Seven supercharged ways to activate, retain, and monetise your unknown users

According to a Braze study of 2.5 billion active users of over 100 apps, up to 86% of users across brands may be anonymous users—users who view your website or app without logging into an account.

What’s more, these unknown users are taking action and spending money. Anonymous users are 58% more likely to make a purchase within their first week of visiting a company’s website or using their app than known users. 80% of these users never receive any marketing outreach from the brands whose websites and apps they engage with. The cost of under utilising or ignoring these customers is dangerously multiplying. 

Building an anonymous user engagement strategy can be an impactful way to drive user activation, retention, and monetisation. Engaging your audience of anonymous users is a powerful organic growth strategy that can help cut back on customer acquisition costs and bolster your brand’s first-party data collection efforts.

Learn how to identify anonymous users and create lasting relationships with them by downloading the Braze Know your Audience guide here.

So what are the most effective customer engagement campaigns for converting anonymous users into known users? Here are our top seven:

1. Account creation campaign

The situation: You have anonymous users actively browsing on your website or engaging with your app, but they haven’t created an account yet. As a result, they cannot enjoy all of the advantages of having an account, such as creating a wish list, favoriting products, and keeping track of their orders.

The campaign: Encourage anonymous users to complete the process of creating an account using in-product messages, such as in-app messages, Content Cards and in-browser messages. Helps if you can add a quick snippet that highlights the benefits of signing up for an account.

2. Free trial opt-in campaign

The situation: Your team wants to convert anonymous users actively browsing on your website to try out your company’s subscription service.

The campaign: Test a variety of channels, content and design options, and message send times to find the optimal combination of variables and maximise your free trial conversion rate. Once you can convince users of what your brand has to offer, they’ll be more likely to commit to becoming paying customers.

3. Survey campaign and customer preferences campaign

The situation: While the Braze allows you to capture some data about your anonymous users, you still want to learn more about your customers to be able to serve them better.

The campaign: Use in-product messages like in-app messages and Content Cards to prompt anonymous users to provide additional data about themselves. Be sure to highlight the value proposition of sharing information with your brand by explaining how you’ll use these insights to improve the customer experience.

4. Message opt-in campaign

The situation: You want the chance to educate your anonymous website and app users about your products and services before they bounce, so you can extend things beyond a one-time interaction to a long-term relationship.

The campaign: Use in-browser and in-app messages to encourage anonymous browsers to opt into receiving relevant updates from your brand. As always, be sure to explain what’s in it for customers as they decide whether they want to get outreach from your company or not.

5. Abandoned onboarding campaign

The situation: Your unknown users have started the process of becoming more fully known users. Maybe they’ve created an account, but haven’t completed their profile, added a payment method, or made their selections in your app’s preference centre. Whatever the case, they’ve been introduced to your brand but probably aren’t getting the full benefits of engaging with your app or website.

The campaign: Use email, mobile push, and web push notifications to re-engage these new users and communicate the upside of picking up where they’ve left off in their onboarding journey. Be sure to link them directly to the exact step where they dropped off in the flow, providing a clear path toward completion and subsequent long-term engagement.

6. Special offer activation

The situation: Your anonymous users have indicated their exit intent to leave your website, but you still haven’t captured information to help convert them into known users.

The campaign: Showcase in-browser messages that feature exclusive special offers before your unknown visitors bounce. This approach gives them a reason to stick around and encourages them to engage more deeply and drive additional account creation.

7. Seasonal promotions

The situation: You know the power that great personalisation has, but how do you personalise the experience for the users you know the least about?

The campaign: With the customer insights that the Braze automatically collects, such as usage session activity, device details, custom events, and event properties, you actually have enough information to tailor your app and website experiences for anonymous users.

So go ahead, use the solutions you have been empowered with to personalise the experience for your anonymous users based on the information you do know.

See the ROI of your anonymous user campaigns — get started right away.

That first 24-hour window surrounding a customer’s initial anonymous session is your brand’s opportunity to have the greatest impact. We’ve found that brands that take action within the first day see time-to-purchase decrease for both web and mobile users.

In today’s world, as a result of third-party cookie deprecation and other privacy-related changes, such as Apple’s changes to IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) is a random device identifier assigned by Apple to a user’s device), 90% of surveyed brands plan to increase their marketing budgets. One area where marketers are planning to invest more heavily is in their owned, first-party data. First-party data is the information that customers actively share with brands as they engage, whether that’s by creating online accounts or opting in to receive SMS or email marketing campaigns. That change in focus is making it increasingly important for brands to take a new approach if they want to maximise growth without relying on third-party data. Anonymous users offer an untapped opportunity to grow first-party data and new known users.

Remember, every paid, known subscriber was once an anonymous user. To adjust to today’s fast-moving landscape, brands need to take a deeper look at their audience of anonymous users and how they’re currently reaching them. Based on Braze research, brands that foster long-term relationships with anonymous users can achieve a strong ROI, improving overall business performance.