Most store owners use ads to target users who are either looking for their products/solutions or are ready to buy. These ads are the easiest to measure (you count new visits and conversions) and compare.
At the same time, they are leaving money on the table by not targeting people on other stages of the conversion path (AIDA), or targeting all of them with “push to purchase” ads.
As a reminder AIDA stands for…
- A – Awareness: people notice you exist
- I – Interest: they start caring and exploring
- D – Desire: they seriously want your product
- A – Action: they buy (or sign up, book a call, etc.)
Why? Because it is difficult to target users precisely at Awareness, Interest and Desire stages and measure their impact. Or, should I say, it was difficult.
Let me show you how you can easily target ads at these groups and measure their impact. All of it using Visitor Scoring – a unique feature available in WP Full Picture Pro for WordPress and WooCommerce.
What is Visitor Scoring?
Imagine that every visitor on your site has a small “points counter” above their head.
- They get points every time they do something that matters for your business
- You can see how many points they have in your analytics and marketing tools
- You can then group them into audiences (cold, warm, hot)
- You can target these groups with ads, compare them, measure impact of ads, see which traffic sources bring best traffic, and many more.
What can visitors earn points for? The sky is the limit.
You can give points for things like:
- Visiting product pages
- Actively searching for a product
- Signing up to a newsletter
- Starting checkout
- And more, depending on your business
You can even give negative points when someone shows they are not interested (for example, maybe they visit a “careers” page when you only care about shoppers).
How to use Visitor Scoring
Step 1. Start giving points for specific actions
The first step is to decide how many points to give visitors for taking specific actions. For online stores, it could look like this:
| Action | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Visited homepage | +1 | First touch, minimal intent |
| Visited a landing page | +4 | Showed specific interest |
| Viewed any category page | +2 | Browsing, early exploration |
| Viewed a product page | +3 | Looking for a product that meets their needs |
| Showed interest in a product (scrolled 66%, viewed gallery, stayed 20+ sec.) | +6 | Considering a purchase of a specific product |
| Used product search | +3 | Actively looking for something |
| Viewed 3+ product pages in one session | +4 | Strong browsing intent |
| Added product to cart | +9 | High purchase intent |
| Started checkout | +9 | Very high intent |
| Signed up for newsletter | +4 | Willing to stay in touch |
| Visited “About Us” or “Reviews” page | +3 | Building trust |
| Visited “Return policy” page | -9 | Not a buyer |
| Visited “Careers” or “Investor Relations” | -5 | Not a buyer |
When you decide on the actions and points, you can set it up in WP Full Picture.
Step 2. Map Visitor Scores to AIDA stages
When your marketing tools start receiving traffic information, you will be able to create audience lists for remarketing purposes (and lookalike lists).
I suggest doing it like this:
- Awareness (A)
- Score:
11–20 - These visitors saw 2-3 high-interest pages (product, category, landing), bounced quickly
- Score:
- Interest (I)
- Score:
21–30 - Visitors showed interest in a specific product, maybe even added them to cart, subscribed to a newsletter, maybe used search, read a bit
- Score:
- Desire (D)
- Score:
31+ - These visitors added a product to cart, maybe started checkout, checked pricing, joined your newsletter, maybe revisited your site
- Score:
You don’t have to use these exact thresholds, but you can see the logic: higher score = closer to purchase.
Step 3. Create targeted ads
Here’s how you can use these scores to build better retargeting audiences:
- For Awareness:
- Ad focus: broad targeting, simple value messages, show viewed products, brand awareness “Here’s what we do and who we help”,
- For Interest:
- Ad focus: show viewed products, explain benefits, show social proof, feature highlights, build trust with reviews and testimonials, “before & after” results, offer discounts, free trials, “why us” messaging,
- For Desire:
- Ad focus: push to purchase, limited‑time offers, bonuses, urgency (“Only X left”), guarantees.
Step 4. Measure impact
Use Visitor scoring to see if your ads managed to push the traffic to the next stages of conversion path.
That means: instead of asking “Which campaign got more sales?”, ask “Which campaign brings visitors with higher scores?” – the ones more likely to become customers later.
So, Visitor Scoring becomes your pre‑conversion thermometer: it tells you how “heated up” different visitors and traffic sources are, even if they haven’t bought yet.
This system tells you if money spent at the top and middle of the funnel is actually creating more high‑scoring visitors.
This is how you turn your ad budget into a controlled, measurable system, not just a set of disconnected experiments.
Quick summary
- Don’t spend all your budget only on people ready to buy now. Support all AIDA stages: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action.
- Use Visitor Scoring (with points for important actions) to see who is at each stage and to build retargeting lists for each group.
- Allocate ad budget based on how well adds push your audience to the next stages of the funnel.
