A Smarter Way to Offer Discounts and Incentives Online

Why?

Discounts and incentives cost you both money and branding equity. You should only use them when it seems the visitor will not buy. You probably already use simple timed or exit intent triggers to do that, but these are crude behavioral indicators. Something smarter is needed.

How?

First, observe enough visitors to your site and see the behavioral patterns of those who buy and those who don’t. Time their visit, but also “follow” them around. Where do they go with their mouse on the page? What do they click? Where do they hover for longer time periods, etc? All this can and is already done today, but we need to take this further – use the information to match future visitors behavior. If there are distinct patterns that can predict a purchase, you can then only show the incentives when visitors do not match these patterns. Even better, if a “non buyer” pattern also emerges, only show the incentives to visitors exhibiting such a pattern.