How to Boost Conversions Using Onsite Retargeting

Onsite retargeting, also known as exit-intent technology, attempts to intercept visitors who are leaving your website for any reason. It is increasingly popular because it can improve conversion rates with those leaving your site and give you critical information to improve your conversion rate overall. Here are a few tips on how to boost conversions using onsite retargeting. We’ll also explain why these onsite retargeting methods improve conversion rates.

An Overview of Onsite Retargeting
Onsite retargeting ranges from chat bots to exits surveys to coupon codes provided in pop-up windows. Onsite retargeting gives you the opportunity to engage non-converting visitors and try to convert them. It lets you ask them what pushed them away, too, so that you can update your website to convert others at a higher rate, and understand your customer better.

Another benefit of exit-intent technology is that you’ll gain more detailed insight on why someone leaves, such as the fact that you’re attracting a lot of people who aren’t really ready to buy, so you know how to adjust your content relative to the stage in the sales funnel. Here are a few practical ways to use onsite retargeting to improve conversion rates.

You’re Leaving? Keep in Touch
One option is to monitor the behaviour of website visitors and then pop up an action item with the intent to keep them engaged. An example of this is the pop-up that asks them to sign up for your marketing newsletter or receive a coupon code in exchange for contact information, the latter having the benefit of increasing the odds they’ll come back to buy.

This does require studying the user’s intent, such as watching for the shifting of a mouse that suggests they’re about to close a browser session. This is one of the most common forms of onsite retargeting, running a wordpress blog that asks you to sign up for newsletters with deeper content or download a PDF as you leave.

Did You Mean to Quit?
A valuable way to keep people on site a little longer is to give them a pop-up when they seem to be leaving asking if they really want to leave. You could give them a secondary message giving them notice of extra discounts, promotions or sale items that they may want to take advantage of. If they stop to look at the referred items, you’ve improved the odds they at least buy something. If they don’t buy it, you kept them on the site longer, so search engines consider your site a better match for the search terms they used than it would if they bounced away quickly.

Don’t forget to include pop-ups during the checkout process to remind people to finish their checkout. This could lead someone who got distracted on another tab to finish the purchase, improving your conversion rate.

This Isn’t Right? Let’s Try Again
Search engines see the bounce rate of your website as a sign that your content isn’t a match for the intent. And sometimes we do get people landing on a page that isn’t quite a match, though we do have what they want.

The solution to this is to pop up a menu with several other likely options, the content or products the person is probably seeking. One benefit of this approach is that you could keep the person who doesn’t want that particular item on your site longer, and this always improves your ranking with search engines. The second benefit is the increased odds that the person who didn’t want A will buy B, C or D. You’ve closed a sale, even though the item they bought wasn’t the product page they landed on.

Personalization
Personalization improves conversion rates, since it makes people feel like you understand them. If someone is reading generic ad copy, they may not feel engaged with the brand and a strong desire to buy.

Now add a personalized popup or interstitial based on the interests they demonstrated based on their browsing patterns on your site. The person reading generalized content now sees a message related to their professional interests, their personal preferences or the product category they were browsing. They now feel like you do understand them, increasing the odds they’ll buy something from you in the future or stay on the site and keep browsing during this session. Personalization is one of the primary concerns of on site targeting software, for example, Optinmonster helps you “optimize campaigns for returning visitors so you can boost eCommerce sales and revenue,” meaning that their primary method of increasing revenue would be to adjust the promotions seen by visitors.

Remember that you can achieve a double win by combining personalization with the “keep in touch” strategy such as, ‘You indicated an interest in Facebook advertising? Here’s a download of our Facebook marketing white paper’, ‘You’re generally interested in print advertising? Here’s the professional paper on how to market to your audience via printed flyers and coupons mailed to your local area’.

Or offer highly personalized coupons and incentives to convert them as they plan on leaving your site. This improves the odds that they’ll buy from you. Were they browsing your coupons and discounts section for a long time? You can throw up a special coupon code just for them; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t cost you anything. Put an expiration date or time limit on the coupon to create a sense of urgency that improves the odds they’ll use it shortly.

If someone is brand new and just browsing, direct them to your best converting content to improve the odds they’ll buy.

Optimize Your Site Faster with Double A/B Testing
A/B testing refers to the testing of web pages, email messages and social media posts A versus B. You can combine multiple elements for multivariate analysis, allowing you to determine which titles, content, subject line messages, social media postings and so forth generate the highest click through rate and conversion rate for each customer segment.

You can use exit-intent technology to present a different solicitation message or call to action button to someone who didn’t convert to a paying customer based on the website they saw. Now you get more information based on what does work with that customer segment. Or you could simply run A/B testing with exit-intent strategies to find out what works best with those who didn’t convert. For example, you can run A/B testing to see if free shipping versus 10% off versus $10 off offers result in the highest conversion rate of those who seem to be leaving your site.

Let Me Help!
Suppose someone has been spending a while browsing your product catalogue. It looks like they’re ready to leave because they haven’t found what they were looking for. A customer service chat box or chat bot could help them find what they want. Now you’ve used exit-intent technology to avoid losing a sale.

There are times that people don’t buy because they’re concerned about how their data is used, they are unclear on the price or simply need additional information to seal the deal. Chatbots are perfect for answering these types of questions. However, if studies show that people are needing the chatbots quite a bit, you need to improve your website by putting critical information where visitors can find it and make it clearer where to get help.

Onsite retargeting can take many forms and can improve retention in many ways. It can take the form of value-added pop ups, warning messages, calls to action and chatbots. You can provide references to content that’s a better fit if they don’t seem to want to stay on the landing page.

You can also use onsite targeting to provide personalized messages so that they feel you understand them and incentives to improve the odds they’ll stay and buy. You can use exit intent technology to offer help when it is most valued, or to improve you’re A/B testing and improve your conversion rate.