New Visitor Conversion Rate: How to Increase It?

I checked the Google Analytics data of more than 300 Shopify stores, and all of them had one thing in common: the conversion rate for new visitors was lower than the conversion rate for returning visitors.

This is completely understandable, but there are strategies you can use to increase your new visitor conversion rate.

In this article, I’ll explain why the conversion rate for new visitors is lower than for returning visitors, what you can do to improve it, and how to increase your conversions and sales over time.

Why is the conversion rate for new visitors lower?

Let’s remember what conversion is. Conversion is when someone says “I want to have this product, right now!”

There are two critical parts to conversion:

I want to have this product. How do you measure this part? Very simple.
Check your bounce rates and add-to-cart events. If people aren’t leaving your store as soon as they land and some of them are adding at least one product to their cart, then you’re doing a great job.

Your store looks great, you have great products, and you’re managing to get highly interested traffic into your store.
Right now. If people are browsing your store and adding products to their carts, but most of the time they leave without buying, then you need to figure out why they’re not saying “I want to have this product, right now!”

This is the part that makes people convert.

Create urgency to increase new visitor conversion rate

Now, let’s think about ourselves. We visit a local store, see a great product, and like it. But if we don’t need it urgently, we can wait, right?

This is a very common human behavior. We tend to postpone our decisions because it’s easier.

Creating urgency is a proven strategy because of this human behavior. If you can create urgency properly, you can trigger your visitors to try your products now, right away.

There are three important elements to creating urgency properly:

Right motivation: Booking is a common example of a strategy for creating urgency. You know how some hotel detail pages show stats like “X people looking at this room”? This makes sense because you’re planning your travel and there are limited rooms. If you don’t get it, someone else will.
Right timing: Timing is very important for creating urgency. It’s similar to the offline experience. You decide on the best product you want to buy, and then the sales consultant tells you that it’s a limited product and won’t be produced anymore. That’s the right timing.
Right message: Messaging plays a vital role in creating urgency. Let’s continue with the same example. The language and messages should be aligned with your branding, product, and category. This is how you can create urgency properly.

How to increase new visitor conversion rate on Shopify

Growth Suite offers a great solution for creating urgency without being fake. It’s a great way to increase conversions and new visitor conversion rate.

Growth Suite analyzes your visitors’ buying intention and segments them based on it as hot, warm, and cold. This is very important because it prevents you from overusing discounts.

Hot visitors: These visitors are highly interested in your products and are most likely to complete their purchase. You can give them a 7% discount, for example.
Warm visitors: These visitors have a medium level of interest in your products. You can give them a 10% discount, for example.
Cold visitors: These visitors have the lowest level of interest in your products. You can give them a 15% discount, for example.

So, what’s the difference?

Each discount offer comes with a timer that appears on all pages of your store. Your visitors can see how much time they have to use the discounts.
Growth Suite creates a unique, one-time-use discount code for each of your visitors. When people see their own discount codes and timer, they know that it’s a real, unique offer.
Growth Suite automatically applies the discount to the cart, so visitors don’t need to copy or paste it. This is a big deal, especially for mobile visitors.
Growth Suite deletes the discounts after the timer expires. They can’t be used again, and the same visitor can’t see them again.

What you shouldn’t do

I’ve mentioned what to do up to this point. There are a lot of quick-fix hacks out there that promise to increase your conversions with fake messages.

I highly recommend not using these things, such as “38 people looking at this product, 15 bought in the last hour.” Most of the time, people won’t believe they’re real. If you don’t believe me, just show these messages to your friends and ask what they think about them.

Second, when these things don’t work properly (which they usually don’t), they create a sense of dishonesty between your brand and your visitors. This can become a real issue for your long-term success.

Conclusion

By following the tips in this article, you can increase your new visitor conversion rate and boost your Shopify sales. Remember to focus on creating urgency. And avoid using fake messages and other tactics that can damage your brand reputation.