First Time Visitors - Are They Good or Bad?

First time visitors are a double edged sword - marketers love them (they represent possibility) while website optimization specialists often hate them (they represent low conversion). Most of all, though, they represent a vital part of any business, and one that is almost always neglected.
Why First Time Visitors Are Bad
First time visitors historically perform worse than other segments of web visitors. On average, only 1.4% of first time visitors actually convert into sales. For all of your marketing team’s search engine optimization, social media efforts and viral marketing campaigns, less than 2 of every 100 visitors will even turn into a sale. That’s a tiny amount.
Not only do first time visitors underperform, but there’s relatively little data about them. With a repeat customer, there’s all sorts of demographic and psychographic data at your fingertips. For a new visitor, you have absolutely no purchase data, and no idea whether their intent is to buy, browse or otherwise. This is a big reason that first time visitors are typically stressed much less than repeat customers. For repeat customers you’ve already made the sale once. That first sale makes it much easier to sell the second, third, fourth and fifth time.







