Before we talk about who are those visitors and why we need to go behind them, let’s first internalize this:
Go deep into your targeting. Not wide.
For quality leads and conversations, don’t target them all – Target a cohort of visitors but target them right – in the moment, with a personalized and context-driven message.
Alright, let’s do this.
Marketing costs are hitting the roof. Here is proof.
- The cost to advertise and the cost to acquire customers have increased by significant rates – CAC increased by 50% in both B2B and B2C spheres in the last 5 years.
- We’re paying 20-40% more for content creation when compared to 5 years ago.
Source: ProfitWell
High website conversions is a constant struggle. Here is proof, again.
- The median conversion rate across industries ranges between 3 – 5.5%.
- If your website gets a 12% conversion rate, it’s doing better than 90% of your competition – approximately 3x times higher than the existing number.
Source: Unbounce
The costs are rising and the returns are either stagnant or descending.
Marketing has evolved
Marketing, today, is not just about creative outdoor advertising or clever bylines. It is no longer considered a function of expense – but an inherent function of revenue and growth.
This is leading marketers to focus on KPIs that are quantifiable and directly linked to the company’s revenue – religiously measuring the impact their campaigns are bringing, and considering ways that reduce the payback period on them.
To do this, they constantly vet their customer acquisition channels by adopting a trial and error approach that gradually brings them closer to their top traction channels – a high-potential, high-growth mix that works for their market, their target audience, their product, and their conversion goals.
Marketers invest a lot of time to come closer to slaying their acquisition strategy. But what do they do to apply the same amount of conviction behind their conversion strategy? Probably not a lot.
Why conversion rates are stagnating – Ad fatigue and content shock are real problems
Your potential customers, after going through several bouts of ad fatigue and content shock, finally land on your site (Woot!) but find messages or call-to-actions that are:
a) Not tailored to their behavior
B) Is saying the same thing as your competitor and
C) Is inconsistent with the channel they landed from
All of this leads them to navigate and eventually drop-off, thereby massively increasing your Cost per Lead. (Sigh!)
This brings us to three questions
- How do you drive visitors to stay and take a particular action on your site – depending on what your goal is and who your visitors are?
- How do you target visitors based on their real-time behavior on your website?
- How do you do this via a medium your visitors and users are likely to respond from, banking on the familiarity principle, also called the mere exposure effect?
(P.S – While a lot has been evangelized and said about social proof, tested CTA buttons, headlines, and videos, and while they definitely do their magic to optimize conversion rates, it’s time to add another medium to your conversion mix.)
The answer to this is onefold – proactive messaging.
When it comes to proactively targeting your visitors, there is no one-fits-all strategy. Your visitors come from different sources, campaigns, demographics, keywords, and with different needs and goals. They might be a top-of-the-funnel prospect reading about your domain, a middle-of-the-funnel lead comparing pricing plans or a targeted decision maker from your ABM campaign ready to get on a demo call with you.
To get the maximum success from your campaigns, your messages need to be custom-made for different kinds of visitors.
In this post, we have identified 7 kinds of website visitors who have been falling through your conversion cracks – and how you can proactively engage with them.
#1 Visitors who are comparing you with a competitor
Hypothesis:
- The visitor is spending time on your competition alternative page.
- The visitor is in the evaluation stage.
Goal:
Book the visitor for a demo
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time spent on current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Previous page URL: yourbusiness.com/competitor-name-alternative
- Count on previous page URL: > 1 (Shows intent to buy but a lack of certainty on who to buy from.)
Message:
Hello, there! We’re here if you need more information or are interested to get on a quick demo. We can give you more insights on how we stack against the competition. Let’s do this?
#2 Visitors who are closer to making a purchase
Hypothesis:
- The visitor previously dropped off from the pricing and/or sign up page.
- The visitor has a high intent to buy.
Goal:
Get the visitor to sign up
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
Condition 1:
- Current page URL: yourbusiness.com/pricing
- Time spent on current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Number of visits: > 1
- Status: Not created (Confirm that the visitor is not a customer, yet.)
Condition 2: (This goes a step further to identify leads who need to be immediately nurtured.)
- Previous page URL: yourbusiness.com/signup
- Previous page URL count: > 1 (Visitors who have made more than 1 attempt to sign up need to be immediately nurtured.)
Message: Hello! We’re just a message away to help you select the right plan. Give us a shout out or sign up for your 30-day trial and get access to all our paid features.
(If your product offers a free trial, re-emphasize it and encourage users to get on it – Removes friction to sign up and increases conversion.)
#3 Visitors who are likely to drop off or need to be nurtured
Hypothesis:
96% of your website visitors are NOT ready to buy. Not yet.
- A top of the funnel visitor who is not ready to buy – (The “rule of seven” says that seven touches are needed before a visitor will convert into a customer.)
- A visitor coming from a low conversion channel like email.
- A website with a high bounce rate.
Goal:
Increase engagement on the page/Offer a hook for visitors to stay (Measure specific actions taken on the page. E.g. Replies made on chat, registration for a webinar, or subscription on your blog.)
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
Scenario 1:
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time on the current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Source contains: Nurture email (Email click-to-sign up rates tend to be on a lower side. Make sure your email messages and triggered messages align.)
Scenario 2:
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time on the current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Source URL contains: blog.yourbusiness.com
- Source URL count: > 1 (Nurture your blog readers to become prospective customers.)
Message:
Hello. We’re hosting a product overview webinar where we’ll talk about how <yourbusiness.com> can meet your goals and share best practices, hacks, and tips. Save your seat?
#4 Visitors who are eligible for an offer or a custom solution
Hypothesis:
- The visitor is from a startup and is eligible for an early stage offer.
- The visitor is from an e-commerce company and can benefit from a study on Black Friday.
Goal:
Communicate about the offering
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
Scenario 1: The startup offer
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time on the current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Number of visits: > 1 (Don’t use discount as a value proposition. Extend the offer to visitors who show an interest in your offering by making repeat visits)
- Company size: < 10 employees (Enrich user demographics from a tool like Clearbit)
- Company stage: < 1 year
Message:
Hello, hustler! Here is one less startup woe for you: Get a 20% off on our most recommended plan. Talk to us and we’ll tell you how to avail this offer.
Scenario 2: The Black Friday offer
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time on the current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Industry: E-commerce (Enrich user demographics from a tool like Clearbit)
Message:
How prepared are you for the season of high cash flow and higher work-hours for your support team? We have a freshly brewed guide that can offer some help here. Interested to read?
#5 Visitors who are browsing from their mobile device
Hypothesis:
- Attention on mobile is fragmented.
- Issues and question on mobile might be higher – documentation, set up, a holistic overview.
Goal:
To increase average time spent by visitors who land from mobile
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time on the current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit)
- Device type equals: Mobile web
Message:
Hello. Have any questions on <yourbusiness.com>? We’re all ears and eyes. (Don’t keep messages wordy when appearing on mobile. The screen space here is already compact.)
#6 Visitors who downloaded a specific playbook
Hypothesis:
The visitor has downloaded a playbook on best practices in your industry
Goal:
Drive the visitor who has qualified as a warm lead to take another action
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time on the current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Report Name contains: Lead generation 2.0
- Report downloaded: True
- Webinar registrant: False
Message:
Hello. We are hosting a webinar on <dd/mm/yyyy> with industry expert <Name> whose research makes a cameo in the Lead generation 2.0 playbook. Save your seat?
#7 Visitors who have added a high-value item in the cart
Hypothesis:
The visitor has abandoned his/her cart before and not checked out
Goal:
Drive the visitor to place an order
Targeting conditions for yourbusiness.com
- Current page URL contains: yourbusiness.com
- Time spent on current page: > 5 seconds (The majority of visitors leave your site after 8 seconds. Engage before they exit.)
- Cart category equals: Mobile
- Cart currency equals: Dollars
- Cart value: > 500
Message:
Hello! Your order is eligible for one-day delivery and a 10% discount that gets auto-applied at checkout. Any questions we can help with?
(Keep your messages short and scannable – 53%* of retail sessions come from mobile) *Source: Wolfgang Digital
Have questions on other website visitors who didn’t make the list? Help us understand your goals and we will help you with personalized campaigns that you can set up with proactive messaging.
You can also schedule a 30-minute consultation with our product consultants on best practices and quick hacks for setting up campaigns in your industry.
Cover illustration and images by Karthikeyan Ganesh
