It’s no surprise that website personalization is high on the priority list of ecommerce executives. The challenge is knowing how to implement personalization in an effective way that maximizes profit.
One-third of consumers want more personalization in their shopping experiences and that number is on the rise. Similarly, 77% of marketers believe real-time personalization is crucial to the success of their business.
Website personalization, often aptly referred to as one-to-one marketing, makes online shopping easier for both ecommerce retailers and consumers. By presenting more directly relevant content, websites become increasingly useful and engaging. Not only does this boost revenue, it also decreases site bounce rate, while enhancing overall engagement.
The Aberdeen Group recently reported that “41% of leading retailers analyze site search data to personalize the ecommerce experience.” They argue that the right data helps merchants pinpoint problem areas that could be improved through personalized campaigns.
Naturally, the more data you have about your customers, the more you can push the needle for increased revenue. The challenge remains in collecting massive amounts of customer data, securing the resources to quickly figure out how to use it, and in executing marketing decisions based on that data.
The Solution
Leveraging customer data with the help of artificial intelligence can lend a tremendous competitive advantage to any online retailer. Especially in markets like retail ecommerce where improved, personalized experiences stand out as innovative beacons among otherwise humdrum ecommerce websites.
Attempting to manually collect customer data is a waste of time at best, and damaging to your business at worst. It’s just not possible to gather all relevant metrics with the speed and efficiency necessary to make an impact. Only when the data is sourced through artificial intelligence (AI) and business intelligence (BI) tools does collecting, analyzing, and interpreting customer data become a successful reality.
AI enables ecommerce executives to collect and analyze in-depth customer data at a fraction of the time and at a higher efficiency than would ever be possible manually. This way, marketers can focus on the big-picture issues such as how to utilize that data to improve their personalization efforts.
For example, Personali AI platform for E-commerce, offers an intelligent incentive platform that uses AI and machine learning algorithms to leverage captured data and present each website visitor with a targeted incentive that aims to increase their likelihood of converting.
At its core, Personali’s AI-powered technology taps into the principles of behavioral economics. It is able to gather precise data on each site visitor, and determine the optimal incentive type, level, and experience for that specific person–in real-time.
Leveraging Data to Enhance Personalization
Having access to valuable data about your audience is an essential first step, but knowing how to interpret that data and determining what to do with it remains your next challenge.
To actionably leverage your data, you can utilize:
Content Personalization
The term ‘Content personalization’ is used for content specifically aimed at an individual consumer. This may include recommended articles, videos and products.
Content personalization looks at things like:
- Past consumer browsing and buying behaviors
- Product reviews
- Website views, clicks, and pathing
- Social media followers, likes, and engagement
Serving the same generic content to all site visitors is nothing short of a missed opportunity, not only from a sales perspective, but because it is expected by the consumer.
AI technology can help collect all the relevant data and use it to offer the most relevant content to each site visitor. This makes for a more seamless, efficient, and lucrative selling experience.
Just look at Amazon. Upon entering the site, you are welcomed with a variety of personalized content:
- “Stephen’s Amazon.com” on the top left corner
- Greeting you with “Hello, Stephen” on the link to your account
- A Wish List tab for all your favorite items
- Offers the local version of the website, based on your location
- Hovering over “Your Account” offers a variety of personalized pages to access
- Based on the device you use to access the site (in this case Android), they offer you the Android App Store
- A list of items you may be interested in based on your gender and interests
- A list of items you previously viewed and may still be in interested in
Not only do these personalized content features make for a more enjoyable consumer shopping experience, they are also extremely effective at increasing sales.
Personalized Incentives
Another effective way of utilizing data for personalization is through delivering real-time personalized incentives. And, when the process is powered by AI, personalized incentives have unlimited potential to increase sales conversions, enhance website user engagement, and boost profitability from each transaction.
This chart shows personalized incentives at work, bringing website shoppers through a real-time funnel that is at once precise, engaging, and sales-driven, in the most relevant ways possible.
Source: Personali
Data is power. And, the more information a company has about a given consumer, the more empowered they are to help each consumer find exactly what they need, when they need it.
The trick is to know how to effectively capture relevant data and utilize it in ways that will enhance your website’s personalization. With AI technology, not only is it possible to collect and analyze practically infinite amounts of data, you can also take advantage of AI-powered BI tools to further optimize personalization–thereby increasing sales and boosting profitability.
Disclaimer:
This is a guest post by Mali Cohen Denzinger, VP Marketing Personali. An experienced marketing executive with nearly 20 years of experience, specifically in the software industry. With the proven ability to drive numerous, simultaneous promotional initiatives to successful results. The opinions and ideas expressed herein are author’s own, and in no way reflect Cloudways position.
Sajjad Shahid
Sajjad is an Ecommerce Community Manager at Cloudways. He loves helping out Ecommerce store owners, merchants and marketers in establishing their businesses and startups. Sajjad enjoys playing table tennis and cricket over the weekend.
