REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: Great Ideas & Examples for E-Commerce Sites

Transcription

1 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: Great Ideas & Examples for E-Commerce Sites

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS VISITOR ENGAGEMENT What s Trending?...5 Shopper Acquisition & Activation...6 Capture...7 RELEVANT MERCHANDISING Individualized Recommendations...9 Personalized Boutique...10 A Shopping Companion...11 Let Your Content Drive Shopping...12 BRAND EDUCATION & DIFFERENTIATION Your Brand s Value Proposition...14 Welcome Tour for New Members...15 ABANDONMENT PREVENTION A Secret Sale...17 Cart Abandonment Reminders...18 UPSELL, CROSS-SELL & PROMOTION Targeted Cross-Sell Based on Visitor History...20 Relevant Upsell at the Right Time...21 Presenting Relevant Products...22 Add Value from Promotional Campaigns...23 PERSUASIVE PRODUCT REVIEWS Capturing Reviews at the Right Time...25 Presenting Only Relevant Reviews...26 CUSTOMER LOYALTY & SATISFACTION Credit Notification...28 RECOGNIZING INTERNATIONAL SHOPPERS Surface Important Information...30 TYPES OF PERSONALIZATION EXPERIENCES...31 COMPANY PROFILES...32 Rue La La SoccerPro.com Gardener s Supply Valore FSAstore.com Shoeline.com Patriots ProShop Quaker 2 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

3 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: Great Ideas & Examples for E-Commerce Sites Every e-commerce website is different in terms of content, offerings, layout and navigation. And every shopper is unique with diverse intentions, tastes and purchase patterns. So how do you cater to each visitor and respond to him or her in real time? This is why personalization tailoring experiences to each and every individual is increasingly critical to help you meet your business and website goals. Real-time personalization gives you the ability to instantly respond to website visitors in meaningful ways with relevant content, messaging and experiences based on their behavior and identity. It takes online customer experiences beyond the one-message-fits-all approach to generate immediate interactions, greater engagement, more conversions, and increased loyalty. When you know more about your customers and potential customers, you can fine-tune your responses, and engage and educate them on relevant offerings to accelerate the buying process. In this ebook, we ll show you numerous examples of how you can incorporate real-time personalization on your e-commerce site so you can turn more shoppers into buyers, reduce shopping cart abandonment and lift revenues. 3 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

4 VISITOR ENGAGEMENT You re investing lots of money and effort driving traffic to your website, but what are you doing once people get there? If your main goal is conversion, you must also pay attention to engaging and interacting with visitors while they are on your site. With real-time personalization, you can engage visitors and at the appropriate time request personal information like an address, enabling you to build strong and trusted relationships. Leveraging one-to-one marketing by engaging visitors with personalized content, navigation and offers has proven to accelerate the buying process. 4 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

5 WHAT S TRENDING? Visitors come to your site deep-linked from search results and arrive directly on your product pages. If they re first-time visitors, how do you get them to discover more of your products and offerings? With real-time personalization, you can provide individuals with trending products based on the category they had begun viewing. This tactic drives product discovery and more engagement. Rue La La implements a What s Trending? carousel that provides the customer with relevant products based on the category the customer spent the most time on. The company has seen an increase in visitor engagement and more revenue per visitor. 5 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

6 SHOPPER ACQUISITION & ACTIVATION You ve already created segmentation for your advertisements and marketing campaigns. And potential buyers have responded with intent by clicking them. How do you use that intent to show relevant content and products on your site? What will keep them engaged and why will they buy from you instead of your competitors? Display content that is relevant to how a visitor arrives on your site. For example, your website can acknowledge the source such as an campaign, PPC ad or social media. Present a cohesive personalized experience from your various marketing channels, highlight relevant brands or products of interest, or provide a special incentive based on the original campaign source, prompting visitors to become buyers sooner. Shoes on Shoeline.com - Free Shipping, No Sales Tax, Easy Returns Shoeline.com presents a special offer in a light-box message to visitors based on their arrival source. This message recognizes visitors from Google search, includes the product searched for and provides an incentive. This creates urgency for visitors to convert now in order to receive the limited time offer for the product for which they searched. 6 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

7 CAPTURE Most e-commerce websites have capture pop-ups targeting visitors when they immediately arrive on the site, which are almost always dismissed. Instead, why not ask for their when visitors actually start engaging with your brand? Give engaged visitors an incentive for providing their address. For example, create a sense of urgency by setting a today only promotional deadline. This message can be extremely valuable for building a relationship with your potential customers to help drive conversions and more repeat shoppers. Shoeline.com provides non-subscribed visitors with an entry prompt that doubles as a discount offer. This message is presented to browsers who entered the site through a product page, first time engaged visitors and repeat visitors increasing their subscription base. 7 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

8 RELEVANT MERCHANDISING E-commerce marketers are always trying to find innovative and unique ways to interact with and engage their active shoppers. From the moment a potential customer visits your website, he or she can receive a tailored experience based not only on basic information like location and referring source but also in-session behavior and historical activity. Combine deep analytics on shopping behavior with personalization to guide them to a purchase decision faster. $$$ Recently Viewed VIEWED SMART SORT OFF ON PURCHASED $$$ $ $$ TRIBE VISION My Account 8 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

9 INDIVIDUALIZED RECOMMENDATIONS It s no secret that consumers seek personalized shopping experiences. In fact, nearly 50% of online shoppers are more likely to shop on a site that offers personalized recommendations. Product recommendations are nothing new retail marketers, but one of the toughest challenges they face is making sure their product recommendations are relevant and effective. Do your shoppers care about the products you are showing them? Recommend products that matter to your customers. Taking product popularity (most viewed, most purchased) into account is important. But you should also consider an individual s behaviors, affinities and preferences based on time spent and level of engagement with particular brands, categories, styles, etc. along with their purchase history, location and inventory levels to create product recommendations that are unique and highly targeted to that person. Cookie cutter algorithms are a thing of the past now retail marketers can have total control of what products are being shown to their customers. It s no longer a guessing game! A provider of clothing, footwear and accessories for active skate and snow lifestyles delivers personalized product recommendations based on a customer s category affinity and product popularity. The retailer has seen enhanced product discovery and a lift in average order value. 9 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

10 PERSONALIZED BOUTIQUE The adoption and ubiquity of online networking sites, services and tools prove people are inherently social. They value what others think and have to say as among other things it helps validate their own thoughts and opinions. Since e-commerce websites are not social by nature, how can your visitors learn from others like they do on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter? Your shoppers share passions, interests and are in similar life stages. Why not enable them to learn from people most like them while they are engaged on your website? By leveraging social affinities, you can offer shoppers personalized assistance by showing them what others are browsing or buying all without requiring users to provide any personal data or profile information. The Just For Me Boutique on Madison Island, a sample e-commerce website, provides individual shoppers with lists of related products as determined by the group(s) they associate with. The retail site uses a unique personalization approach allowing visitors to browse products based on what other like-minded shoppers are interested in, researching, reviewing and buying. This interactive way to shop online enables visitors to receive unprecedented personalized shopping assistance on their site to get the feedback they need to validate and complete a purchase. 10 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

11 A SHOPPING COMPANION On most sites, shoppers rely on the back button to navigate through products they viewed in their current session. When it takes multiple visits for a shopper to convert, how do you present an easy navigation to these visitors that enables them to find the products they are most interested in? Present each shopper with a customized list of products they ve recently viewed or spent the most time viewing. This shopping companion enables visitors to quickly access their recently viewed products prioritized by their level of interest. This tactic provides visitors with quick navigation to the browsing paths they ve taken on your site. FSAstore.com introduced an expandable sidebar on their site whereby visitors can access recently viewed products sorted by interest level, determined by each visitor s active time spent on particular products. The shopping companion also provides visitors the ability to view a list of previously purchased items. Rue La La uses a vertical panel on the right side of their webpage to show visitors a list of previously viewed products. The tactfully placed panel provides visitors with quick reference to the last few products they showed interest in. The information is persistent throughout the visitor s website journey. This friendly-reminder shopping companion has resulted in an increase in revenue per visitor. 11 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

12 LET YOUR CONTENT DRIVE SHOPPING Content is becoming more influential in driving online purchase decisions. A new runner reading about how to get started with training for a marathon may need a new pair of running sneakers. It s known that retailers struggle with relating content to products. With personalization, you can subtly promote relevant products based on a visitor s content interests whether it s an article, blog or style-book. How do you attribute your content to your sales and subtly relate your content to products to convert browsers into purchasers? Real-time behavioral analytics allows you to monitor and track what visitors are reading on your site. Knowing this, you can automatically and subtly promote relevant products related to the category or tags of the content they are reading. Marrying content and personalization can encourage new ideas and product discovery. It will also help you understand what type of content is driving revenue for your brand, and then you can use that information to optimize it. Gardener s Supply Company offers a 10% related product discount to visitors who have been browsing specific articles or content categories. This personalization tactic proved successful in converting readers to buyers. 12 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

13 BRAND EDUCATION & DIFFERENTIATION Educating visitors throughout the buying process is important to driving brand awareness and increasing conversions. It helps to understand how visitors are navigating through your website, their behaviors and actions. In combining this information with real-time personalization, you can recognize where shoppers are in the buying process and customize online experiences with relevant information for each individual shopper on your site. This helps customers understand how your brand works, accelerating the buying process. 13 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

14 REINFORCE UNIQUE SELLING POINTS If your brand has a unique selling proposition, how do you educate your potential customers about your offerings and products? Create personalized brand awareness and education on your site, targeting visitors with the right content and products at the right time. Segment visitors based on where they are in the buying process to deliver educational messages, guidance and support that will lead to conversion. FSAstore.com took a deep dive into their visitor base to determine the types of shoppers visiting their site. With valuable data and insights into their visitor base, the company was able to segment and deliver personalized messages based on where they were in the buying process. These educational and helpful messages have resulted in more engagement and more revenue per visitor. 14 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

15 WELCOME TOUR FOR NEW MEMBERS Brand education is very important, especially if your site has a unique value proposition. Some of your customers are first time visitors, possibly without much knowledge of your brand and offerings. How do you educate these new visitors about your brand and guide them on their shopping journey? A first session welcome message or tour targeted at new visitors can provide valuable information about your brand and website. The better a customer understands your site and offerings, the more comfortable he or she will feel navigating it, resulting in better brand awareness and more engagement. Rue La La provides a welcome tour to new visitors on the site. This allows visitors to get to know the brand and how shopping on the site works. Ultimately, they saw an increased conversion rate for those visitors taking the educational tour. 15 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

16 ABANDONMENT PREVENTION Humans have a very short attention span eight seconds according to a recent study 1. If your website visitors are not presented with content that engages them quickly, they will leave. You need to show your customers relevant information or offers that will entice them to stay engaged on your site and complete a purchase. 1 Statistic Brain, (March 2015) 16 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

17 A SECRET SALE If yours is like most e-commerce sites, chances are your average bounce rate is between 20-40% 2. This means that visitors are departing without viewing any other pages of your site. If they came to your site in the first place, they must be interested in something! How do you keep visitors on your site and help them find what they are looking for before they decide to leave? Detect when visitors are about to leave your site and deliver a message that will grab their attention and entice them to stay. This type of message can include an exclusive sale, special offer, free shipping or a relevant promotion. A relevant or enticing message interrupting the exit process increases the chance of a visitor continuing their current session or returning to your site in the future. Rue La La uses a secret sale exit message that shows up as a member is about to leave the website. This is targeted at non-buyers to entice them with an exclusive special offer as a last attempt to re-engage would-be bouncers on their site. 2 Udemy Blog, (October 2013) 17 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

18 CART ABANDONMENT REMINDERS Shopping cart abandonment is every online retailer s worst nightmare. The average shopping cart abandonment rate is almost 68% 3 and retailers are missing out on tens of billions of dollars 4. Retailers can use personalization to remind shoppers why they should buy from you. Prevent cart abandonment by targeting visitors with a compelling reason to buy from you today. Remind shoppers of what s left in their cart with a special offer or message that drives urgency. As shoppers are about to leave the site, Rue La La presents a cart abandonment pop-up message that reminds shoppers that the item they were interested in could sell out. The Patriots Pro Shop delivers a cart abandonment message when a shopper puts something in their cart but does not buy. This reminder message drives urgency with an offer that is good for today only. 3 Baymard Institute, 4 ConversionXL, Forrester Research, (July 2013) 18 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

19 UPSELL, CROSS-SELL & PROMOTION E-commerce marketers are always looking for creative and subtle ways to sell more on their websites. With real-time personalization, you can provide your shoppers with a personalized selection of additional and relevant items at the right time while they are engaged. Here are some examples of relevant cross-selling and upselling that will drive more revenue from your site. 19 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

20 TARGETED CROSS-SELL BASED ON VISITOR HISTORY One of the best ways to drive incremental purchases on your website is by cross-selling at the right time. But how do you ensure you re delivering relevant products or upgraded services without being too pushy? With deep behavioral analytics, you can understand your visitors relationship with your brand, their persona and their intent. Thanks to these insights, you can present subtle promotions and relevant special offers to introduce upsells and cross-sells at the right time and place. Valore provides a message that targets returning visitors who have previously purchased textbooks on their site to promote a sell-back program. This targeted upsell has increased the average basket size order value and the lifetime value of a customer. 20 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

21 RELEVANT UPSELL AT THE RIGHT TIME Traditionally, e-commerce marketers have targeted their best customers with special offers by . How do you do this in real time while they are on your website? Use a targeted and personalized upsell message to grab your customer s attention to a highly relevant promotion. For example, upsell big spenders with a campaign that offers exclusive deals or free shipping services. Rue La La targeted their best customers with an offer to receive unlimited shipping for a year. The campaign resulted in increased click-through rates and opt-ins. 21 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

22 PRESENT RELATED PRODUCTS When attempting to present related products to your visitors, focus on upselling and cross-selling at the right time. If your site is sold out of a product or if you have complementary products, how do you subtly recommend related products to prevent a potential customer from leaving? Provide product options similar to those a visitor has spent time viewing or has placed in his or her shopping cart. Another opportunity is to show similar products when a product in the shopper s cart is out of stock. This will help keep shoppers on your site, increase conversions and overall revenue per visitor. SoccerPro engages its customers by offering products related to the ones they have already viewed or are already in their shopping cart. In this case, the sporting goods site took the initiative to offer someone purchasing soccer cleats a USA soccer scarf. Smart and relevant upselling equates to more revenue per visitor. 22 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

23 ADD VALUE FROM PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGNS You re already sending highly customized s that include coupons, offers and promotions to your customers, but what are you doing once a recipient clicks on your and visits your website? Many retailers are missing the boat when it comes to creating a cohesive personalized experience across channels. Create a connected experience from your promotional campaigns to your website. A personalized message targeted at clickers will remind visitors of why they originally clicked the promotional campaign. This serves as a reminder of the specific promotion, driving amore online conversions. Southwest Airlines creates real-time personalized experiences on their website by targeting campaign respondents with relevant and consistent messaging. 23 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

24 PERSUASIVE PRODUCT REVIEWS Consumers read reviews to validate purchase decisions, but retailers struggle with getting post-purchase reviews from customers. In contrast, when retailers have a library of reviews, they struggle with delivering relevant reviews of products to individual shoppers on their site. With real-time personalization, you can present in-the-moment surveys, ask for reviews of past purchased products and present only relevant reviews to your shoppers. 24 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

25 CAPTURING REVIEWS AT THE RIGHT TIME requests for post purchase reviews are ignored as consumers feel reviews take too much time to complete or they don t see the value in completing them. How do you encourage customers to provide feedback while, in turn, creating more value for future customers? Identify past shoppers and their behaviors, and deliver a real-time personalized message that asks them to review a previously purchased product when they return to your website. An incentive at the right time and place can also motivate a shopper to complete a review. Quaker asks engaged visitors if they ve tried a particular product and if so, if they would be willing to provide feedback. This simple targeted message drove engagement and increased the number of customer reviews. 25 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

26 PRESENTING RELEVANT REVIEWS You ve succeeded in building a review library for your products. How do you surface relevant reviews to your shoppers based on their behaviors, interests and demographics? People are social and want to hear from people with similar perspectives. Enable your visitors to learn from like-minded shoppers by highlighting and exposing the most relevant product reviews on your website. Madison Island provides shoppers with streamlined reviews of like-minded shoppers. The most relevant reviews are brought to the surface, driving product validation and more purchases on the site. For example, a visitor who s a business traveler viewing a luggage set can validate his purchase decision based on the reviews of other business travelers. 26 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

27 CUSTOMER LOYALTY & SATISFACTION Ninety-three percent (93%) of consumers say that rewards are very important or somewhat important when joining a loyalty program and engaging with a brand 5. But most customers do not know the awards and benefits available to them. Personalization can be used to convert your visitors to loyal shoppers while increasing overall lifetime value. 5 Access: Loyalty Statistics: The Ultimate Collection index.php/2013/11/the-ultimate-collection-of-loyalty-statistics (November 2013) 27 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

28 CREDIT NOTIFICATION Often customers earn credit to spend on the site and don t use it or even realize they have it! How do you call attention to a shopper s untouched credit and ensure they reap the rewards they ve earned? If your loyalty program offers points or credits for purchases that can be redeemed in the future, highlight this information when a customer is on your site. This simple reminder message or callout can serve as a conversion incentive. Rue La La displays a header bar at the top of the site to customers who have an outstanding credit, which has proven to lead to more purchases. 28 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

29 RECOGNIZING INTERNATIONAL SHOPPERS For retailers selling globally, personalization can help bridge the customer service gap. You can provide personalized communication for international shoppers, surfacing important payment and shipping information in real time. 29 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

30 SURFACE IMPORTANT INFORMATION When creating the best shopping experience, it s crucial to bring relevant information to the shopping journey that will help your shoppers convert faster. Visitors come to your site from all over the world, but how do you present them important information such as international shipping and payment details? Delivering important shipping and payment information in real time to international customers can save them and your organization time and potential frustration. By immediately identifying where your visitors are located, you can display such information that is specific to the individual. On Rue La La s site, a personalized message informs international customers about their accepted international payment methods. By introducing this information early in the buying process, the message helps eliminate potential buyer concerns and objections, leading to more seamless transactions. Gardener s Supply Company decreases the likelihood of an international visitor leaving the site by presenting an informational message that includes important international shipping information. 30 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

31 PERSONALIZATION METHODS When it comes to delivering personalization, you re not limited to a single method or message type. Check out your options: INLINE CONTENT Deliver personalized blocks of dynamic content based on a visitor s behavior or actions. IN-PAGE EDITS INFOBARS Personalize parts of a webpage including text and images to present relevant content. Communicate information or notifications with a persistent, but non-intrusive header or footer bar. POP-UPS CALLOUTS Interrupt the user experience to drive a critical action or to promote relevant content or incentives in real time. Lightbox optional. Highlight the most important features and content on your website to drive more engagement. 31 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

32 COMPANY PROFILES The online destination for the most desired brands at membersonly prices. They curate boutiques in women s and men s fashion, home, travel, kids, and more. Provides millions of gardeners nationwide with supplies, outdoor equipment, and apparel through their catalogs, website and retail stores. The one-stop shop for Flexible Spending Accounts. Consumers can buy thousands of FSA-eligible products and learn more about FSAs. One of the most trusted food brands for more than 135 years, includes a portfolio with a wide range of nourishing and delicious meal choices. A major U.S. airline and the world s largest low-cost carrier, serving more than 100 million customers annually. Southwest operates more than 3,400 flights a day, serving nearly 100 destinations. The official ProShop of the New England Patriots. A provider of soccer gear with an awesome selection at great prices. A retail site that provides the highest quality brands and styles from industry masters of technologically designed, comfort footwear. The students #1 marketplace to rent, buy, or sell affordable college text books. 32 REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION LOOK BOOK: GREAT IDEAS & EXAMPLES FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

33 Real-Time Personalization Evergage s cloud-based platform empowers e-commerce companies to convert more shoppers into buyers and increase average order values with real-time 1:1 personalization based on deep behavioral analytics and customer data. Contact Evergage at to speak to an expert about your needs today!