First Time Abandoners | Made With Intent Help Center

These customers are in their first session and are likely to abandon without taking any meaningful action and are unlikely to return.

"First Time Abandoners" represent a segment of potential customers who visit your website for the first time but show low levels of engagement and are predicted to leave without taking any meaningful action. The challenge lies in capturing their interest swiftly; the opportunity, in turning their initial visit into the start of a meaningful customer journey.

Remember, the goal is not just to reduce bounce rates but to lay the groundwork for a lasting relationship that grows over time. That requires appreciating the user context, then introducing yourselves or welcoming the users to encourage engagement of some sort. Your aim is to generate curiosity to elicit engagement.

Engage: Welcome and Guide

For newcomers, a generic welcome is rarely enough. The key is to offer an introduction that resonates with the context of their visit. Why do you exist? How can you help them? What is the outcome of using your product? You can assume implicit context from where the user has come from (traffic source) and where they land (page type). Alternatively, you can seek explicit context from the user to truly respond to their needs (”what are you here for today?”).

Execution examples:

If they've landed on the homepage, showcasing a broad spectrum of product categories rather than focusing on specific items can pique their curiosity without overwhelming them.
For those on product or category pages, streamlined and clear navigation, enticing product highlights can guide them further into your offerings.
Explaining why you exist as a brand taking the assumption that they don’t or might not know anything about you
Even more so, explaining the value propositions of your brand. Nothing logistical (yet) like free shipping, but the breadth of your offering, the quality of your products, the founders story

Engage: Initial engagement designed to peak curiosity

To elicit engagement for low intent users, it’s about generating enough intrigue and inquisitiveness in the product set (oppose to a single product) that makes the user curious enough to engage further.

This might talk about the product quality, or what the brand can offer these users through the products themselves. Sustainability measures, how the brand was created, the story of the founder, the obsession with quality; anything that creates some level of curiosity within the product. Ideally, the more this is around a product set (a category) to at least create some interest in a set of products, oppose to just the brand as a whole, the better. What we’re trying to do here is establish a product affinity, to then move users from a browsing stage to a refinement stage. Something that can transform passive browsing into active exploration.

Execution examples:

In-grid content on the PLP, breaking up the product listing page with modules of content that inform the user about the the product quality or virtues
Using user generated content on how the products have impacted the lives of others (testimonials, reviews, social media)
Using flash sales or limited-time promotions to be used as a trojan horse to allow the customer to explore further. This leverages the natural human inclination towards curiosity and fear of missing out, encouraging visitors to delve deeper into your site.
Utilising space in the header to encourage users to read more about the brand story and how products are made
Utilising space on a product detail page to talk about the quality of the product and how the products are made, encouraging the user to read more about product and brand, designed to peak curiosity for these users

Re-engage off-site: Brand-based re-marketing

These users haven’t reached a stage where they are aware of what product they are interested in - yet. They have barely explored your proposition and as someone who is likely to immediately bounce, haven’t had the time to delve into the details.

It is your job to create hype around your brand, or showcasing your product set, not necessarily showing the user a single product.

Execution examples:

For low intent users, exclusion from remarketing might be beneficial. Considering using “low intent” as a threshold, perhaps with other data such as “low momentum” and “browsing” to test excluding from re-marketing campaigns
Emailing these users with brand based messaging to get your brand known; create hype around the brand to elicit emotional attached and / or reminding them that you exist
Using hype-based techniques in remarketing campaigns; customer testimonials, product outcomes, brand story, USPs and narrative

Product Discovery: Promote recommendations

Recommendations are a fantastic way to promote the breadth of your product offering. You’re using cues that your audience has given you and turning that into a contextualised series of products that, in theory, should meet their needs. It’s relevancy 101. According to a report by Barilliance, product recommendations can increase conversion rates by up to 5.5 times, or from Salesforce, it can contribute to as much as 31% of site revenue.

So, when the objective is promoting product discovery, making your recommendations more prominent is only a good thing. At this level, this is about demonstrating the breadth of product that you have available to better engage with a response of “we can most likely cater for your needs”. This is about supporting product discovery. Your job at later stages is to then convince them that that is the right product for them.

Execution examples:

Recommendations location. Think of placing recommendations further above the fold, in a sticky position on the site as the user scrolls, or, just in general, more prominent positions. Perhaps consider adding more products in eg. instead of showing 4 in a scrollable format, add 16 in a block taking up more real-estate as the user is still in a “browsing” mentality
Recommendations context. Consider adding elements within your recommendations module to capture the users interest. Incorporating user-generated content, such as customer reviews and ratings, alongside these recommendations can reinforce the perceived value and credibility of your products, encouraging further exploration.
Recommendations context. Consider the naming convention of recommendations to add context and persuade users to really engage with your recommendations set (eg. “we recommend” as a title doesn’t really cut it, why do you recommend them?)

Email capture: Collect user email address (low intent)

Recognising that this segment may not be ready to make a purchase in their current session, off-site engagement strategies become crucial.

Think about how you’re going to get this data from this segment first and foremost. What reason are you giving them to sign up to your newsletter? (don’t say “an offer” - that’s short termist and lazy).

Encouraging newsletter sign-ups or some form of email exchange with the promise of new product announcements, exclusive offers, or insightful content can keep the dialogue open. Or tailor these communications to reflect the brand's values and product strengths so, when the time comes, your audience are ready to narrow down their choices, your brand remains top of mind.

Execution examples:

What? You’re asking for a personal piece of information; an email address. What value exchange can you give them that helps them give up that information? This could be a functionality like saving items for later or back in stock announcements. As part of a competition or giveaway. It could be a valuable piece of content, or something exclusive that they need in their lives. Perhaps the hope of getting something in the future oppose to right now?
What? Using this as part of a loyalty program. In some instances it might be a bit too soon to promote loyalty programs, so what might be the benefit of asking for an email address now, to sign up for a loyalty program, for the hope of future benefits?
Where? The method of asking this information can be sticky on the site somewhere. It could be in a popup either centrally or off to the side somewhere. Or it could be as a component on the site (eg. below the product call to action, as part of the product grid). This email address collection could occur anywhere on site, thinking about your highest engagement areas and utilise it there. If the majority of users land and bounce on your product page, it might be worthwhile collecting the email address in a component on that page.
When? Use exit intent popups for email address collection, opposed to just landed popups for lower intent users