Why Segmentation And Targeting of Website Traffic Results in Increase Online Sales
Some of the methods used to increase website sales are
Special Pricing Offers
Bonuses and incentives
Increased visitor traffic
Use of landing page optimization
Using segmentation targeting
The majority of site marketers know about techniques for getting more visitor traffic or promoting special offers. Somewhat fewer site owners and marketers know about landing page optimization techniques and very few will know about segmentation targeting.
The number of sales or opt-ins from a web page is defined simply by
Sales, or Opt-ins = Page Visitor Traffic x Page Conversion Rate
Notice in the above formula it is not visitor traffic to the site that is important but visitor traffic to the page. A web site could have 10,000 visitors a month to the site, but if through poor site design only 10% get to a sales page, the sales page only gets 1,000 visitors a month.
So clearly to increase sales one must either increase visitor traffic to the PAGE or increase the conversion rate of the PAGE, which means making the site and page better at converting visitors into buyers or subscriber opt-ins.
Increasing web page traffic through the pursuit of high search rankings or pay per click advertising can become too costly in time and / or money for many site owners.
One of the benefits of landing page optimization is that it enables a site owner to increase web page conversion rate and turn more web site visitors into buyers without the need to increase traffic.
However, it is not possible to use some landing page optimization techniques on all web sites, since without enough traffic to the page being optimized, the process takes so long as to be uneconomic to implement.
A less known but equally effective method to increase conversion rate is segmentation targeting which like landing page optimization does NOT require increased levels of traffic.
Where segmentation targeting differs, is that it relies upon first segmenting incoming visitor traffic into groups and then targeting each group with customized offers tailored to the needs and wants of that group. Splitting visitors into groups and then presenting them with an offer that matches the needs of that group is why we are able to increase conversion rate.
Segmenting begins at the landing page where a visitor is offered choices regarding their personal preferences which enable them to be presented with a more customized offer.
The visitor could be asked if they are male or female or asked to indicate an age group, assuming these factors were important in segmenting visitors into target groups by gender and age. What groups visitors are segmented into in practice depends on what the offer actually is.
Once segmented into groups visitors are able to choose their preferences based on choices presented in the form of a fun interactive quiz. As well as enabling the process to determine the best offer to present to the visitor the interactive process also increases visitor retention.
Each segmented group will experience a different quiz or knowledge test designed for that group and that group only. Other groups of visitors have a different experience. As visitors move in their target groups through the segmentation targeting process their expressed preferences enable them to reach the most suitable offer for them.
Segmentation And Targeting a Win-Win Process
The visitor wins by being given an offer based on their choices and the site owner wins by presenting an offer that’s more likely to make a sale to that visitor. By interacting with the site visitor the segmentation targeting process gives rise to increase conversion rate.
To discover more about segmentation targeting and whether it would benefit your site by leading to more sales or subscriber opt-ins visit segmentation targeting. Or to determine if your web site would be suitable for landing page optimization use our increase conversion rate evaluator.
About the Author:
Tony Simpson provides web site design and web site optimization advice to enable site owners to get the most from their websites.


