IMC 642 Week 2, post 2

Return visitors: Who are they and why don’t they buy your stuff?

One of the easiest website metrics to track is return visitors. Return visitors cleanly show up on the website analytics dashboard as a topline metric.  But one of the hardest things to do with return visitors is turn them into customers.

Having return visitors is great. It means they like a website or brand, they help keep the traffic up, and maybe they’re even engaging with the brand through email or on social media. But, if they’re not buying anything (or, for nonprofits, donating), why are they really there? Many companies struggle with this reality. They’re trying to figure out, “What’s the key to conversion for returning visitors?”

The blog post from shopifyplus lists these three essentials for understanding and converting return visitors:

According to shopifyplus, for ecommerce, most website traffic is return visitors. This means there’s a ton of potential customers, but companies can’t always tell what’s holding them back from becoming those customers. Luckily, shopifyplus’s blog post does: option overload (also known as consumer hyperchoice). Consumers have so many choices that it’s kind of hard to choose. How do I know if this product is really the right one? What if there’s something better? Have I found all the options? These are the types of questions that shopifyplus says run through the return visitor, non-buyer’s head. In modern day terms, it’s FOMO (fear of missing out).

The three website traffic sources that help marketers or analysts identify return visitors are direct traffic, email, and retargeting. All three sources are great because they demonstrate that the user intended to show up and look around your site.

But you don’t want just a great source. You want a conversion.

There are a number of tactics marketers can use on their website to help returning - and all - visitors decide they are the best choice and to make the purchase. shopifyplus recommends the following tactics:

My favorite ecommerce site that exemplifies these tactics is chewy.com.

Once the user clicks away from the homepage to explore products, a number of purchase incentives stick with them as they shop. Notice the “24/7 help” and “free 1-2-day shipping” at the top. The products below all feature the autoship pricing difference, as well as customer reviews. When you click on the products, even more incentives show up.

The side bar shows a host of features about the product, in addition to explainer videos. Even the simplest products on the site have a video. On the right side, you can see again how chewy boasts the price advantage of ordering from its site.

There is so much information here that aligns with the above-mentioned tactics to incentivize the return visitor to feel this is the easy choice and buy.

Retargeting

Retargeting, or following your visitor around the internet to show them more ads, has gotten quite sophisticated.  The other week I was shopping online for sandals at Zappos.com.  Since that week, I’ve seen re-targeting ads like this while online:

The sandals featured in the ad are some of the exact ones I looked at on Zappos.com. Zappos even took the dynamic ad route with me, showing price differences.

Both chewy and Zappos use a host of strong tactics designed to keep bringing back return visitors and convert them into customers. Integrating tactics such as price comparisons, rich descriptions like product videos (which Zappos also uses), the promise of great customer service, and the availability of customer reviews are reasons why sites like these are at the top of their game for attracting return visitors and converting them.