Programs that perform well run for a long time – we have many clients who have run programs for years. But underperforming programs don’t last very long. Our advice is geared towards building longevity and success, versus trying to drive an initial high volume of cards.

Targeting starts with the URLs on your site. Whether you have 5 or 5,000 pages, planning the program starts with identifying high-intent visitors based on the pages they view. Usually, someone visiting multiple pages on your site shows much more intent than those who visit the home page and leave.

If your site doesn’t have many pages or gets lower traffic (less than 20 visits per day), you may consider targeting all visitors viewing multiple pages and not getting too granular with the targeting. Meanwhile, for larger trafficked sites, programs might only focus on select pages that reveal the most intent. 

Here are some examples of common missteps that may inhibit long-term success:

• Mailing to everyone visiting the site. The downside is the likelihood of poor program performance. They would include home bounces, which have a low probability of converting. Ultimately it drags down the overall conversion/ROAS.
• For higher-trafficked sites, only setting up a targeting filter to mail to visitors going to 2 or more pages doesn’t focus enough on the higher-intent visitors.
• Being too specific with targeting pages to the degree that you’re ignoring visitors who would be likely to convert.

If you’re considering only targeting from a single landing page, that approach has its downsides.

• If that landing page doesn’t link back to your website or lacks additional pages your visitor can view, you lose the ability to filter by intent
• Lost opportunity because the program won’t include organic traffic reaching the site based on their own searches.

Which visitors you’re targeting depends on the budget and the type of business:

• eCommerce & Retail
• Consumer Services
• Organizations
• B2B