How Do New and Returning Visitors Behave Online? Monetate Explains

Monetate, which provides experience marketing platform for brands worldwide, has released its newest global Ecommerce Quarterly report (EQ4 2015), offering best practices that help drive retention and acquisition strategies.

The Monetate EQ4 2015, which analyzed a random sample of over 7 billion online shopping experiences using “same store” data, looked into the behavior of new and returning shoppers online.

According to the study, returning visitors spent almost $5.3 billion online in the last quarter of 2015, though they comprised only 48 percent of all ecommerce sessions. This figure compares to $2.7 billion spent by new visitors in the same period.

The report also identified important ecommerce key performance indicators (KPIs) including add-to-cart rate, bounce rate and conversion rate.

New visitors were half as likely as returning ones to add an item to their cart across nearly all devices and referral channels, it found.

Exceptions to this were new mobile visitors, who added items in just about 4 percent of sessions, compared to 10 percent of sessions for returning visitors. New visitors from social networks added items in only 4 percent of sessions, compared to 9 percent for returning visitors.

In general, bounce rate increased slightly from 29 percent in Q4 2014 to 30 percent in Q4 2015. Bounce rate between new and returning visitors differ depending on visitors’ circumstances.

Bounce rates of mobile visitors stood at 37 percent, against 26 percent and 28 percent of desktop and tablet visitors, respectively, the study noted.

The last quarter of 2015 also saw solid conversion rates buoyed by the holiday season, with conversion rates slightly up at 3.5 percent on the average.

Lucinda Duncalfe, CEO, Monetate, commented, “Customer retention and customer acquisition don’t have to be two parallel lines that never meet. With Monetate, our customers are able to improve conversion rates, engagement, acquisition and retention by personalizing every experience along a customer’s journey.”