Personalization ideas to boost your e-commerce engagement
The e-commerce industry has witnessed a significant boom in recent years. Reports on global e-commerce growth show a steady rise in sales from $4.2 trillion in 2020 to $5.5 trillion in 2022. This number is expected to increase in the coming years, proving that e-commerce will keep thriving immensely.
But with this rapid growth comes enormous challenges and competitiveness. Customers are constantly seeking a more personalized experience in their purchase journey. E-commerce brands are continuously vying for consumers' attention, no matter the niche.
To meet the increasing demand of consumers and stand out from competitors, you need to adopt personalization strategies.
Personalization is the new standard in the market and one which shoppers expect. That ally helps you offer a better user experience and keeps you on top of consumers' minds. And that means loyal customers and higher conversion metrics.
With the help of the following personalization ideas, you can foster a deeper relationship with your users, leading to a rise in your conversion rate and average revenue per user (ARPU).
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 stages of the user's journey.
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.
Personalization according to the blog posts the user has already read
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 a lot 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.
Personalization according to the user's location
Your user's location helps you predict their wishes, how you should communicate with them, and where they want their products shipped. Customizing product pages to fit the user's location helps you stay relevant to them. There are many ways you can do this; here are two of those possibilities.
Local culture
If you have clients in different regions, it's important to avoid communication breakdowns. For instance, your homepage can't show promotions exclusive to peculiar regions to all visitors on your site. Users from other locations will feel unfairly treated, as the advertisement does not apply to them because of their location.
With personalization, it is possible to adjust communication to specific locations. This way, your homepage would display the promotions focused on each user's region, thereby 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!
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).
Free shipping
Personalize the free shipping top bar according to the user's location 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.
In the case of ISZI, a Brazilian cosmetic brand, they 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 geo-location personalization combined with AB testing helped them get these results.
Website personalization ideas according to users interaction
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 products they won't ever be interested in.
With 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.
You can use the example of Farmamake as an inspiration. They used personalization to segment users 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).
Personalization according to the marketing campaign
Campaign ads aim to attract users and generate traffic to your site. Some users click on the ad and get on your site immediately, while others come back 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.
One of our clients used personalization to segment users who had seen a particular campaign offer and displayed the same offer to them on the homepage. This resulted in a 13% increase in conversion rate by returning users, equally saving time and costs on remarketing campaigns.
Personalization according to 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 business and reduce acquisition costs.
You could create customer-focused programs, such as subscription or member-get-member plans, and use personalization to communicate these 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.
Ideas 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 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.
The importance of AB testing
As much as these personalization ideas can increase your average revenue per user, AB testing plays a vital role during implementation. 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 what changes on the content of your website had 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.
Conclusion
Personalization is the future of e-commerce. 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.
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.