Greg Cypes
You don’t know most of your shoppers, and you’re not alone — anonymous shoppers represent 75% of all ecommerce visits. As a marketer, it will cost you up to 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Almost all new customers start as anonymous users and in that first visit, you have an opportunity to get to know them with both passive and active measures.
While it is unlikely that the first visit will lead to a purchase, understanding the channel that led them to the site and the products they browse will tell you a lot about their interests and intent. Giving them a tour of your store or guiding them through an assessment about their style or their current routine can help you personalize their visits and help you when they re-engage with your brand.
Unfortunately, too many brands overlook this group of repeat-visit anonymous shoppers. Inside, you’ll find a small but mighty group that comes back to your site over and over again even if they remain anonymous. These repeat-visit anonymous shoppers consume ONE-THIRD of all your product detail pageviews!
How often do your anonymous shoppers return to your site? Zaius' Benchmark report shows that 30% of all visits come from repeat visitors. So how do you increase conversion rates with these anonymous repeat shoppers?
- Get Personal — you know a lot about these shoppers, on average they view three products per visit. Showing an anonymous shopper their previously viewed products may reduce friction and help them find what they are looking for to place in their shopping cart.
- Encourage a dialog by providing value, such as a coupon or an offer in exchange for opted-in email or SMS.
- Take a page from SaaS and use guided approaches to assist shoppers in what they are looking for based on their previous experiences. This can be done through quizzes or sizing profiles. Collecting information as early as possible will make the next visit that much more personalized.
Maybe the most surprising thing about your repeat-visit anonymous shoppers is that they add to cart, on average, 11% of the time. Brands that are creating more personalized experiences are able to increase the likelihood of their anonymous shoppers adding items to their cart and converting on a purchase.