The State of Visitor Engagement on Shopify Stores [Original Study]

Success in ecommerce relies on the effectiveness of converting visitors into repeat customers.

But with an average onsite conversion rate of 3%, more effective strategies are required to convert more of those 97% of visitors who leave.

Our report analyzes 500 successful Shopify stores to identify the most effective methods for engaging visitors and retaining customers.

Key Takeaways

1. Website popups remain the most popular tool for growing a customer base

Popups are the top non-native visitor engagement tool used on Shopify stores (62% of businesses use them in 2023 vs 50% in 2018).

2. SMS marketing is still a viable strategy for increasing customer lifetime value

More than one-third of Shopify stores (38%) collect phone numbers from visitors for SMS marketing purposes.

3. Discounts remain the most popular initial hook to draw in new customers

More than two-thirds (70%) of Shopify stores use discounts to convert first-time shoppers.

4. The most widely used discount size stays moderate

Businesses are trying to protect their margins during the ongoing recession, as the most popular discount for first-time customers is 10%.

5. The adoption of TikTok as a sales channel might be taking off among Shopify businesses

About 10% of Shopify businesses are already using the official TikTok app for Shopify, and many more are expected to join them.

Chapter I

Results: The top strategies and tools Shopify stores use to engage their visitors and customers

Sixty-two percent of Shopify stores use popups

We found that 62% of Shopify stores use popups, making them the most common “non-native” visitor engagement tool on Shopify websites. 

Our original 2018 study found that 50% of Shopify stores had popups, so the findings suggest that more businesses are using them in 2023 (and will be using in 2024).

Twenty-nine percent of Shopify stores use more than one popup campaign (and for more than email list building)

The traditional use case for popups is lead generation. However, in our sample, 29% of Shopify stores used more than one popup campaign to engage visitors differently. 

Other use cases included:

Thirty-eight percent of Shopify stores collect phone numbers for SMS marketing

More than one-third of Shopify stores (38%) had active campaigns (popups, signup forms, etc.) to collect phone numbers, which suggests that they use SMS marketing in their lead nurturing strategy.

Stores using phone number capture campaigns predominantly employed embedded signup forms (43%) and popups (29%) as the primary methods for collecting phone numbers.

Only 15% of Shopify stores convert mobile visitors with popups

Only 15% of all the Shopify stores we checked used mobile popups (reminder: 62% of the sample had any type of popup). Consequently, this means that more businesses are channeling their efforts toward converting desktop visitors, overlooking mobile popups as a way to engage mobile shoppers.

Ten percent is the most common discount used by Shopify stores to convert first-time visitors

One thing remains constant: offering discounts is the most common method to turn first-time visitors into customers.

A whopping 70% of Shopify stores use discounts, whether in percentages or dollar values, to entice and encourage first-time shoppers to buy.

Out of those stores, the majority (28%) offered a 10% discount, closely followed by 22% of stores that offered 20% off. Also, 14% of stores welcomed newcomers with a 15% discount for first orders.

Notes: 

Shopify stores that did not have discounts mainly offered free shipping for the first order (those primarily included luxury brands).

For stores that didn't offer discounts on first purchases, customers had the option to lower the cost by enrolling in a loyalty program and receiving a modest discount as a reward.

“Sales on selected items” are the most popular type of limited-time offers, employed by 39% of Shopify stores

When analyzing the use of limited-time offers, we found three standout favorites for engaging visitors. Topping the list is "sales on selected items," used by 39% of stores. Following closely are BOGO (Buy One, Get One) offers, a choice for 19% of stores. Also, giveaways and contests also proved to be an important strategy, used by 14% of Shopify stores.

The usage of Instagram feeds by Shopify stores is low at 21%, TikTok ads at 10% but poised to surge

Less than one-fourth (21%) of Shopify stores had Instagram feeds embedded into the homepage (the most popular page) or other pages.

Meanwhile, the usage of the official TikTok app on Shopify may be on the rise. While currently being used on only 10% of Shopify sites, it’s noteworthy that over 5,000 reviews out of a total of 7,700 on its Shopify App Store page were submitted in 2023, indicating a substantial surge in adoption.

Forty-two percent of Shopify stores have live chat, only 16% adopted chatbots

Over one-third (42%) of Shopify stores used live chat, both for customer support and marketing purposes. This marks a substantial increase from our original study in 2018, where only 24% of stores had live chat. When we checked the adoption of chatbots, we found that only 16% of Shopify stores have embraced this engagement tool.

Popular content marketing types on Shopify include blog articles (66%), gift guides (37%), and quizzes (19%)

Gift guides continue to play a significant role in visitor engagement strategies, with 37% of Shopify stores using them. These guides we found were prominently featured, either within the blog section or as a main menu item, showcasing the effectiveness of gift guides in facilitating purchasing decisions.

Another popular onsite channel to engage visitors was quizzes, as they were present in 19% of Shopify stores.

Also, having a blog is a common content marketing tactic, as 66% of the Shopify stores we checked had blogs. Among these, prevalent content types included informative how-to articles, brand news and announcements, and product videos.

Fifty-four percent of Shopify stores describe their sustainable business practices

Just over half (54%) of Shopify stores describe their strategy or projects to reduce environmental impact. This commitment is prominently featured either on homepages or through dedicated pages (“Our Impact,” “Sustainable Practices,” etc.), underscoring a growing dedication to sustainability within the Shopify community.

Note: Educating customers about sustainability and raising awareness of the environmental impact of ecommerce also presents an opportunity for Shopify stores. Asphalte, a French digital native brand, raised awareness of their environmentally-friendly business model (pre-order) and saw their customer lifetime value increase (read below).

Sixty-eight percent of Shopify stores have loyalty programs

Over two-thirds (68%) of Shopify stores use loyalty programs to attract and retain customers. Most businesses describe them on dedicated explainer pages while some also use live chat-like widgets on homepages.

Sixty-eight percent of Shopify stores choose Klaviyo for email marketing

Klaviyo remains an undisputed leader among email marketing apps on Shopify, used by 68% of businesses we analyzed. Other popular apps include Mailchimp (14%) and Omnisend (5%).

Chapter II

Customer engagement trends and predictions for 2024

After analyzing the results, we have also noticed some changes and patterns in engagement strategies. They might affect how Shopify stores convert their customers in 2024.

Popups will play a bigger role in ecommerce personalization

Ecommerce personalization is a process of customizing online shopping experiences for individual customers. It includes personalized page content, product recommendations, and offers that align with customers’ preferences and browsing or shopping behavior.

Popups are perfect for ecommerce personalization because they're easy to use and have powerful targeting options

Numerous stores use website popups as tools to personalize their customers' shopping experience. The findings of this study, for example, reveal a growing trend among Shopify businesses to utilize popups beyond email list building, incorporating them for diverse goals, including personalization-related ones.

Let's review some examples.

Stumptown Coffee Roasters aims to personalize the shopping experience for customers who might be hesitating to buy or need some help finding the right products. So, the brand uses this popup—it's automatically shown only to returning visitors who viewed a product but have not bought it:

This next campaign comes from Soko Glam, a beauty retailer that specializes in Korean skincare and beauty products.

The visitors are invited to take the Skin Care quiz to get personalized product recommendations. What’s more, quiz takers can also book a free consultation with a skincare expert. 

This way, Soko Glam addresses different stages of the customer journey (awareness, interest, and consideration)—and using a popup creates more awareness of the quiz:

Another way in which popups help with ecommerce personalization is sharing upselling offers.

Black Ember, a seller of tactical backpacks, shows an upsell offer with related items to those who add specific products to the cart. 

This personalized offer is, of course, automatic, and helps personalize product selection experience and increase the average order value:

This example is a good one also because it:

• Displays the entire recommended collection of products

• Allows to add a product to the cart in one click

• Lets visitors choose a product variation with a small drop-down menu

Take a look:

Popups can play an even bigger role in ecommerce personalization if they have built-in Shopify properties. 

Thanks to them, you can create campaigns based on: 

• How many products a customer has in the shopping cart

• How many days a customer bought from you the last time

• The total price of all products a customer has in the cart

• How many products you have left in your inventory

• The number of orders made by a specific customer

So be sure your popup app has a deep Shopify integration and allows you to use these properties for setting campaigns display rules.

Example—

Here are the settings for a campaign for registered customers who made one purchase (for example, this could be a personalized discount to encourage buying again):

The need of an effective onsite marketing strategy will grow

With more businesses investing in ecommerce personalization and data-driven campaigns, it’s natural that a strategy is needed. This strategy of engaging visitors on ecommerce websites with campaigns based on data and behavior is called onsite marketing.

Onsite marketing stands out for its distinctive approach that combines various website visitor engagement tools (popups, bars, notification feeds, chatbots, landing pages, embedded forms, etc.). This integrated strategy is designed to seamlessly address the requirements of specific visitor groups or even individual visitors within a unified plan:

Sticky tabs to keep discounts available

If you don’t want to trigger popups on your website, you can let your visitors do that—when they feel like getting that discount. 

Ecommerce research shows that many shoppers prefer to get discounts after they went through some products and found the one they like (here’s what one of these shoppers said when asked whether they liked popups):

One way to accommodate this need is a sticky tab.

Sticky tabs are very small, non-intrusive windows that remain fixed in a specific position (typically, one of the bottom corners) as the visitor scrolls or navigates through the content. If clicked, sticky tabs open a full popup or signup form.

In other words—they're perfect for the task because they don't interrupt browsing and have value for customers.

Here’s an example from Meow Meow Tweet (as you can see, the welcome discount stays available after the popup is closed, in a non-intrusive way):

Sticky tabs were the way for many Shopify stores in our sample to make popups more visitor-friendly and make discounts easily available in one click even after customers closed them. All that without cluttering ecommerce website designs, too.

Just a couple of years ago, the usage of sticky tabs was almost unheard of. But now they are becoming increasingly popular among Shopify thanks to their ability to engage visitors.

In fact, during our study, we've seen sticky tabs on such successful stores like Kith and MVMT, even on mobile:

Also, WP Standard, a successful store selling premium leather goods, uses them to convert visitors with a product giveaway:

Kirrin Finch, a store featured on the Shopify blog, promotes its $100 gift card giveaway with a sticky tab placed just like at WP Standard (and with a pretty attractive headline):

Multi-step popups for collecting more data from visitors

Seventeen percent of Shopify stores we reviewed used multi-step popups to collect both emails and SMS (as well as extra info like date of birth and product category preferences) in one campaign.

This campaign format could be seen by more businesses as an efficient way to generate leads and get customer data for segmentation.

Examples:

Death Wish Coffee breaks its lead generation popup into two windows: a) the email and b) the phone number signup form:

Steve Madden, one of the most popular brands using Shopify, has a popup designed to collect emails in the first window and customer data along with product preferences in the second:

2024: A breakout year for mobile popups?

As more Shopify stores find that popups can be done in a way that brings value and doesn’t violate Google’s rules for interstitials, we may see an increase in businesses using them. 

Already, we have seen many mobile-optimized popups in our sample. Here are a couple of examples from two popular stores (Brooklinen and Recess):

AI will improve live chat support

AI is being increasingly adopted by Shopify businesses, especially for customer support. It is clear that using AI will become a major way for stores of all sizes to maximize efficiency and speed up operations in 2024.

For example, AI-enabled features in popular Shopify live chat tools like Gorgias and LiveChat allow to:

• Adjust the tone of the messages for customers

• Proofread messages and remove grammar or spelling mistakes

• Expand, paraphrase, and make answers more detailed

• Generate chat summaries for support agents

• Propose templates for answers

Sustainability will become even more important

The rise of environmental concerns is driving the increased popularity of environmentally-friendly brands. Already, over three-quarters of consumers (77%) emphasized the importance of sustainability and environmental protection strategy for businesses, considering it either very important or moderately important in their brand selection.

That’s why stores need to be ready to raise awareness of their sustainability and environmental protection strategies on their websites and social media.

This strategy also includes regular reporting—publishing detailed reports describing the progress on the sustainability goals the brands have set for themselves.

For example, the sustainability report from Steve Madden consisted of 85 pages and included:

• Sustainability strategy

• Sustainability milestones and progress

• Info on the supply chain transparency

• Description of the employed climate-neutral strategies

• Emissions data

Note:

See Steve Madden’s Sustainability Report 2022.

Chapter III

Opportunities for Shopify stores to increase customer engagement

Onsite notifications

Onsite notifications resemble a social media feed, and are a new onsite channel to engage shoppers. They are subtly integrated into a website's header as a bell icon. With this non-intrusive design, notifications engage website visitors by employing targeted options to deliver tailored content, effectively steering them through the conversion funnel.

Here’s a look at onsite notifications at OddBalls, one of the UK’s biggest underwear brands:

Onsite notifications are a valuable opportunity for Shopify stores in 2024 because of these reasons:

• A novelty and uniqueness. So there’s an opportunity to stand out and provide an easy-to-use UX while sharing targeted marketing messages

• Non-intrusive engagement. You can let visitors discover the feed on their own (unread notifications are only indicated by a red bubble on the bell icon)

• Great for ecommerce personalization. Onsite notifications come with targeting options, so you can use them to share marketing offers based on browsing behavior, Shopify cart content, page views count, traffic source, device, location, and last visit date (see the image below)

Besides, onsite notifications are an effective way to engage visitors with discounts, sales promos and product announcements. As indicated by Dan Mitchell, the ecommerce manager at Oddballs:

More advanced onsite targeting of visitor groups

One goal of this study was to determine if Shopify stores had some strategies to engage specific visitor groups (new/returning, organic, those who added products to the cart, etc.)

While all the stores in the sample had tailored offers for first-time visitors, only 1% of the stores had a dedicated campaign for returning visitors (even when we had an item in cart that was still in there on the second visit). Since 71% of ecommerce visitors expect personalized experiences from online stores, this finding suggests an opportunity to increase sales by creating more personalized onsite marketing campaigns.

In terms of visitor sources, you can target these groups:

• New (first-time)

• Returning 

• Paid (from paid ads)

• Referral (from partners)

• Organic (from Google)

Also, you can target visitors who:

• View X pages on your website

• Click on a page element (button, image, etc.)

• Add a product to the shopping cart (any or specific)

• Have a specific device (an iPhone, a desktop computer, etc.)

• Come from a specific location (country, region, or city)

Campaign targeting settings are quite easy to use:

Apart from these essential onsite campaign targeting options, more advanced, Shopify-specific ones are available. 

Here’s a breakdown of Shopify properties from Wisepops, including definitions and descriptions of how Shopify store owners can apply them:

Mobile-optimized popups that meet Google’s requirements

The results of this study suggested that only a small number (15%) of Shopify businesses are using mobile popups. Even fewer used campaigns that were optimized according to Google’s rules for interstitials:

This means that creating visitor-friendly and valuable campaigns that meet these requirements could be an opportunity for Shopify businesses (especially if a store gets a lot of mobile traffic).

The good news is that creating optimized mobile campaigns is as easy as choosing one option ("Display on mobiles"):

Useful resources for Shopify marketers

• Shopify success stories

• The best Shopify stores [+their revenues]

• How to add a popup to a Shopify store

• How to get sales on Shopify [10 strategies]

• Shopify marketing strategies for beginners

• The top-rated Shopify popup apps [reviewed]

• Cart abandonment apps for Shopify stores

• Best apps to create Shopify exit-intent popups

• The list of the best Shopify apps [with ratings]

• Ecommerce case studies [including Shopify businesses]