How to Attract Higher-Quality Customers

There’s a difference between a customer who spends hundreds at your store at a regular cadence and one who buys the cheapest product and then never comes back. As an ecommerce owner, founder or operator, you want to make sure you’re driving “higher-quality customers” from your marketing investment. You need to be tracking the right metrics to monitor each traffic source for signs of poor customer quality. More often than not, certain traffic sources will be of lesser quality than others. Understanding what to look for, why this often happens and ensuring accurate monitoring will allow you to better optimize your marketing spending.

Related: 10 Ways to Get High-Roller Customers Spending More With You

What do we mean by “low quality?”

This can often include an inordinate number of order cancellations, lower order values, subscription cancellations and higher product return rates — pretty much, the customer actions we want to avoid. These actions can be detrimental to your business’s profitability. Say you expect your customers, on average, to spend between $60-100 on your website per order. Seeing an average order value of less than $30 all coming from one source is a sign of poor traffic quality. Conversely, if your product return rates are substantially higher from one source to another, that could be another sign.

A common source deemed to be “low quality” is incentivized traffic — essentially, incentivizing the customer in exchange for purchasing from your store. These incentives are often Amazon gift cards, points or in-game currency. You’ll notice the overwhelming majority of customers will purchase your product merely for the incentive, not because they’re actually interested in your product and value propositions. These customers will likely buy the cheapest product on your website, then return for a full refund once their incentive is received.

In this…