How to Bring a Potential Customer Back to the Website: A Review of Tools

Very few of the total number of website visitors take a target action — registering or leaving contacts, ordering a callback, adding a product to the cart, or subscribing to a newsletter. Depending on the industry, a conversion rate of 5.3% (higher education) and 11.6% (tourism) is considered high. And the number of those who eventually become customers is even smaller.

This means users visit the site, browse the pages, but do not contact the company. Or they do make contact, find out some details, but leave. If at this stage the customer is simply let go, they may start to doubt and, quite possibly, will end up buying from competitors. But everything can change if, at the moment of decision-making, the company reminds itself or, even better, makes the person a favorable offer. Let's look at several ways to reach such an audience.

Every email in the contact database represents a real or potential customer of the company. With proper setup, email marketing allows for maximally personalized interaction.
Email marketing can be used to:

• Introduce the company, its products, and services;
• "Nudge" the audience — convert website visitors into buyers;
• Persuade current clients to make a repeat purchase, thereby ensuring demand renewal;
• Increase loyalty towards the company.

As we can see, there are many possible objectives. Therefore, the contact database should not be treated as a monolith. Before conducting a marketing campaign, it's crucial to segment the audience based on customer status, purchase history, recentness of website visit, and other signs important to the company. This allows for the creation of personalized offers that can capture users' interest and bring them back to the site.

Obtaining a user's contact information is one of the primary objectives of a website. However, people are reluctant to share their personal data. To encourage them to do so, explain what they will receive in exchange for their contact information. This could include additional knowledge (useful content), access to website functionality (placing an order, consultation), discounts, gifts, and so on.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of email campaigns is that users often perceive them as spam, even though they subscribed voluntarily. Therefore, not all emails will be opened and read. To achieve good results from email marketing, it's crucial to carefully monitor subscribers' behavior and, based on that, adjust the frequency of contact, topics, and content of the messages.

If a company has a visitor's phone number, it can "catch up" with them through messenger marketing. This tool has several advantages.

Firstly, a vast number of people use messengers, and the user base is only growing.
Secondly, audiences prefer messengers to many other communication channels. For instance, users are more receptive to messages in messengers than to emails. According to TextBack research, the average open rate for WhatsApp messaging campaigns reaches 91%, with a click-through rate of 39%. Meanwhile, the average email open rate, according to Constant Contact, is only 16.97%.

Thirdly, messages in messengers are opened virtually within a few minutes after delivery.
All these factors make messengers an excellent tool for reminding about incomplete actions on the website, sharing company news, informing about discounts or promotions, encouraging newsletter subscriptions, and so on.

However, there are drawbacks. Users are reluctant to share their phone numbers, fearing spam and data leaks, so communication in messengers is possible with a limited number of clients. Another nuance is that the effectiveness of communication in WhatsApp or Telegram greatly depends on the format and presentation of the content. In most cases, short, clearly formulated messages work best, so it won’t be possible to share details.

The majority of visitors land on a website, browse the information, and leave without leaving any contact information. Typically, no more than 2-3% of users share their phone number or email.

Among these visitors, some may have arrived at the site by accident or do not fit into the target audience. However, they are in the minority. The rest of the visitors are interested in your products or services. Essentially, this represents a large audience of loyal potential customers who already have a demand and are ready to make a purchase.

Such users can be "caught up" with through retargeting tools, for example, on social networks. The essence of the tool is this: a visitor leaves the company's website, and then a banner ad for the company starts "following" them on various internet pages. For instance, a person who was browsing the assortment of an online clothing store might see an advertising banner for the viewed product or a promotional offer on social networks and various websites.

Retargeting is considered one of the most cost-effective ways to attract customers and increase sales. The tool allows for the personalization of offers but requires fine-tuning based on users' behavior on the site. With retargeting, you can test hypotheses and launch different advertising campaigns for the same audience.

Now about the downsides:

The advertisement will continue to be shown to a person even after they have made a purchase or ordered a service, which can irritate the client and decrease their loyalty to the company. This downside can be eliminated through advertising campaign settings, but only a few take this step — it's too labor-intensive.

The advertisement invites a person who has already visited the site to return, but it does not motivate them to leave their contact information. The exception is the e-commerce industry. Here, you can use offer-based retargeting (product carousel) — it's an excellent tool for lead generation and a way to increase conversion into inquiries.

In conclusion email marketing, messaging in messengers, and targeted advertising remain crucial tools for marketers, despite their drawbacks. In some cases, email works better, in others — messaging in messengers. But in any case, the effectiveness of the interaction depends on how well the offer matches the user's requests. Personalization is precisely one of the main ways to enhance the effectiveness of any communication.