The Homepage split most brands haven't tried

We had

on Live with Intelligems 💎 last week and I keep thinking about one thing he said:

"60-80% of your homepage traffic is new visitors. But most brands have one homepage built for everyone, which means it's really built for no one."

Shane's take: you need two experiences. One for new visitors. One for returning ones.

New visitors need to be sold. Hero product up front. Brand story. Reasons to buy. Multiple add-to-cart entry points.

Returning visitors already know who you are. They don't need the brand story again. They need a fast path to a PDP or collection page.

Shane spent years in physical retail before ecommerce. Nordstrom's suiting department, specifically.

While the tailor was measuring a customer in a $1,000 suit, he'd go grab shirts and ties, show them how six combinations work, stack the add-ons before the credit card came out. That's merchandising. That's also exactly what a well-designed homepage should do.

My pushbask was: "it's hard enough to maintain one homepage." Shane's response: the new-visitor version is set-it-and-forget-it. Revisit seasonally when imagery or hero products change. It's not a live maintenance burden.

The other insight worth flagging: you can't control all the traffic entry points to your homepage. Paid? Sure, send them to a landing page. But organic traffic, social shares, a friend dropping your URL via text all of them land on the homepage. That's why the homepage itself has to do this job.

The execution:

- Build the new-visitor experience

- Run it as an A/B test targeted to new visitors only

- If it lifts, turn it into a personalization

- Revisit seasonally

Full stream linked below. Shane covers this plus a speed run on what Intelligems is shipping right now.

What's your homepage strategy for new vs returning? Curious if anyone here has tested this split and what you found.

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