Ecommerce Personalization: What You Need to Know

Whether we realize it or not, when we browse our favorite online shops we are enjoying a bespoke experience tailored to our needs and interests – and usually, that’s what keeps us coming back. This is ecommerce personalization. Learn more about why you should be using ecommerce personalization to convert and keep a loyal customer base, as well as ecommerce personalization examples.

What is Ecommerce Personalization?

Ecommerce Personalization is, in short, tailoring your customer experience to each consumer who comes your way. For example, a customer visits a website that uses personalization. Upon returning, that customer will see a different page from one who’s visiting for the first time, and a customer who has yet to make a purchase will see a different page from one who has. 

Personalization can be based on several different influences including browsing history, location, a customer’s previous purchases, demographics, and device usage. When you collect this customer data, it can be used to serve them more effectively and recommend more relevant products.

Why is Personalization Important in Ecommerce?

In 2022, customers expect a personalized experience online. Unlike a brick-and-mortar shop, which can only have one storefront, online retailers have the opportunity to curate their user interface for each and every customer. This is an invaluable tool when it comes to standing out in the very crowded online marketplace.

Similar to approaching customers on the shop floor in traditional retail, ecommerce Personalization seeks to make the user experience (UX) as effortless and intuitive as possible.

Benefits of Ecommerce Personalization

Better Conversions

Did you know that 75% of customers will leave an online shop if something uninteresting or irrelevant is shown to them? 

It makes sense: with near-infinite retailers available at the click of a button, why would you waste time on one that doesn’t cater to what you’re looking for? 

Different levels of personalization are useful for different things. Some personalization should be seamless – all the customers should notice is they had an easy time getting what they were looking for (and then some). 

Email marketing personalization, on the other hand, is more noticeable. You might personalize by using their name, or location. This is more effective at catching the customer’s eye. 

With personalized customer recommendations, you can expect fewer abandoned shopping carts, as you’re filtering based on what the customer needs and wants.

You’ll see an increase in customer loyalty, as users begin to recognize your store for its effortless shopping experience. 

Marketers have reported a 760% increase in email revenue thanks to targeted and personalized emailing campaigns.

Improved Understanding of Your Customers

This is truly crucial to the growth of your business – you need to understand your shoppers to strategically sell to them. 

Giving your customers a personalized experience allows you to analyze the information you collect from them. If a website feature is performing well, implement more. If it’s receiving few conversions, consider a new approach. 

Not only does this allow you to create a better UX, but you can also use this information to make better predictions for how well certain products will do, and order accordingly.

Higher Retention Rates

It’s been estimated that 41% of customers leave a website or store due to poor personalization and low trust. What does this enormous loss tell us? Customers value feeling understood and catered to. For instance, if they receive an informative, personalized experience in your advertising, they’ll absorb it as valuable information, rather than an intrusion on their buying experience.

Increased AOV

Through upselling, cross-selling, and down-selling, you can hugely increase your Average Order Value. 

Upselling consists of encouraging customers towards an alternative product or service at a higher price point, or pushing add-ons and enhancements before they check out. 

Cross-selling consists of suggesting related products to the ones customers already have in their carts. These are not necessarily pricier items, but rather things that pair well with the original product. For example, a bookseller might recommend books from the same author or a similar genre. In ecommerce, the obvious example of this is Amazon’s ‘Customers also bought’ box. 

Downselling consists of either promoting inexpensive extras just before, during or just after checkout or offering a cheaper alternative to something they have shown interest in. They may not be willing to spend the cost of the original item, but that doesn’t mean you need to lose the sale. 

For instance, if your customer is buying a printer, offer them ink. Or, if they looked at a £200 printer and clicked away, offer them the cheaper alternative. Like the above two strategies, it can be extremely effective for increasing your AOV.

Ecommerce Personalization Examples

Email Marketing Personalization

This can be as straightforward as putting your customer’s name in the subject line or greeting of a marketing email. ‘You won’t want to miss our weekend sale!’ becoming ‘Alex, you won’t want to miss our weekend sale’ and changing ‘Hey There,’  to ‘Hey Alex,’ might not sound revolutionary, but it can be the difference between your email being opened or not. Most email service providers offer this feature.

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) Marketing

This takes customers’ viewing data or buying habits and uses it to entice other potential buyers. An example of this would be going to a product-detail page and seeing a little badge on the item claiming it’s had ‘57 views in the past hour’ or ‘3 customers have this in their cart’.

Weather Sensitive Personalization

It may not instantly seem relevant but think: if you’re a clothing company advertising your winter collection on the homepage of your website, you’re going to want a customer in California to see different imagery than a customer in New York. On a more nuanced level, this also allows you to show customers ads for raincoats on cloudy days and t-shirts on warm ones, putting the product that they need at the forefront.

Personalized Geographic Location Targeting

Similarly, this allows you to show customers the right products and promotions for their location, reducing the number of product categories the customer will need to scroll through. This improves the customer experience and provides more relevant conversion opportunities.

Tempting Back Abandoned Carts with Personalized Promotions

This can either be in the form of directly referencing the abandoned item ‘Alex, did you forget to check out?’ or offering individual promotions based on items the customer viewed. Consider what might have turned that individual away, and provide a better offer. For example, offer free shipping, or a 10% discount if they checkout in the next hour.

Personalized Pop-Ups

These appear when the customer is at risk of clicking away, and usually either upsell free content or offer limited-time promotions. These pop-ups create a sense of urgency, and might just be the difference between a sale and not.

How Yardline Can Help

Hopefully, this illustrates what a huge difference ecommerce personalization can make in your sales and marketing strategy. The team at Yardline is composed entirely of ecommerce experts, here to determine the best marketing for your ecommerce business and provide funding to realize it to its full potential. If you’d like to grow your client base and up your conversions, get in touch with us today.