No doubt personalization plays a critical part in any eCommerce strategy. A vast majority of shoppers expect personalization in their experience, provided the data is on their terms.
Personalization: It’s a New Day for Data Collection
When it comes to eCommerce merchandising campaigns it’s ok to get personal. In fact, it’s mission critical. With the death of third-party cookies, retail marketers are forced to revisit how they collect data and lean in on first or zero-party solutions to power personalized shopper experiences. Research shows today’s shoppers care how you get their data and what you do with it.
“Seventy percent of consumers like personalization, as long as brands are using data they’ve shared directly.”
Source: Twilio
What is eCommerce Personalization?
Ecommerce personalization is the process of creating customer-centric eCommerce sites that dynamically display specific content, product recommendations, and explicit offers based on past activities, browsing behavior, purchase history, demographics, and other personal data.
Source: Docmation
So, what are the benefits of investing in eCommerce personalization?
1. Drive Conversions and Revenue
Guide the customer journey with pertinent data and predict behavior with AI capabilities. The goal is to be two steps ahead of your shopper and keep them in a buying cycle. This journey is fueled by data and predicting buying desires based on finely tuned algorithms.
Source: Chaco.com
Here we see product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history. The site uses powerful social commerce proof with the use of hashtags to identify what other Chaco fans (just like you) are wearing. Not only are you spending more, but you are part of an exclusive club of quality footwear.
Source: Amazon
Here is another instance of personalization where the customer “picks up where they left off” in their browsing history, a brief history of their recent purchases, and an offering/coupon from a partner affiliate.
Source: The RealReal
Email personalization triggers an action to avoid cart abandonment.
With this curated content, the shopper is reminded of their cart items, and either may be offered a special discount code as an incentive to purchase, or as with the example may feature personal recommendations based on their cart.
Studies have shown that personalized emails have six times higher transaction rates than traditional email.
Furthermore, personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened than those without one.
Source: Freepik.com
Pop-up offers entice first-time shoppers to purchase, but also capture emails to grow the customer base.
eCommerce Merchandising Playbook
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- At the same time, marketers are also adjusting to a work-from-home reality. Around 70% of B2B buyers and decision-makers prefer remote or digital interactions with vendors.
- Gartner predicts this number will tick up by an additional 10 percentage points by 2025. These buyers will likely respond better to more digital strategies.
- In the wake of rising interest in DTC and B2B2C channels, businesses must have the tools and commerce platform requirements to properly market not only from an omnichannel perspective but across devices. Of all the factors considered by Google when deciding how to rank your website on search engines, mobile usability is ranked as the third most important of all the factors.
Many vendors in the market offer specialized expertise in personalization to help you manage this powerful capability, and their applications will integrate seamlessly with your commerce platform. For a list to get you started, read our Best eCommerce Vendors for Personalization blog post.