Skip to main content

Drive Leads with First-Time Buyer Discounts

Target visitors to make their first purchase

Updated this week

In this use case, you’ll identify visitors who haven’t purchased and target them with a banner offering a first-time buyer discount. Using BlueConic segments and listeners, you’ll trigger the banner at the right moment to drive conversion, grow your customer base, and capture key profile data for future activation.

Focus Area

Ideal For

Difficulty

Key Success Metrics

Customer Acquisition

  • Organizations focused on customer acquisition and first-party data capture

  • Using notification banners to encourage purchases

  • Targeting unknown visitors.

Beginner

  • New customers acquired.

  • Coupon redemption rate.

Skills Required

Prior to beginning, ensure you can:

  • Create and modify:

    • Profile properties

    • Listeners

    • Segments

    • Connections

    • Dialogues

    • The Simulator

  • Identify and involve your internal marketing teams/decision makers

  • Track KPIs and metrics using Insights and external systems

Before you begin: complete the 8-box

Answer all of the questions in the 8-box to provide clarity and direction for your use case. This ensures that all stakeholders/decision makers are aligned and enables seamless creation of each CDP object. To complete the 8-box:

  1. Define your objectives: Offer a compelling discount to convert first-time buyers

  2. Identify your target audience: Visitors who have not made a purchase

  3. Review existing customer data:

    1. Identify how you currently determine whether someone has made a purchase.

  4. Identify customer data gaps and how BlueConic listeners can fill them:

    1. Optional: Behavior Listener

  5. Define your segment definitions:

    1. Visitors who have not made a purchase (last order date and has purchased are no or empty)

  6. Identify stakeholders and key hands-on resources and outline your marketing program scope: Identify which teams are needed to integrate with your ESP, set up Listeners and Segments, create creative content, configure Dialogues, and create Dashboards.

  7. Consider activation options: Banner Dialogue targeted for visitors who have not made a purchase.

  8. Establish your measurement approach: Define success metrics (e.g., discount redemption rate, lead capture rate).


Create profile properties

You need three profile properties for this use case. You may already have a profile property that suits your needs (for example, an existing email address property). You can use existing properties so long as the settings are configured as needed/outlined below. Otherwise, create the following profile properties to store data.

Email Address

  1. Name: Enter a name that follows your company's naming conventions. For example: Email Address_ESP campaign

  2. ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

  3. Type: Email

  4. Segmentation: Available for segmentation

  5. Merge strategy: Keep both

  6. Unique Identifier: Check for "is"

Last Order Date

  1. Name: Enter a name that follows your company's naming conventions. For example: Last Order Date

  2. ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

  3. Type: Date

  4. Segmentation: Available for segmentation

  5. Merge strategy: Most recent

  6. Unique Identifier: No

Coupon Redeemed

  1. Name: Enter a name that follows your company's naming conventions. For example: Coupon Redeemed

  2. ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

  3. Type: Text

  4. Segmentation: Available for segmentation

  5. Merge strategy: Most recent

  6. Unique Identifier: No

Has Purchased (Optional)

  1. Name: Enter a name that follows your company's naming conventions. For example: Has Purchased

  2. ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

  3. Type: Text

  4. Segmentation: Available for segmentation

  5. Merge strategy: Value of current profile

  6. Unique Identifier: Do not check for "is"


Gather data with BlueConic listeners (optional)

An option to track if a visitor has made a purchase is to use a Blueconic Behavior Listener. If not importing order data from an e-commerce connection or order data system, the behavior listener can monitor profile visits to URLs that contain defined words, like order confirmation.

Follow the steps below to configure the listener. For extra guidance, refer to the Behavior Listener documentation.

  1. Select Listeners > Add Listener > Behavior Listener

  2. Enter a name (e.g., LEAD GEN- First time Buyers)

  3. Specify channels (e.g., taylor-store.com).

  4. Click Add Rule > URL/ mobile screen

  5. Click Define value(s): Add YES

  6. Click Select profile property and choose Has Purchased

  7. Click define words and add the keywords to indicate visitor landed on purchase complete page e.g. ‘Order confirmed’

  8. Add the listener to any required objectives.

  9. Turn On and Save.


Create audience segments

After configuring listeners, create segments to precisely target your audience.

  1. Create a segment for visitors who have not made a purchase:

  2. Select Segments > Create a new segment.

  3. Name it: LEAD GEN- First Time Buyer

  4. Click Select Condition >profile select the profile property“Last Order Date” and set to: Profile property ‘is empty’

  5. Add an OR parameter for the profile property “Has made purchase” and set to ‘is empty’

  6. Add the segment to any required Objectives.


Determine the ‘Carrot’

Work with your team to determine the first-time purchase incentive and coupon code.

Determine your discount format

  • % Off (e.g., 15% off) – Easier to scale, feels significant for higher average order value.

  • $ Off (e.g., $10 off) – More impactful on low-ticket items

Create your coupon code

Select a naming convention that is functional and branded.

Style

Examples

When to Use

Simple & Generic

WELCOME10, FIRST15

Easy to remember, scalable

Branded/On-theme

GLOWUP15, PAWSFIRST

For maintaining brand voice

Think through coupon code logic and usage rules:

  • Expiration: Will the coupon code expire after a certain time frame?

  • Minimum cart value required: Is there a minimum purchase required to redeem the coupon?

  • Stackable with other discounts: Can this discount be used in with other promotions?


Create the Dialogue

Add a banner notification dialogue to encourage the visitor to make their first purchase with a discount.

(Instructions are for using an example dialogue. If using your HTML, in step 6, edit the dialogue to add your HTML.)

  1. Select Dialogues > Add dialogue > Notification Banner

  2. Name the dialogue: e.g., LEAD GEN - First Time Buyer

  3. Who tab: select the segment [Technology] – LEAD GEN – First time buyer AND profile property Coupon Redeemed Profile property does not contain any of : YES

  4. When tab: Leave default settings or adjust views per visitor as needed.

  5. Where tab: add your s site (e.g., Taylor Times) and specify pages to show the dialogue.

  6. What tab: On the right side menu, click Load examples and select the Text Message example dialogue.

    1. Edit the text to clearly state the offer (e.g., ‘Get 10% off with your first purchase with the code FIRST10’). Include any coupon rules e.g. ‘$50 minimum purchase required’

    2. Edit style of colors and fonts to align with your brand.

  7. Why tab: Click Add Conversion moment and select Profile property value and click Select profile property. Choose Coupon Redeemed or Has Purchased and select the value(s) YES.

  8. Optimization settings: For this use case, set the control group to 0% if you want to target all visitors within the segment.

  9. Add Dialogue to any required Objectives.

  10. Turn the dialogue On and Save your settings.


Configure a Connection

Identify the e-commerce platform or order management system you use, and configure a connection to BlueConic. BlueConic has several standard ecommerce connections, including Shopify and Magento. If a standard connection does not exist, set up a connection via SFTP.

  1. Select Connections > Add connection and choose your e-commerce/order data platform.

  2. Name your connection: First-time Buyers

  3. Set up and run: authenticate your connection by entering API keys and secrets as required by your e-commerce/order data platform.

  4. Import goal:

    1. Define a linking identifier to match email addresses between BlueConic and your e-commerce/order data platform (e.g., map BlueConic's 'Email address' identifier to your e-commerce/order data platform’s email field).

    2. Activate the checkbox to create new profiles in BlueConic.

    3. Map data to BlueConic Profile Properties:

      1. Email address

      2. Last order date

      3. Has purchased

      4. Coupon redeemed

  5. Add the connection to any required Objectives

  6. Click Save.

  7. Click Run now to initiate the connection and verify successful record creation in BlueConic.

Testing and Validation

Thoroughly test all configurations to ensure accuracy and expected behavior.

Test your segments and dialogue in the Simulator:

  1. Select Simulator.

  2. Click Show all segments and pin the segment you created e.g. LEAD GEN – First time buyer

  3. To test the dialogue, delete your profile using the "Clean up" button in the Simulator.

  4. Confirm the notification banner shows.

  5. Test your segment to confirm that the banner will not show for visitors who have made a purchase. Update the profile property ‘Last order date’ and add a date. Confirm the banner does not show.


Measure Your Success

Success for this experience hinges on generating leads and acquiring new customers. You can start by leveraging built-in metrics and expand your measurement approach.

Create an Insights Dashboard to Measure Success

Report on use case success with Dashboard Insights of your campaign by tracking key performance indicators.

  1. Select Insights> Add dashboard

  2. Name the dashboard: e.g., First Time Buyers

  3. Click Add insight and choose the Dialogues Table Insight.

  4. Use the Text filter (e.g., "First Time Buyers") to display relevant dialogues.

The Insight table will show views, clicks, and conversions for your dialogues.

Level-up: Track engagement and ROI with external tools and other Insights:

  • Number of new customers added per month (use Segment Size Over Time Insight).

  • Coupon redemption rate via your e-commerce platform.

  • Use insights and dashboards to monitor your customer recognition ratio (known vs. unknown customers) and work to gather more identifiers.

Did this answer your question?