E-commerce personalization: 6 ideas to boost conversions

PersonalizationBy Mariana Bonanomi

E-commerce personalization is a must these days: this industry has witnessed a significant boom in recent years, and with this rapid growth came enormous competitiveness.

Consumers already expect a personalized purchase journey. And obviously, offering them exactly what they seek keeps you on top of their minds — meaning more loyalty, higher conversion metrics, and increased ARPU.

Check out the following sections to foster a deeper relationship with your customers.

  1. E-commerce personalization based on users’ reading history
  2. E-commerce personalization based on users’ location
  3. E-commerce personalization based on users’ interaction with products
  4. E-commerce personalization based on the marketing campaign
  5. E-commerce personalization based on purchase behavior
  6. Exit pop-up personalization to avoid cart abandonment
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A image showing an e-commerce homepage with increasing conversions

What is e-commerce personalization?

E-commerce personalization refers to the practice of tailoring the online shopping experience to individual users based on their preferences, behavior, demographics, and other relevant data. It involves using various techniques, such as data analysis, machine learning, and algorithms, to provide personalized product recommendations, content, promotions, and messaging to customers.

By personalizing the shopping experience, e-commerce businesses aim to enhance customer satisfaction, increase engagement, improve conversion rates, and ultimately boost sales. Examples of e-commerce personalization include recommending products based on past purchases, displaying relevant content based on browsing history, sending personalized email offers, and customizing website layouts for different user segments.

E-commerce personalization beyond product recommendations

Most e-commerce retailers are already accustomed to using personalization for product recommendations.

While this makes sense, a personalized experience should go beyond product recommendations by improving many other user journey stages.

If you're having a hard time coming up with personalization ideas that can be game changers in metrics such as ARPU, conversion rate, and average ticket, keep reading.

E-commerce personalization based on users’ reading history

Online shopping consists of multiple channels that influence buying behavior, and blog posts are one of such channels. Customers nowadays want to read information about a product before deciding to buy it. The content users read usually says much about their purchase intentions and preferences.

If your site offers a wide range of products and services, you can personalize your home banner to reflect the content a user has previously read. For instance, a user read your post on caring for the skin. When they revisit your site, you can display a range of skin care products on the home banner using personalization. Now the user can shop easily without distractions.

E-commerce personalization based on users’ location

Users' locations help you predict their wishes, how to communicate with them, and where they want their products shipped. Personalizing product pages to correspond to their regions helps you stay relevant to them. You can do this in many ways; here are three of those possibilities:

Local culture

If you have clients in different regions, it's important to avoid communication breakdowns. Your homepage can't show promotions that only apply to New York per to all visitors on your website. Users from Paris will feel unfairly treated, as advertisements do not apply to them because of their location.

With personalization, it is possible to adjust communication to specific locations. —thus avoiding generic communication.

Depending on your type of business, you can also adapt the communication to meet local speaking expressions and even slang. But remember: be careful with the stereotypes!

Personalization ideas for location, illustrating destinations for New York and Paris
Personalizations for location

Local weather

Weather plays a significant role in the e-commerce sector, especially fashion. Showing products by weather location is powerful, mainly if you sell products for multiple climates. Personalization helps you segment users based on their geolocation so you can run marketing campaigns according to the local weather.

If it's cold in a particular region, you can direct users to a home banner promoting cold-weather clothing and accessories, and vice versa. Placing the right seasonal products in front of the right users is a sure way to increase your average order value (AOV).

Personalization ideas according to cold and hot weather, displaying icons and women's outfits
Personalization ideas for different climates

Free shipping

Shipping terms and conditions have a profound influence on shaping user behavior. It accounts for over 65% of consumers' purchase decisions in the retail e-commerce business.

If you're offering free shipping to multiple areas, personalize it to each user's location to inform promotions correctly. For example, if you're a US-based company, you can offer free shipping on orders above $50 in the free shipping top bar, and for a UK visitor, this may change to $100.

Two different top bar personalization ideas for free samples to Boston or free shipping to London
Top bar personalization ideas for free shipping

ISZI, a Brazilian cosmetic brand, achieved a +39% increase in conversion rate and an +88% increase in average revenue per user by personalizing their shipping bar according to region. Croct's geolocation personalization combined with AB testing helped them get these results.

E-commerce personalization based on users’ interaction with products

Many customers have defined preferences and usually access an e-commerce site to buy products from a specific brand. A user is more likely to purchase something based on the range of products from a familiar brand than going through a long list of items they won't ever be interested in.

Home banner with example of products user has interacted
Home banner with products user has interacted

With e-commerce personalization, users who interact with specific products through searches and clicks can immediately view those and other products from the same brand on the home banner. Using an existing preference to simplify the purchase journey by suggesting products from a brand can bring huge benefits, such as increasing conversion rate and revenue per user.

Farmamake used personalization to segment visitors who interacted with specific product categories and displayed the same offer on the homepage. This resulted in an 82% increase in conversion rate and a 59% increase in the average revenue per user (ARPU).

E-commerce personalization based on the marketing campaign

Campaign ads aim to attract users and increase website traffic. Some users click ads and go to your site immediately, while others return later to search for the offer that attracted them earlier. Displaying the same campaign offer on the home banner increases your chances of conversion from the leads that clicked on the ad.

Personalization example with a home page displaying the same ad's offer
Home page with the same ad's offer

Sem Parar used personalization to segment users who had seen a particular campaign offer and display the same offer to them on their homepage. This resulted in a 13% increase in returning users' conversion rate, saving time and costs on remarketing campaigns.

E-commerce personalization based on purchase behavior

Acquiring a new customer is 7 times more expensive than retaining one. Investing in recurrency initiatives is generally more cost-effective as they are already familiar with your brand and are more likely to make repeat purchases.

By investing in customer loyalty programs and providing excellent customer service, businesses can encourage repeat purchases and reduce acquisition costs.

Personalization examples of special discount and referral program
Example of special discount and referral program

You could create customer-focused programs, such as subscription or member-get-member plans, and use personalization to communicate it only to people who have already made a purchase. This could also leave you the opportunity to offer new customers specific first-purchase coupons without showing them to customers who would not be eligible.

Learn how Care Natural Beauty has increased their conversion rate by 34.5% and the average revenue per user (ARPU) by 97% by using this strategy.

Exit pop-up personalization to avoid cart abandonment

Exit pop-ups are a fantastic way to boost your conversion rate. They're instrumental in reducing cart abandonment on e-commerce sites when laced with enticing discounts or free shipping offers.

However, if exit pop-ups are not personalized to the right user and don't appear at the right time, they come off as annoying.

Rather than displaying generic content when someone tries to leave your site, you can display one or two products the user has previously viewed, with some promotions attached to encourage conversion. For example, you can set a rule that triggers your pop-ups to show on specific product pages for users interested in that product. You can learn more about personalizing exit pop-ups here.

Personalization examples with idea for exit pop up
Personalization idea for exit pop up
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A image showing an e-commerce homepage with increasing conversions

The importance of AB testing

As much as these personalization ideas can increase your average revenue per user, AB testing plays a vital role in validating which ones actually change results. Many factors impact the purchase journey in e-commerce, so it's necessary to constantly AB test which personalization idea resonates more with your users.

AB testing validates hypotheses about which changes on the content of your website have the most impact on maximizing conversions. Simply changing offers or suggesting products and measuring the overall effect on your website could be misleading. With AB tests, you can measure strategic performances, thereby improving your CRO.

That's a wrap

E-commerce personalization is vital for future-proofing your business. Customers today want a simplified purchase journey and more personalized shopping experiences. The alternative of not using personalization in e-commerce can mean an opportunity cost, resulting in the loss of revenue.

If you need more ideas to work on your website, check out our personalization guide.

We hope this blog post has inspired you. And if you're looking for a platform that helps you improve conversion rates and average revenue per user, create a free account and try Croct.

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