May 03, 2017

Ever thought your web site might be underperforming because it’s not doing the right kind of personalization pushups?

You’re not alone. Despite a desire to serve more personalized experiences, marketers are having a hard time implementing personalization.

Personalization drives results

We know personalization drives results. In fact, the more you flex your web site personalization muscle, the more likely you are to deliver a web site with muscular conversion rates. Optimizely (Episerver) recently shared results of how intelligent personalization have impacted their clients, showing Sainsbury’s increasing Average Order Value (AOV) by 50%, and boosting units per order by 65%. The same report showed brands of Arcadia, including TopShop showing a 7% increase in sales with a 66% increase in units per order after integrating a more robust personalization engine.

Want to bulk up your eCommerce site? It’s a good idea to start by getting schooled on how to integrate personalization push-ups into your workout.

From Crawl to Sprint: Leaping Through the Four Stages of Personalization Fitness

Ramping up personalization to drive engagement during a shopping experience on your digital platform can happen quickly when you overhaul your thinking and little determination. You can start incrementally, but if your organization wants to get from “couch to sprint 5K” quickly, a personalization commerce platform can make the change happen quicker than you thought.

When If you’re not a runner, and you need some marathon training, it’s good to understand thehere are some pointers on the different stages of personalization: basic core principles.

Stage 1: Crawl (Or Couch)

(Managed by Designer)

In this, the earliest form of personalization fitness, a shopper self-selects the path they will follow through the web site or mobile experience. It could be as simple as choosing a language to browse in, or for brands that offer products to segmented markets, (for example, a line of separate products for home vs. commercial use). These options,presented as the shopper lands on the site, set them on their path.

While rudimentary, many websites still set these options in a flat navigation, not clearly asking the consumer to choose a guided experience. Make no mistake: understanding

customer segments is a basic but essential step on the path of personalization.

Stage 2: Walk

(Managed by Developers)

“Hello, Chris”

“Your recent orders...”

“Your cart...”

Increasingly, brands are profiling their customers in order to better understand how to cater the shopping experience to specific “personas.” Mothers with kids, Millennials with excess income, middle-aged dads, or weekend warriors?

Using rules on the back end, a personalization engine that’s fit to deliver specific content to specific personas can use data to target particular segments with specific content and products.

Need the ability to collect data? You betcha. Your database needs the muscle tone and consistent tuning to not only collect the data, but adapt rules based on results and metrics by careful monitoring. This stage of personalization is the most gruelling, requiring a whole lot of diligence and consistency; but it’s also the most rewarding!

By giving your digital commerce a “personal trainer” to watch pain points, and correct as needed, the fitness regime is well underway: The personalization marathon is within reach.

• Based on when a user is logged in
• Known information stored within the site
• Show unique content based on that person’s information and history

Stage 3: Run

(Managed by Editors)

“Visitors from Chicago”

“First time visitors”

“Visitors clicking from email marketing campaign”

Here’s where the endorphins start to kick in and the workout pays off (and the workout becomes fun and a lot less painful). When your personalization engine is getting toned up, and that data six-pack is starting to show, everything starts to run like a well-oiled machine. Alongside those personalization rules from Step 2, machine learning-based algorithms now automatically help shoppers select the best experience, and offer value-added suggestions, and segmented content personalized to them. The shopper gets to enjoy the results of the well-toned personalization muscle.

• Based on groups of visitors
• Criteria based on implicit and explicit content
• Show content targeted to a group of visitors browsing the site

Stage 4: Sprint

(Managed by Artificial Intelligence)

“People who bought this also bought this...”

“You may also enjoy...”

This stage combines all the stages, taking into account customer preferences and real-time activity to deliver a truly individual experience to the shopper. With high-level data, visual metrics, great content adapted to each persona and individual, served up with self-directed options, in an intelligent and intuitive way, customer friction is minimal, if not gone, and the customer experience becomes effortless, and enjoyable.

Offering best-bet products, and profiled landing pages gets progressively stronger over time, as your system’s algorithms and ranking behavior are analyzed and improved upon.

• Based on behavior of current visitor or similar visitors
• Page visits and clicks are tracked and stored for later analysis
• Unique content is returned using machine learning algorithms

Your web site is now ready to run a marathon!

Work incrementally towards the goals that you set—keep collecting data, learn about your customers, so you can continually grow and improve.

Your website is ready for a more vigorous workout regime—give it a little muscle. Spring is here. There’s no better time to get fit!

Based on Optimizely (Episerver)’s 4 Steps to Achieving Personalization – Check it out!