This blog is an excerpt from our latest ebook “The Metaverse of Now: how hyper-personalization is bridging the retail divide” by Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash partner Nosto, an integrated suite of data-fueled personalization and merchandising solutions.
The scope for personalization is only growing as technology advances and customer expectations demand online shopping experiences be intuitive and aid discovery.
But are brands fully embracing its benefits as omnichannel shopping becomes the norm?
Personalization comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. So, what personalization tactics are worth investing in – and which are not?
Try to avoid one-off personalization placements, like a tick-the-box recommendation on a product page, or an optimized hero banner on a home page, with no bigger picture.
These are fine if you’re experimenting for learning purposes. But remember: personalization efforts should derive from your overall strategy, informed by your priorities and broad problems.
Personalization should also work in tandem with your technology stack to achieve mutual goals, which is why a software solution with good third-party integrations is essential. It’s imperative to leverage data between your personalization vendor and the rest of your business platforms to deliver consistent experiences across channels—as customers expect.
Also, brands must be careful not to underestimate the power of same-session personalization. Using real-time data to enable your campaigns to adapt as a shopper browses lets you strike while the iron’s hot, not once their interest has gone cold. Don’t fall into a rut of solely relying on historical and existing CRM data; instead, have your site pick up shopper signals (behavioral data) of an intended purchase as they browse (such as clicking and viewing products, adding items to their cart) and have your campaigns adapt to these in real-time.
We have a broad suite of personalization products at Nosto, and we’re often seeing clients create some pretty impressive shopping experiences.
One particularly progressive example is from fashion-forward clothing client, Princess Polly. They’ve tailored their homepage to surface specific content to a segment of customers who have shown affinities toward “curve” category products through a combination of our Content Personalization and Product Recommendations solutions.
Meanwhile, we have already touched on the need for omnichannel delivery. Integrating online with offline experiences is within reach with a commerce experience platform that captures data for use elsewhere to encourage customer retention. One cross-channel personalization experience Nosto allows for is enabling product recommendations rendered on-site at the merchant’s digital storefront to also be used in other content like print materials, as our client GLO Skin Body is currently doing. This is enabled through an integration we’ve built with Retain.me, and works by empowering clients to:
Pretty neat, right?
Don’t worry, mirroring your on-site personalization efforts with physical promotions isn’t your typical starting point! But what will help is quick-win ideas to get you on the road to better ROI—such as setting up Best-Sellers and Trending Now features. Not only are these a great way to target first-time visitors (most likely the majority of your traffic) but they also work well pretty much anywhere on your site.
There are plenty of best practices to learn, too. For instance, making sure you set up fallbacks for any personalized campaigns when the data required for them simply isn’t available. For example, you might have a Recommendation feature that surfaces your shoppers’ recently viewed items—but what if they’re yet to click on any products? You need a plan B, such as surfacing your Best-Sellers in these instances.
As competition in e-commerce heats up, there’s growing pressure on merchants to offer more than the bare necessities during browsing and fulfillment. Customers have come to expect a series of seamless touchpoints – from the moment they enter your website to when their order finally arrives on their doorstep. To make this a reality, you need an ecosystem of reliable partners that can support you both before and after your customer makes a purchase.
Nosto and Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash are aligned in their mission to offer merchants tailored customer experiences that build customer loyalty and engagement. From advanced personalization techniques to end-to-end customization during the order packing process, Nosto and Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash are the ideal partners to assist you in building more responsive, personalized brand experiences.
Copyright Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash 2023. All rights reserved. Use of this website signifies your agreement to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
