New and returning visitors

In this article: About the New/Returning Visitor condition | Usage Examples |How does the condition work | Setting up a sequence of content | How to set up a New/Returning Visitor condition

What is the New/Returning Visitor condition

The New and Returning Visitor condition lets you customize the content according to the number of times the user has seen a specific trigger. This allows you to welcome new visitors, welcome back returning visitors, speed up slow customers with engaging content and more.

How can your site benefit from the New/Returning Visitor condition?

Examples:

• Personalize titles and greetings according to new/returning visitors.
• Offer returning visitors special promotions according to the number of visits they’ve had.
• Create a sequence of changing messages every time the visitor returns to the site.

How does the New/Returning Visitor condition work?

The New/Returning Visitor condition allows you to add or replace content, depending on the number of times a user has encountered the trigger on your site. Whether the user encounters the trigger on the same page or on different pages does not matter, every time the trigger was rendered on a page it is counted as a visit.

The condition is based on a cookie that tracks the previous visits from the same user to the site. Hence, the condition will only work if the user has visited the site using the same device and browser, and did not clean the browser cookies.

Setting up a sequence of messages

You can use the new/ returning visitor condition to show visitors a sequence of different messages every time they visit a page or when they browse from page to page, for example:

1st visit: Welcome
2nd visit: Welcome Back
3rd visit: We believe you are ready for the next step…

Creating a sequence of messages is simple! The only thing you should bear in mind is that If-So first checks the condition of version A, if it’s met, Version A is displayed, if not, If-So checks the condition of version B and so on. By this logic, setting a sequence of four messages (for example) should be as follows:

How to set up a New/Returning Visitor condition

1. On your WordPress dashboard, go to “If-So → Add New Trigger”.
2. Click on “Select a condition” and select “User Behavior“.
3. Select “New Visitor“ or “Returning Visitor“.
4. If you selected “Returning Visitor” on the previous step, set the number of visits after which you want to display the content. I.e. if you want to display the content on the third visit, select “after 2 visits”.
5. In the dynamic version content field, set content to be displayed if the condition is met (optional, can be left blank).
6. In the default version content field, set content to be displayed if the condition is not met (optional, can be left blank).
7. Press “Publish” and paste the shortcode generated by If-So on your website.