How to (Actually) Use AI to Turn Traffic into More Leads
You’ve probably seen phrases like “use AI to get more leads” popping up all over the internet. AI is definitely the latest buzzword. But let’s clear something up: AI isn’t at the level where you can just tell it what to do, and it magically boosts your business. That’s not how it works.
What you can do, though, is use AI-powered tools and large language models (LLMs) to build a system tailored specifically to your business goals. This can automate and streamline many processes, leading to impressive results over time.
Today, I’m going to break down one of these solutions: how to (actually) use AI to turn your website traffic into more leads. By the end of this post, you’ll understand how it works, what components are involved, and who can benefit the most from it. Plus, I’ll discuss the limitations, so you get a realistic view of what AI can and can’t do for your business. No hype, just practical insights.
Disclaimer: You need a steady stream of website visitors every day for this to work well. It doesn’t matter if they come from organic traffic or Google ads. This solution is only useful if it has people to interact with in the first place.
This is what we’re trying to build
The goal here is to create an AI assistant for your website. This assistant will help visitors by answering their questions about your products or services, guiding them to what they’re looking for quickly and easily, and encouraging them to take the next step (lead magnet) in your marketing funnel.
It’s like having a helpful store employee online who can assist customers, help them find what they need, and gently persuade them to make a purchase, all while improving their overall experience on your site.
But that’s just one part of it. On the backend, we’ll build an automated funnel that will smoothly guide the visitor through a sales pipeline. This pipeline will take them from the lead magnet to an appointment or free call, where you can eventually close the sale.
Here is what we need
To build and assemble this solution, you’ll need a few key tools and software:
1. AI Assistant Builder: I recommend Voiceflow if you want something easy but with some limitations. If you’re looking for more advanced features and don’t mind a steeper learning curve, Chatbotbuilder.ai is a better choice.
2. CRM (Customer Relationship Management): For small to medium-sized businesses, GoHighLevel is an excellent option because it has everything you need in one place.
3. Automation Tool: This might be optional, depending on the combination of AI assistant builder and CRM you’re using. If you go with GoHighLevel, Make.com is a cost-effective option. Alternatively, Zapier is also great but a bit more expensive.
An high-level overview
Here’s a step-by-step overview of how this AI assistant works:
Website Visitor Interaction:
A visitor arrives on your website and starts exploring your offerings.
Initial Engagement:
The visitor asks questions about your product or service. The AI assistant answers these queries and suggests taking a free quiz (or another lead magnet) to engage them further.
Note: You can replace the quiz with any lead magnet, such as an e-book, discount code, or a free trial, as long as it’s gated, convenient, and immediately useful to the visitor.
Quiz Engagement:
Scenario 1: The Visitor Takes the Quiz
After the quiz, the AI assistant asks for their contact information to email the results. Once they provide it, they become a lead. An automated email then informs them about qualifying for a free consultation call.
Outcome: The lead either books the call or, if not, gets assigned to a lead nurturing campaign for further engagement.
Scenario 2: The Visitor Does Not Take the Quiz
The AI assistant continues answering their questions. Before ending the conversation, it suggests joining the newsletter for tips, discounts, or news.
Outcome: If the visitor subscribes to the newsletter, they get assigned to a lead nurturing campaign to convert them into a lead over time.
Building the Solution — Technical Guide
In this section, we’ll break down the technical details of building this solution:
Voiceflow Build
Looks scary, right? But don’t worry. It’s not as complex as it seems once I break it down.
Create a knowledge base:
Start by building a detailed knowledge base. Make sure it’s well-organized with important URLs strategically placed throughout the docs. Remove any unnecessary information and keep only what’s needed for accurate AI answers.
You can give ChatGPT your website URL to automate creating this knowledge base, but you’ll need to edit and refine it to fit your use case for the AI assistant.
Building a high-quality knowledge base is a topic worthy of its own guide. Let me know in the comments if you want one.
Design the conversation paths:
Next, create a simple welcome text block in Voiceflow. Add a few buttons that direct users to common questions or topics. You can keep expanding the conversation flow using buttons, as shown in the screenshot below.
The first buttons act like main categories, leading to more specific subcategories, creating a help desk-like structure. This might look complex (and it is), but it’s to guide users through the conversation flow more predictably.
You can also let the AI handle all queries if your knowledge base is solid. But personally, I’ve seen that relying solely on AI for everything can sometimes produce unpredictable, unwanted, and even inaccurate results. So, I narrow down the use case of AI to a few specific inquiry and conversation paths to get more predictable outcomes, while I manually design the responses for the rest.
This is a limitation of chatbot builders like Voiceflow. That’s why objective-based chatbots are becoming better alternatives. I’ll cover more on this in a future article. So, make sure you follow me.
Suggesting the quiz (lead magnet):
If a user clicks a button with high buyer intent, they will be redirected to an AI response that answers their questions. This response will be followed by a text block suggesting they take a free quiz or assessment (lead magnet).
If the user shows interest, the chatbot can either load the quiz in the chat window (if the widget fits) or provide a link to the quiz page.
Regardless of whether the user takes the quiz, the chatbot will eventually suggest signing up for the newsletter. If the user agrees, we use an API call to store their information. This process is pretty simple.
Make.com
The API call uses a Make webhook to capture contact info like name and email. This information is then sent to the CRM (I used GoHighLevel for this). Additionally, we add a tag to contacts received from the chatbot. This helps us differentiate which leads came from which source within the CRM.
GoHighLevel
Whenever a new lead is added through Voiceflow and Make.com, they go into a lead nurture campaign in the CRM.
For users who take the quiz, here’s the workflow that follows:
No matter which CRM you use, setting up something like this is simple. When someone fills out a form (trigger), they are added to our sales pipeline as a new opportunity or lead, along with contact info captured from the quiz. At the same time, they receive an automated email that looks like this:
If they click on the “Schedule your free consultation” link, they’ll go to a calendar page to book a slot for a free call at their convenience. Once they book the slot (trigger), they get added to a new workflow, which looks like this:
This workflow is simple. When a new appointment is booked (trigger), it activates multiple reminders (immediately after booking, a day before the call, and 30 minutes before). This reduces no-shows significantly, sending reminders both to the user and the business team members.
The email the user receives with a Zoom or Google Meet link looks like this:
The email the team member receives looks like this:
Users can skip directly to this workflow if they choose the “talk to an expert” button in the chatbot, available in every conversation path.
The chatbot will also periodically suggest a free consultation call based on the user’s questions anyway. So, if at any point, they click that button, the chatbot provides a hyperlink to the same calendar in the email. Again, adding a direct calendar widget in the chat window is possible but not always practical.
Is this solution right for your business?
This solution mixes AI with simple old-school funnel building. It streamlines the visitor’s journey on your website, optimizing every path they might take to become leads and eventually paying customers.
And the chatbot is just one part of this.
You can also put the free quiz (lead magnet) on your homepage and menu, along with the free consultation call, to boost conversions.
Additionally, instead of a small chat widget button at the bottom right, you could have a large chat window on the homepage, taking up the entire width of a section. This needs some extra customization but can make a big impact.
One limitation is the chatbot’s lack of dynamic responses. You have to build the entire conversation flow manually, considering all possible paths a user might take. This is impossible to do perfectly, making the chatbot not the ultimate solution.
The answer to this is objective-based chatbots, which I’ll write about soon. Follow me to stay updated.
Another limitation is the time and technical skills needed to set this up. Many businesses might struggle with this, but you can hire an expert to help.
If you want something similar for your business but the process seems too complex, or if you’re looking to develop a custom assistant tailored to your specific needs and objectives, I can help.
You can contact me by filling out this form.
Alternatively, you can directly reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me at rishi@logicfunnels.in.
