding your online appointment booking page?

Sure, we now know most clients are booking using their mobile phones, but how on earth did they find your booking page? Instagram? Your website? A text message? Somewhere else?

The magic of Google Analytics shows us generally where your clients are coming from when they book online. This helps you know which marketing efforts are super effective, and which ones are a waste of time. All of your booking page visitors get classified into a traffic “channel”. Here’s the full break down of April-June traffic channels with a comparison to last year:

• 37% social (↑ increased by 11.84%)
• 31% web referral (↓ decreased by 12.96%)
• 28% direct (↑ increased by 0.32%)
• 3.5% organic search (↑ increased by 0.79%  )
• 0.5% paid search (↑ increased by 0.58%)

Traffic Observations… 

It seems like these online appointment booking stats have changed quite a bit since the same period last year!

• Social is trending up: BookedIN is seeing more and more client traffic coming from social sites like Instagram and Facebook. This includes anyone who shares their booking link or posts it to their social media profile (ex Instagram bio link)
• Web Referrals are trending down: A “web referral” includes visitors coming from other websites such as your own business site, or any website that links to your booking page. This is trending down and it appears your clients are finding you more and more through social media instead of your website.
• Direct is holding steady: A “direct” visit includes any client who types your booking link directly in their browser, or clicks your booking link inside a private source like chat, WhatsApp or email. We’re keeping our eyes on this one, especially because it includes something known as “dark social” ie. the tendency for people to share links privately instead of publicly on social media.
• Organic is up slightly: This includes people finding your booking page via Google or other search engines.
• Paid search: Not much action here. This happens when a business sets up a paid online advertisement which links directly to their online booking page.

TAKE ACTION:

• Social media is driving more bookings in 2018 so consider beefing up your social presence. More on that below.

• While links from websites are trending down, they still make up a large piece of the pie. Don’t forget, your business owns your website and you don’t technically own your social media. We recommend you spend time creating high-quality, helpful, entertaining, and valuable content via a business blog, then repurpose that content on social media. Keep investing in your own website because you never know what changes are around the corner in the world of social media. 

• Try to boost your organic traffic by adding some more copywriting/keywords to your booking page service descriptions. Learn how here.

Related: 5 Ways a Business Blog Will Help You Book More Clients

What are the best performing social media sites? 

Now that we know social is on the rise and driving more online appointment booking in 2018, which social media platforms are working the best? Here’s the breakdown including a comparison to the same period last year.

• 57.7% Instagram (↑ increased by 18.97%)
• 37.05% Facebook (↓ decreased by 22.72%)
• 4.55% Instagram stories (new!)
•  0.7% Everything else (↓ decreased by 0.8%)
  (Twitter, YouTube, Yelp, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, etc)

Instagram is now beating Facebook! Instagram is now the #1 driver of traffic to the BookedIN online appointment booking platform. Oh how the tables have turned. Last year Facebook was on top @ 59.7% and IG was second @ 38.7%.

TAKE ACTION:

• Ramp-up your Instagram. Add your booking link to your bio and always write up compelling captions that ask clients to “click link in bio” to book their appointments online. Here is a great example from tattoo artist & shop owner @mklx
  

• Reduce efforts on Facebook. You may have already noticed, engagement with Facebook Pages have tanked since Zucc rolled out the new algorithm in January. Facebook has de-emphasized Business Page content and is featuring your content less in the news feed.
• Add links to your Instagram stories. At the time of this post, “story links” were only available if your IG is verified or if you have a business profile with more than 10k followers. If you can see the “chain link” icon in stories, try it out and add your online booking link. Example: directory.bookedin.com/my-business

That’s a wrap! 

Still reading this? You’re an absolute legend for making it all the way to the bottom. ✨ Please share this post with your friends if you think they’d find it helpful.

Want us to dig up more online appointment booking stats for you? Please leave us a quick comment below! If there’s enough interest, we’ll do another analysis again soon.