A personalized ecommerce experience can yield incredible results for retailers. Brands that leverage personalization not only see higher ROI—increases as high as 300% or more—but are also in the best position to quickly meet their customers’ changing behaviors.
Sophelle’s Senior Digital Consultant Ken Kantor recently co-hosted a webinar with Monetate’s Director of Solutions Consulting, Curt Brown on maximizing ROI with a comprehensive omnichannel personalization strategy. Check out the webinar here!
What Is Omnichannel Personalization?
Omnichannel personalization is the practice of using real-time data from multiple channels to create customer experiences that extend across every touchpoint. The goal is to build consistent relationships with customers wherever they interact with a brand.
The more personalized retailers make each customer’s experience, the more value they can provide, making it easy for customers to find the most relevant products. Retailers benefit significantly from the deep level of engagement omnichannel personalization inspires in consumers. Consumers browse more, click more, and buy more, leading to higher revenues across all metrics: the average order value, items per order, and total revenue all increase.
Omnichannel personalization is now table stakes retailers, who are continually identifying and adopting increasingly advanced personalization strategies.
eCommerce Personalization by the Numbers
eCommerce technology company Monetate recently conducted a study on ecommerce personalization and ROI, asking retail executives: What is your approach to ecommerce personalization?
Nearly half said they’re actively leveraging best practices for ecommerce personalization, employing technologies and tactics that they consider a core part of their omnichannel strategy.
Monetate’s study also revealed these ecommerce personalization trends:
- 75% of companies use at least some advanced personalization
- 70% of companies that used advanced personalization said they earned 200% ROI or more from their efforts
- Companies that don’t have centralized ownership of personalization are 3x more likely to see negative or small ROI
- 34% of North American and 20% of EMEA companies use advanced personalization across the entire customer lifecycle
- Companies with a clearly defined marketing-led personalization function were 38% more likely to earn 400% ROI or more than their counterparts
How to Get Started with eCommerce Personalization
Now is the time to ramp up your ecommerce personalization efforts. Here’s how to get started:
Align with the buyer’s journey
When developing an omnichannel personalization strategy, it’s important to consider every step of a customer’s shopping experience. A customer’s mindset and needs change depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey, and meeting them where they’re at is critical.
Are they casually browsing your homepage? Looking for items on a product page? Getting ready to check out? Product recommendations, for instance, must be tailored accordingly.
Example: Customers interacted with a European omnichannel apparel retailer’s website differently in every country. By creating a digital experience optimized by country to account for consumer behavior, the retailer achieved a 222% higher conversion rate and a 321% lift in revenue.
Leverage product data
Companies store a variety of valuable customer data attributes in their product catalogs. The more robust the data, the more opportunity there is to make elaborate rules or filters for product recommendations that deliver an improved buying experience. If you know a consumer is driving a Toyota Prius, for instance, you wouldn’t show them the same recommendations as someone driving a Ford F50.
Example: A major Canadian retailer needed to optimize their AI to maximize the performance of product recommendations across multiple product categories. Leveraging their data more strategically enabled them to provide customers with more relevant product suggestions. Click rates rose 86%, and the retailer is tracking toward an additional $1 million in incremental annual revenue.
Invest in the necessary resources
An essential component of effective ecommerce personalization is continually testing and optimizing—the data doesn’t lie! This step must be a part of a retailer’s everyday workflow.
Some companies struggle with personalization because they lack the resources to give it the time and attention it needs. Others don’t know how to leverage AI to its full potential and not conduct adequate testing and analysis.
Retailers that intend to make ecommerce personalization a priority will need to dedicate sufficient resources (i.e., people and time) to consistently optimize their omnichannel strategy.
What to Look for in an eCommerce Personalization Platform
Sophelle helps customers optimize their approach to ecommerce personalization. When looking to adopt a personalization platform, we recommend looking for these essential capabilities:
- Headless infrastructure gives you the ability to deploy how and when you want.
- Real-time decision-making 1:1 makes real-time personalization decisions based on “last click” behavior, guiding customers to the products they’re interested in.
- Omnichannel personalization ensures consumers receive the same level of personalization regardless of the touchpoint (e.g., desktop, mobile, in-store kiosk).
Want to explore a 1:1 personalization strategy for your ecommerce business? Get in touch with Sophelle today!
