The Importance of Tracking Returning Visitors
Returning visitors are defined as the number of visitors who visit a site during a reported period after visiting the site prior to the reporting period (Burnett, 2022). In simple terms, this is someone who has visited a site more than once. Returning visitors is one of the metrics that fall under the visitor characterization web metric category. While businesses may be eager to gain new visitors, returning visitors become more engaged and convert at a higher rate (Elliot, 2021). Tracking returning visitor metrics can:
· Identify what products customers are finding value in
· Identify the retention rate of returning users
· Provide insight into why users convert on subsequent visits
· Identify how to increase the conversion rate of subsequent visits
· Identify how engaged users are
· Determine customer loyalty (Elliot, 2021).
This metric gives businesses a clear idea of how their content marketing is performing and if their tactics are building their audiences to ensure they come back. This metric can also give insight into whether the business meets its clients’ needs. Overall, returning visitors are essential because they identify who the loyal customers are, tell the performance of marketing campaigns, and how influential the brand is. Tracking returning visitors is key to understanding your audience and improving your campaigns.
For example, an online clothing store may launch a new campaign to increase the amount of engagement on its website. By tracking the number of returning visitors, the company will gain insight into the success of its campaign and the retention rate of the returning visitors. In addition, the returning visitor metric can be used to identify and diagnose issues and improve the business's ability to accomplish a goal. Returning visitor metrics can help companies identify and diagnose user engagement and frequency problems. Evaluating returning visitor results can lead a company to work on improving the quality of the content to increase the number of return visitors. If a business finds its website’s engagement results too low, this may lead them to rework the layout of its site that way; giving the user a more straightforward path to navigate. Fixing site navigation issues result in longer session durations and ease the site navigation process for the customer. The returning visitor metric can also lead businesses to develop retargeting strategies and implement customer loyalty programs.
Statistics have shown that “returning visitors will have a 75% higher chance of making a purchase than a new visitor” (Akhtar, 2020, para. 8). One thing to keep in mind is that returning customers always bring in new customers, which leads to increased profits. If customers are pleased with your products and services, they may recommend the brand to their friends, family, co-workers, etc. The returning visitor metric can help improve lead generation and increase the number of new visitors.
Returning visitors have had previous exposure to your brand, making it easier to convert them into customers. This metric can lead brands to identify issues within their site involving frequency and engagement and the steps necessary to fix them. Returning visitors can provide insight into the content marketing performance, identify loyal customers, determine returning visitors’ retention rate, and more. The returning visitor metric is an essential metric that businesses need to be tracking to improve their user engagement and frequency.
References:
Akhtar, A. (2020, November 19). 7 proven ways to increase your returning visitor rate. MonsterInsights. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://www.monsterinsights.com/proven-ways-to-increase-your-returning-visitor-rate/
Burnett. (2022). Week 1 Lesson: Introduction to Web Analytics, Basics of Web Analytics and Tool Introduction and Selection. eCampus. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/
Elliot, A. (2021, July 19). Users: New vs returning. Mixpanel. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://mixpanel.com/blog/new-vs-returning-users/
Google Images. (2022). Google Images. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://images.google.com/
Malnik, J. (2022, April 20). New vs. returning visitors: What's The Right Balance & Does it even matter?: Databox blog. Databox. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://databox.com/new-vs-returning-visitors#head2
Pitts, M. M. (2014, November 20). Dissecting google analytics reports: New vs. returning visitor frequency & engagement. MayeCreate Design. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://mayecreate.com/blog/dissecting-google-analytics-reports-frequency-and-engagement/
Profit.co. (2020, May 1). Returning visitors metric: Marketing KPI library. Profit.co. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://www.profit.co/blog/kpis-library/marketing/returning-visitors-metric/
Comments
Post a Comment