“C old” and “warm” traffic are both terms most in the marketing world have used or come across in some shape or form. The consensus is pretty easily agreed on - warm traffic is good and cold traffic is bad. After all, cold traffic doesn’t convert and nobody wants it.

Although the above is true, let’s dive a bit deeper and understand what is “cold” and what is “warm” when it comes to online traffic. Typically, “cold” traffic refers to those with no particular intent to interact with your product or service and/or no specific knowledge of it. “Warm” traffic, on the other hand, are those that are actively seeking your product or services and have a specific degree of knowledge of what you offer.

Granted, from the above it makes sense that you would only want “warm” traffic, as if someone is actively searching for you that means that they are likely to convert and become a paying customer. This is true to an extent. Yes, the individual is knowledgeable about your products and likely needs them, but this individual is often searching around and comparing you to the competition. We call these folks - shoppers. This implies that not only should your product be better, but your funnel has to be better as well. This complicates things.

On the flip side, consider cold traffic. These are people who have no intent, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a need. Out of the people that have no intent, there’s a substantial subset of people that have a need. If you understand this simple concept, it opens up a whole new world of opportunities. Think of it this way, have you ever walked by a bakery or an outdoor cookery, smelt the alluring aromas and realized just how hungry you are?

This concept can be used in online marketing as well. Attracting traffic that has no intent but has a need and educating them on your product actually turns them into “warm” traffic with 2 key differences:

First - competition. You are competing over a much larger audience with a much smaller number of competitors. This implies scalability and price control.

Second - quality. The traffic that has been warmed up by internal efforts has not become “shoppers” yet and is solely focused on your product. Having an effective funnel, in this case, will yield high CRs and gives you the most for your buck. The best bit? It’s all 100% traceable so you know precisely which efforts yield what returns.

To summarize, by effectively focusing on “cold” traffic, you have the potential to increase your revenues with a scalable approach by creating high quality prospects out of traffic that nobody wants and all this can be done without affecting any of your existing marketing sources.