The Benefits of eCommerce Personalization

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
2. Develop loyalty programs & earn trust
3. Merchandise appropriately and effectively
4. Answer the call for your B2B customers

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.

eCommerce Merchandising Playbook

Discover the top 10 areas to optimize your ecommerce merchandising strategy for your business.

Read the guide

1. Develop Loyalty and Earn Trust:By one estimate, the average U.S. household is enrolled in 18 different loyalty programs. From Starbucks, travel, health and beauty, grocery, to your local pharmacy, there are benefits to membership. Since it is more expensive to retain customers than it is to keep existing ones, there is a big payoff for brands. Companies with strong loyalty marketing programs grow revenues 2.5 times faster than their competitors, and generate 100-400 percent higher returns to shareholders.
   
2. Merchandise appropriately and effectively: When brands have instances of “multis;” or multiple brands under the parent umbrella, or regions with varied currencies, or perhaps complex catalogs with thousands of SKUs, they need the agility to present the right information to the right customer at the right time. This applies to loyalty programs and special pricing where consumers see customized sites and offers based on their shopping habits and membership tiers.
   
3. Answer the call for B2B customers (and omnichannel experiences): Today’s buyers, in the wake of pandemic shutdowns resulting in a decrease of live interactions, now prefer the use of portals to gather information and ask questions. In 2022, mobile and digital advertising will continue to become central to B2B marketing efforts.

• 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.