The Ultimate Guide to eCommerce Personalization in 2018

According to reports it has been recognized that 2017 was a vibrant year for eCommerce, it was all about changing trends and experiments. B2B (business to buyers) eCommerce came forward, and growth in the retail industry, mobile eCommerce have established a base for capitalization in the market. Now, in 2018 it is expected that with the transformation some major steps will be taken to change the obsolete ideas.

What is eCommerce Personalization?

The term “eCommerce Personalization” is familiar among online retailers, and this we count certain factors such as the practice of creating individual conversations and experiences. On eCommerce sites, you must have seen the dynamically displaying content, product recommendations or media that further depends upon browsing behavior, demographics, and psychology, and purchase history data. eCommerce Personalization is, easily understood by real examples along with tactics that are used in successful eCommerce stores.

In this highly competitive retail scenario, eCommerce personalization is an essential competitive differential. Businessmen who effectively deliver personal shopping experience either offline or online, they can attract more customers, in improving loyalty, and increasing conversion rates.

It is used to provide best services to a customer such as eCommerce sales; personalization sometimes signifies one-to-one marketing schemes; through which enterprise’s Web page is modified to target each individual consumer specifically. Personalization is the simplest way of reaching the customer’s needs more efficiently. Interacting with customers in a faster and easier way and, as a result, increasing customer satisfaction is the main purpose of visits.

Personalization is quite helpful in some ways, For example, if you have bought any items from a particular online website, then next time when you will visit, they will provide a friendly environment and helps you by offering best options. This will surely make the bond stronger, and more customers will attract. Every online website will help you in different ways; there are many portal sites which allow site visitors to modify the page and selected the best options from new categories. There are various sites from where you can get the information such as local weather reports as well as other features.

Because as from the above information it is quite clear that personalization is based on interaction, meetings or gathering user information, in which privacy issues are considered as the major concern. There are various methods through one can get descriptive information regarding the promotion or development of one-to-one marketing practices.

Nowadays, customers are using multiple devices or techniques to interact with different brands. Thus traders are also taking help of technology to track the customers; it can be helpful for gaining valuable data. Gathering the information such as how customers are responding, what are their expectations, and how to interact with customers is quite helpful according to growth perspective. Interaction with the brand and on-site experiences helps to find out the better results. Thus through statistics retailers can get significant knowledge such as increases or decrease in product view rate, purchase rate as well as average order value.

Importance of Personalization in eCommerce

Personalization is quite essential for interacting with a customer by means of effective content and other software. Companies focus on content and other personal features such as analysis and automation techniques, and data collection. This is considered as an appropriate method of increasing the revenues and customer.

Improved interaction or engagement

Through eCommerce personalization, an individual can understand the need of customers in a better way. Thus the interaction with a customer can help you to provide better services, so that can reach up to audiences expectations. The most effective way to engage with a customer is to spend more time with customers by chatting who visit your site; so that can return in the future. This engagement can help you to reach some extra goals.

Improve customer experience

In this digital era traders are showing a keen interest in sharing data with companies. This is implemented to engage more and number of customers. By filling the form and participating in the survey, it is expected that brand will protect this information. There are various options available on a website to make the customers special. It can increase the participation of audiences and hence the product value also increases. For customer experience, the option of email and chatting is the considered as the best alternative for a growth rate of a company.

Increased conversions

The more customers will interact more they can gain information. This can increase the sale as well as conversion rate which leads to nourish the targeted content. Companies implement specific strategies for managing records and increase the sales as well as general conversion. Through this one can catch the attention of your buyers for a longer lifespan.

Increase in revenue

It is quite obvious that if the rate of visitors will be high; then the revenue will also grow. Thus for this, the companies take help of offers and other events to target the audiences. It is not just about an online mechanism, but this technique is also applied in stores for deriving sale. In short, we can say that personalization is a combination of loyalty programs, sales promotion, and shopper events to boost revenue.

Increase in customer retention

No doubt to re-engage the customers; companies prefer some effective ideas. One of the most common strategies which are used in online or offline sectors is companies provide the option of saving scores for the next shopping. Moreover, giving them discount coupons and taking help of creative methods for rewarding is a unique way of retaining customers. Free delivery, inviting in events, sending free samples of new products and the feedback option is to entice audiences.

Types of Personalization in eCommerce

Personalization is all about enchanting customers with best offers. It is not scary at all but is quite valuable for traders those who prefer their customers.

Using detail of customers

By knowing the personal detail of customers you can interact with them in a most effective way. In personal details, we focus on multiple things such as name, gender, and age. After this, the traders can interact with customers through email.

Behavioral triggered emails

Behavioral personalization focuses on relevant information such as customers who have visited a site; those who wish to a bought product. It is all about the automated basket of a customer.

Product recommendations

The term personalization is not just all about sending or receiving emails. The other factors which play an important role are the homepage or product page through which you can get complete information regarding every visitor.

Personalized call-to-action

In this type of personalization, it covers all type of campaign. In this instead of targeting ample of customers; one should concentrate on a particular buyer and their interest.

Customer profiling

Customer profiling is all about the recommendation based on a customer like and dislike. It is like guesswork which includes an algorithm that involves information regarding the behavior of customers.

eCommerce Personalization Use Cases

Taking an example of product recommendations

Recommend: How To Make Your eCommerce Store Stand Out In 2017

It’s all about providing relevant information to customers for a better experience. In this, the category of product is described which include color, size, and any discount offers.

Increase AOV like ThirdLove

Here you can get a wide variety of lounges, undergarments and other products. Therefore they offer you a set of undergarments instead of buying a single pair. To target the customer they implement certain tactics such as color schemes, and discount offers etc.

Personalize Best Sellers Like Thrive Market

As mentioned, best-selling product recommendations are twice as effective when they are personalized to your prospect’s known affinities.

Personalized Similar or Recommended Products Like WForWoman

eCommerce brands can (and should) personalize as many customer touch points as possible — including email.

The WForWoman sends a personalized similar / recommended product widget along with their cart abandonment email.

Benefit of Personalization in eCommerce

In the field of online marketing, eCommerce personalization is considered as the growing trend for users. In this certain factors are involved such as personal message, customer data, and product suggestions etc. The benefits of personalization eCommerce are mentioned below:

The sale will increase by improving conversions

It is a simple as well as straightforward, technique of eCommerce personalization. It is quite helpful in targeting the customers and catching their attention to increase the sale rate.

The number of audiences will attract towards the website

It will increase the engagement of customers by making the website accessible. Therefore if the consumers can relate to it in a better way; then they will automatically spend a longer lifespan. It will also help in attracting customers over and over again.

Experience of customers will increase

One of its main benefits is strong relationship bonds for the future. Accessing the website in a customized way such as targeting ads, email messaging, or landing directly on the homepage will provide you complete information about a product. Therefore through this, you will get knowledge about specific content.

Increase in revenue or average order size rate

Indulging a large number of customers in shopping through discount offers or gift cards can increase the profit. For example, if a customer wants to buy the mobile; but by adding discount offers he/she will attract towards accessories such as cover, temper glass, and headsets etc.

Personalization in eCommerce ROI

Measuring ROI is considered as the significant activity for the marketers in terms of personalization eCommerce sites. It can figure out by calculating the efforts, for making resources equitable.

The basic formula for calculating ROI is given below:

% ROI = (Gain/Investment) x 100

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To understand the concept of ROI, you should have an awareness of certain variables such as:

• The monthly amount of unique visitors, i.e. (UVs)
• Average order value (AOV)
• Average conversion rate
• Standard margin
• Cost of a personalization solution
• A predictable increase in terms of conversion rate /or average order value
• Metrics used to calculate the effect on conversion rate
• The minimum value of Add-to-cart rate
• Cart abandonment rate

Steps used to calculate ROI:

Step1: Calculation of monthly revenue:

• Monthly revenue before = UVs x Conversion Rate x AOV
• Monthly revenue after = UVs x Conversion Rate x AOV

Step2: calculate monthly profit

• Incremental Profit = Incremental Revenue x Average Margin

Step3: calculate ROI:

• % ROI = (Gain/Investment) x 100

Website Personalization

The website personalization is the procedure of forming a tailored experience for visitors. This is essential for providing a single and comprehensive experience. eCommerce websites provide information to visitors for their unique practices.

The primary aim of website personalization is to produce relevant information for consumers, by promoting product views, and targeting audiences to generate traffic. Finally, this can leads to an increase in the purchase value. As a result higher will be the order values, and revenues will automatically increase.

How website personalization is effective

Build Brand Loyalty

Through this visitors can get complete information about the brand. Thus the content added in the website is used to provide descriptive information which strengthens the relationship. The interaction with the customer will make your bond even stronger which is helpful for a futuristic approach.

Engage Users

The demographic information is quite worthy to understand the persona. Engaging the customer by adding offers is helpful, and providing gift cards is like “cherry on a cupcake”. An individual can use this gift card while doing shopping from the same site; thus it can make a visitor a regular customer. It is all about marketing efforts which attract consumers toward online shopping.

Generate traffic

The main fundamental on which the profitability of eCommerce websites depends is generating traffic. According to website personalization if you are searching for a particular product and there are ample options available, then the website having higher traffic will be on the top list.

Converting Visitors into buyers

It is a marketing strategy which can convert the visitors into buyers. If a visitor remains in a particular website for 2–3 minutes, then this will automatically increase the ranking of a site.

Web personalization is worthy of the marketers so that they can easily interact with customers. Communicating and other activities are beneficial for the growth of a company. Web personalization is all about creating highly relevant information by concentrating on certain features such as behavior, profile, location and other attributes.

Wrapping up

The guidance for personalization eCommerce in the year 2018 is providing a unique look to your website. It is important so that it can look fresh and fulfill the aspect of customers by introducing innovative feature while they search the store. Nowadays every single day brings a new bagful of surprises; thus try to refurbish your website to convert the visitors into customers. Rearranging the products displayed on the landing page by customizing the layout is very important. Try to interact with customers by providing them with a complete description of products and other reviews to make your website user-friendly.

Originally published at www.wigzo.com on September 25, 2018.