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What is ecommerce personalization?
Ecommerce personalization is the process of creating individualized interactions and experiences for customers on the internet. This customization can be influenced by factors such as a customer's past purchases, browsing habits, geographic location, language, and other personal data. The visualization of this personalization by customers can be found, for example, in recommendations such as "you will also like" or "our pick for you".
The benefits of personalization in ecommerce
Personalization in ecommerce has emerged as a powerful strategy for businesses seeking to differentiate by delivering a unique and personalized customer experience. Indeed, 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences. By providing product recommendations and contents tailored to individual preferences and behaviors, ecommerce personalization offers a unique, customer-centric experience that motivates engagement and brand loyalty.
Increase brand loyalty
The personalization of content for consumers enhances their buying experience by providing them with appealing and relevant contents, making the process more enjoyable and efficient. This tailored approach can positively impact your ecommerce business, as demonstrated by a study indicating that 87% of consumers surveyed say that personally relevant branded content positively influences how they feel about a brand. Ultimately, this enjoyable experience creates a memorable impression and bolsters the company's reputation. This approach is crucial as customer retention plays a vital role in the success and growth of a business.
Boost sales
By personalizing messages and contents, as well as offering discounts and rewards, consumers are more inclined to make purchases, resulting in an increase in sales. 78% of U.S. internet users said personally relevant content from brands increases their purchase intent. Indeed, presenting pertinent and tailored content enables customers to save time and effort while exploring ecommerce websites, as it effectively captures their attention and streamlines their browsing experience.
Increase in web traffic and conversion rate
By customizing your website's contents to cater to your customers' interests, you can experience a boost in site traffic, as visitors are more likely to spend time on a website that resonates with them. As Harry Roth, a former customer success manager at Dynamic Yield, suggests, when users encounter appealing content that is easily accessible without extensive scrolling or navigation, not only does this result in increased traffic, but it also enhances conversion rates by streamlining the user experience on the website.
Ecommerce personalization tips
To maximize the benefits of ecommerce personalization, consider these tips that can enhance your customers’ digital experience.
Data privacy: To create customized content, gathering personal information is essential, however, it is the ethical obligation of a business to ensure that this data is not misused or mishandled.
Segmentation: By dividing your customers into distinct groups based on their preferences, behaviors and demographics, you can create tailor-made experiences that correspond to each segment. This increases the chances of engagement and conversion.
Dynamic content: Producing dynamic content enables you to provide real-time content that adapts to your visitors, ensuring that the content remains up-to-date and aligned with their current interests and requirements. Incorporating visuals, such as images, displays, and videos, enhances the content's appeal for consumers, capturing their attention and fostering engagement.
Building deeper relationships with customers: Foster strong connections with your customers by delivering tailored messages, such as celebrating their birthdays or expressing appreciation for their purchases, which demonstrates your attentiveness and gratitude.
The 4R of personalization
Discover the 4R framework of personalization to create a personalized digital experience for your customers.
Recognize
Gain deeper insights into your customers and prospects by collecting information about them, including their occupation, organization, geographical location, languages spoken, interests, and more.
Remember
Keep track of your customers' online history, encompassing browsing behavior, actions performed, and inferred interests to understand their purchasing choices, research topics, and the reasons behind their decisions.
Recommend
Reach out to your customers by providing contents that are to their needs, assisting them in navigating the vast amount of information they come across.
Relevance
Deliver personalized contents, product suggestions, cross-sell deals that are the most relevant to them by adjusting and concealing certain information to align with their individual interests, needs, and preferences, taking into account their location or the products they us
Ecommerce personalization trends
Artificial intelligence
The advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning provides businesses with additional opportunities to customize the customer journey and enhance his shopping experience. By leveraging AI-powered tools such as A/B testing and machine learning, businesses can analyze a vast amount of customers’ data and tailor an online shopping experience for each user by providing personalized recommendations, dynamic contents and promotions.
Omnichannel personalization
Omnichannel ecommerce personalization has emerged as a significant trend due to the growing need for seamless, consistent, and engaging customer experiences across multiple touchpoints. Omnichannel ecommerce personalization consists of offering a tailored experience across various channels, including physical and online store, social media, email and mobile apps. As customers interact with brands through diverse channels, they expect a unified shopping experience. In addition to offering a personalized experience to your consumers, you'll also be able to collect and analyze data from different channels such as purchase browsing history, email interactions, social media activity and so on.
Sephora, is a great example of omnichannel personalization, since it offers a personalized shopping experience in both their online and offline stores. Indeed, through their loyalty program and mobile app, Sephora enables customers to have access to product recommendations, past purchases and offers. When shopping in a physical store, customers can use the Sephora mobile app to scan products and see alternative suggestions. Sephora’s sales consultants also have access to client profiles, making it easier for them to offer personalized assistance.
First-party data privacy
As online shoppers are getting more concerned and cautious about data collection and usage, data privacy has become a crucial trend in ecommerce personalization. The approach of first-party data consists of collecting data from your own sources rather than co-partners or unknown sources, making it more privacy-friendly and accurate. Companies prioritizing privacy only collect essential data, safeguarding shoppers' privacy and fostering trust and loyalty. With data breaches becoming more frequent, this trend is anticipated to become standard practice, making it imperative for e-commerce businesses to prioritize privacy protection.
Product personalization
Product personalization in ecommerce refers to the process of allowing customers to make specific alterations or design changes to a product according to their preferences, before purchasing it. This could range from choosing colors or materials, to engraving their name or printing a logo on a product.
This trend is growing due to several reasons. First, it provides a unique and personal connection between the customer and the product, enhancing customer satisfaction and perceived value. This, in turn, can increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases. Second, in a crowded market, offering personalization options allows businesses to differentiate themselves from competitors. Finally, advancements in technology have made it easier for businesses to offer such services. Product configurator tools, 3D printing, and agile manufacturing processes now allow businesses to create personalized products at scale and at affordable prices, making product personalization a viable and attractive strategy in today's ecommerce landscape.
10 examples of ecommerce personalization
Explore a variety of business personalization examples that you can easily implement into your current practices to enhance your customers’ digital experience.
Product recommendations
Offer your customers a personalized selection of recommended products, based on their browsing and purchase history, as well as items added to their shopping carts.
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Promotions for first-time visitor
Create a positive first impression for shoppers by providing discounts on their first visit to your website. Entice them with offers such as "Subscribe to our newsletter and get 10% off your first purchase" or "Enjoy 10% off when you spend $30 or more," making it more appealing for them to place their first order. This method aims at familiarizing customers with your brand and building a connection with shoppers, increasing the chance of securing repeat purchases in the future.
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Personalized method of payment
Offer your customers the option to choose from various payment methods, including "interest-free 3-installment payments”. By providing multiple payment options, you cater to different customer preferences and financial situations, creating a more convenient and customized shopping experience.
Complete the look
Showcase related products to your customers that complement their desired purchase, such as items that help complete a look. By offering personalized product recommendations based on a customer’s individual preferences and selections, this approach aims at helping shoppers to discover complementary products that can create a cohesive and stylish outfit.
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Retargeting ads
Use data on customer behavior and demographics to present them with tailored ads, marketing contents on social media and other advertising platforms. This motivates customers to revisit your website and make purchases aligned with their past browsing and buying habits.
Abandoned cart reminders
Send personalized reminders about items left behind in customer’s shopping carts to encourage them to complete their purchases. You could even include an coupon within the reminder as an additional incentive for them to complete their purchase.
Personalized emails
Send personalized messages to your customers to make them feel special. You could, for example, mention their first name for a personalized and up-close effect, or send an email after a consumer has made a purchase to ask for feedback and show your gratitude for the purchase and for choosing this brand.
Recently viewed items
Create a "recently viewed items" section that presents products customers have previously looked out, motivating them to reconsider these items and potentially add them to their shopping cart.
Top selling products in your area
Dick's Sporting Goods leverages the geographic data of its online customers to offer tailored product recommendations by highlighting the most popular items purchased by other consumers in their area, catering precisely to their potential needs and interests.
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Personalized ecommerce home page
Personalize the home page of your ecommerce to adapt to customers’ preferences, emphasizing on pertinent categories and items.
Product personalization
Product personalization is a prime example of ecommerce personalization, allowing shoppers to personalize products to their unique preferences and tastes. By offering customization options such as color, size, material, or design elements, businesses, like First Manufacturing Company, can create a memorable and satisfying shopping experience for their customers.
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How to start with ecommerce personalization
If you want to move ahead with the ecommerce personalization process, now is the time to plan!
1. Define your goals
Determine what you want to achieve through personalization, which may include objectives related to sales, average order value, customer satisfaction or retention.
2. Collecting data
Gather data from various sources, such as website analytics, purchase history, and customer interactions while maintaining customer data privacy. Analyze this data to understand customer preferences, behaviors, and patterns. For this step, it is crucial to categorize your visitors into two separate groups: new visitors and repeat visitors. The following is an overview of the data that should be gathered for each of these groups:
First-time visitors: pages viewed, time on site, items wishlisted, items added to cart and exit page.
Returning visitors: past purchases, average order value, the time interval between purchases, customer lifetime value and interactions via email or social media.
Even though the aim of personalization is to customize the experience for an individual user, it is essential to establish customer segments and create relevant personalization strategies for each group.
3. Establish personalization strategies
It’s time to develop tailored content for your customer segments! Incorporate elements such as product recommendations, promotions, and personalized emails on your website.
4. Test and optimize your personalization
Measure the performance of your personalization using metrics such as conversion rates, average order value and customer satisfaction, and determine which strategies pay off for your ecommerce business.
Ecommerce personalization platforms
Ecommerce personalization software allows ecommerce to provide more personalized product suggestions, promotions, ads, and experiences to shoppers navigating their website. These softwares employ vast amounts of search activity and additional data to categorize shoppers and identify the content they should see. Discover the best ecommerce personalization platforms on the market and boost your engagement and conversion rates.
Insider : An ecommerce personalization software for personalized, cross-channel experiences that allow marketers to integrate customer data from various channels and systems and utilize an AI engine to forecast customer behavior to deliver tailored experiences to customers.
Yieldify: This software is designed to help your ecommerce business to optimize your customer journey and boost conversion rates by providing some key features such as dynamic overlays and notifications, data analyzing, exit intent technology, A/B testing and more!
Bloomreach Commerce Experience Cloud : It is one of the easiest platforms to use on the market. It provides tools that promote true personalization and digital ecommerce expansion such as discovery, AI-powered search and merchandising, marketing automation solutions and more.
ActiveCampaign : With ActiveCampaign for Marketing, leverage data from email marketing, social media, digital advertising and your website to create personalized interactions with your customers.
Ecommerce product personalization
While ecommerce personalization and product personalization are two distinct concepts, product personalization can be seen as a subset of ecommerce personalization. Both aim to create a more tailored and engaging shopping experience, which can drive customer satisfaction and increase sales. Indeed, ecommerce personalization aims at tailoring the entire online shopping experience based on the behaviors, interest and preferences of the customers. Conversely, product personalization is the personalizing of the product itself by the customers.
If product personalization is a strategy you are considering, then Kickflip is a solution you will certainly want to explore. Kickflip allows you to present product options to your customers while displaying a high-quality and real-time visualization. Kickflip will enable you to offer your customers a unique personalization experience thanks to its robust set of features: live coloring, add text and image, print-files ready, dynamic pricing and much more.
Conclusion
Ecommerce personalization has emerged as a game-changer in today’s competitive digital environment. By offering personalized contents, you can significantly enhance customer engagement and satisfaction, foster brand loyalty and ultimately boost sales. It’s time to embrace the power of personalization and transform your ecommerce into a profitable and customer-centric business that stands out.
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