How to introduce more personalization into your eCommerce marketing

Crowd-sourced product recommendations, such as bestsellers and trending items, are an essential addition to any eCommerce store. But in order to maximize the potential of product recommendations, retailers and brands need to get personal. By recommending products based on the customer’s frequently browsed items, for example, you’re more likely to resonate with each shopper and spark their interest. In fact, almost 1 in 4 shoppers want retailers to make it easier for them to find products they might like. Personalized product recommendations is an effective way to do this. Here are a few ways to include personalized product recommendations in your eCommerce marketing.

Cooksongold highlights recently browsed items on product pages, enabling them to present products likely to be of specific interest to the customer whilst harnessing the power of familiarity since customers tend to prefer products they have seen multiple times. This tactic has paid off for Cooksongold, as they’ve seen a 112% year on year sales uplift thanks to their onsite product recommendations.

Personalized product recommendations can have a greater impact on email revenue than crowd-sourced product recommendations. Here are the stats to prove it. Vision Direct increased click-throughs by 557% with personalized product recommendations in their emails.

Recent research found that over 1 in 3 consumers want to see products and offers featured in marketing emails based on items they purchased. Try using the customer’s browse and purchase data to personalize the recommendations you display in email newsletters, or show your customers products based on what shoppers like them purchase.

Viovet makes sure their email newsletters resonate with recipients by highlighting top picks for each individual based on their past purchase and browse data.

By sending triggered emails, such as cart and browse abandonment alerts, you’re already reaching customers with relevant information at the moment they’re most likely to convert. But marketers can boost the converting power of their triggered emails by including personalized product recommendations to give the shopper more options and help them find that perfect product.

The Diamond Store offers six tailored product recommendations alongside the shopper’s browsed items in their browse abandonment emails. The Diamond Store’s personalization efforts have paid off, as the company has seen an 8% sales uplift with their personalized cart and browse abandonment emails.

With dynamic content, marketers have the ability to turn a standard piece of content into something that’s more likely to catch shoppers’ attention. But if your idea of dynamic content is addressing customers by their first name in your marketing emails, it’s time to take your personalization efforts up a gear. 

Here are a few ways to use dynamic content in your eCommerce marketing.

Physical stores change their window displays and bring out different products to fit their location’s context, and successful eCommerce stores are no different. 

With dynamic content based on contextual data, eCommerce stores can make use of geotargeting to treat customers differently based on where they’re located, ensuring that they see content most relevant to their current context. 

Surfdome uses a bright orange banner on the homepage to promote the release of their winter gear, as well as highlighting their range of winter wetsuits and ski products. 

Retailers can boost the relevancy and impact of their cart and browse abandonment emails by including imagery of the carted or browsed product in the hero banner.

FFX highlights the brand of the shopper’s abandoned product with a dynamic hero banner. Personalizing their cart and browse abandonment emails based on shoppers’ brand affinity was a priority for FFX, as power tool buyers tend to be loyal to certain brands due to compatibility requirements. It’s a tactic that has paid off for the hand and power tool company, as their personalized cart and browse abandonment emails achieve an impressive click to open rate of 45%.

Pop-ups and popovers are an eCommerce staple. But if everyone who visits your website sees the same generic data capture popover, you’re missing a trick.

To get the most out of your popovers, take a segmented approach to display relevant messaging at each stage of the customer journey, and use contextual and behavioral data to catch each shopper’s attention.

Feel Good Contacts uses targeted data capture popovers to deliver different messages to different customers. New customers are presented with a popover offering 10% off their first purchase, while students are informed about the company’s student discount. By showing website visitors the most relevant deals, Feel Good Contacts encourages more email sign-ups. The introduction of targeted popovers to the Feel Good Contacts site generated more than 10,000 additional registrations in the first month alone, representing a 333% increase in sign-ups month-over-month.

Cottages.com uses a popover to remind visitors of their last viewed product, including an image of the product to help jog their memory. Shoppers will appreciate the gesture, as they don’t have to waste time finding the product they searched for last time.

The benefits of personalization are clear; shoppers see content that is relevant to their context and behavior and are more likely to convert (or re-convert) into customers. The personalization tactics presented here can be used across web and email and are proven to generate results. If you’re not already using these tactics in your marketing or you want to optimize your personalization efforts further, work through the tips and examples and prepare to see your engagement and conversion rates rise. And be sure to test and measure along the way to discover what resonates best with your audience.

If you’re feeling inspired to include more personalization in your eCommerce marketing, download our Ultimate Ecommerce CRO Lookbook. It’s packed with 21 real-life eCommerce personalization examples to increase your conversion rate.