If you search for “starting an online business” on Google, you’ll see the following two recommendations repeated everywhere like a mantra: set up your website and drive Traffic to it.

And that’s the #1 goal everyone talks about: how to get more traffic to your site.

You’ve probably read a number of articles on driving traffic to your site, and I’m sure you’re familiar with the most important strategies like SEO, blogging and social media. Every business guru says you should drive traffic to your site, and they’re not wrong. It’s an important part of growing your business online.

But there’s one thing that’s often overlooked and rarely mentioned… What happens to the website Visitors that bounce, abandon or leave your site? How should you recover that lost traffic and keep your website visitors?

Your lost traffic can be a huge source of sales and leads because it’s easier to engage a visitor after they’ve visited your site, rather than trying to market to someone who’s never heard of you before. Plus, when you keep these website visitors and they subscribe to your email list, you can use email marketing campaigns to convert them into customers.

Based on the latest studies of website traffic, almost 70% of visitors will leave your site without converting or buying. Considering the average rate of website abandonment is so high, there’s a clear opportunity for all business owners to increase their revenue and marketing ROI. That’s why I’ve gathered the top 3 techniques to recover your lost traffic and help you grow your business.

Let’s see what you can do to keep your website visitors and convert them into leads:

1. Offsite remarketing

The most popular way to recover your lost visitors is remarketing, also known as retargeting. Remarketing is a type of online advertising that targets your visitors after they’ve visited your website. This gives you a second chance to connect with people who didn’t make an immediate subscription, download or purchase.

To use remarketing, you add a piece of code to your website, and then your remarketing ad service provider will be able to track who was on your site before.

The main reason to run remarketing ads is to drive sales. But it also helps you to increase brand awareness, drive repeat traffic to your site and improve ROI.

Facebook and Google AdWords are the most popular pay-per-click platforms nowadays and both provide high-tech remarketing solutions with advanced targeting options.

Check out this Facebook remarketing example below from Shoelace. This ad caught my attention because they make it very clear that I’m being retargeted.

You can also use Google AdWords to retarget visitors who left your website. Google AdWords provides a number of options, like search campaigns, display campaigns and even dynamic remarketing for online stores.

In the example below, you can see a search campaign that highlights cart abandonment.

2. Onsite retargeting

Onsite retargeting is another great way to recover abandoning visitors. Just like offsite remarketing, it gives you a second chance to keep your website visitors, however, in this case, your offer is displayed while your visitors are still on your site.

Onsite retargeting works by monitoring the behavior of your visitors. When their behavior indicates they are ready, a message is displayed, usually in a popup overlay.

Check out this example below from Tile Mountain that offers a lead magnet in exchange for an email signup on an exit-intent popup.

Exit-intent is a popular way of using popups to capture abandoning visitors, but you can use onsite retargeting to grab the attention of your inactive visitors and much more.

After a visitor leaves your site, the possibility of reengagement is not guaranteed, they could be lost forever, along with the marketing budget you spent to get them to your site. That’s why onsite retargeting is so effective – it guarantees that you can display another message to your visitors, doubling your chance of converting them.

You can use onsite retargeting with new traffic, creating specific campaigns for different sources, and you can also combine it with traditional remarketing.

OptiMonk is the #1 onsite retargeting tool and it works on a subscription basis, so you don’t need to pay for a large ad budget every month to increase your chances of success.

One more quick tip, creating a sense of urgency with a deadline or countdown timer can help boost the results of your onsite retargeting, like this example from Coffee For Less:

3. Email recovery

Now that you’ve captured the email addresses of some of your visitors using a popup, the next step is to use email marketing to bring these visitors back and convert them into customers.

Almost half of all cart-abandonment emails are opened, to be more specific – 44.1%. This is a much better open rate than typical promotional emails, which usually have a 15-20% open rate. To take advantage of this fact, you need to act quickly and follow-up.

Automating the process makes your email recovery efforts even more effective. You can send automated emails at regular intervals: 1 hour, 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week and less than 2 weeks after the abandonment.

Check out this example from Kate Spade. Using a discount is one of the best tactics for an online store to recover cart abandonments and they offer a “15% off” deal here. You can also promote a free download of a white paper or how-to guide, or offer a free trial – something that is valuable to your customers and gives them a good reason to return to your site.

Conclusion

And that’s it. These are the 3 tactics I use all the time and suggest to every new business owner who wants to grow their business online.

While increasing traffic is important, you can’t focus on traffic alone. These techniques provide a powerful way to recover your lost traffic, keep your website visitors and boost your revenue.

Through offsite remarketing, onsite retargeting and email recovery, you can display messages nearly anytime and anywhere: the instant someone tries to abandon your site, hours after they’ve left and even while they are browsing other sites online.

Don’t ignore your lost traffic, start monetizing it today!

About the author

Csaba Zajdo is an ecommerce specialist, founder of OptiMonk and several other projects specializing in conversion. OptiMonk is an award-winning onsite retargeting platform, which helps small and medium-sized businesses leverage the power of onsite retargeting. If it has to do with conversion optimization and ecommerce, Csaba is interested. He’s always looking for the best and brightest and he’s constantly on the lookout for game-changing solutions. Csaba has been involved with web marketing including search, lead generation, ecommerce, CRO, PPC, and analytics for over 10 years. He is also a frequent presenter at seminars and conferences.

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