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Eight Mistakes in personalisation on the web
1. Eight Mistakes
in Web Personalization
Overcoming the common barriers to success
A Baynote eBook for marketers.
2. Contents
It’s all about you 2 Mistake #5 12
Looking backward instead of forward
Personalization defined 4
Mistake #6 13
The benefits of personalization 5 Letting personas drive personalization
The Eight Mistakes 6 Mistake #7 14
Limiting your personalization to the web
Mistake #1 7
Living and dying by profiles Mistake #8 15
Forgetting the power of search
Mistake #2 8
Building your personalization strategy Let’s re-cap 16
on rules alone
Get Adaptive 17
Mistake #3 9
Thinking like NASA Conclusion 19
Mistake #4 10 About Baynote 20
Waiting for the ‘big signals’
Resources 21
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3. It’s all
about you.
Your sister has had another baby.
Nice. Now you’ve got a dilemma.
If you go to your favorite ecommerce website
and buy her that little set of onesies,
you’ll never hear the end of it.
Because every time you come back to the site,
you’ll be besieged by ‘Little Me Layette Sets’,
bodysuits, blankets and tiny, reversible hoodies.
‘Honestly, folks, it was just a one-off.
I’m still into the Ramones.’
4. Only 23% of online shoppers rate their
experience as excellent.
We’re into the second It’s based on our experience in helping
some of the world’s most successful
decade of the 21st century. online brands deliver highly personalized
Baynote
‘Online Holiday Shopping Experience Survey’
Why are so many websites’ experiences without investing millions
in over-engineered ‘platforms’ or deploying
attempts at personalization dozens of expensive analysts (a few clever
still so clunky? analysts go a long, long way if they’re
focused on the right things).
It’s not like it’s a new idea. The vision
of personalized web experiences has been We call this new approach ‘Dynamic
around for more than twenty years. Personalization’ because it takes a
But for most websites and other digital Darwinian approach to the problem (sped up
channels, the promise is far from the reality. a bit). The idea is simple: the best content
for any specific interaction is that which
Clearly, something is holding marketers is most clearly aligned with the visitor’s
back from delivering the relevant, timely, intent, it’s that precise moment. It’s all part
highly targeted web experiences that of our Dynamic Personalization vision. But
we can all picture. more on that later…
This eBook is about these obstacles –
and the things marketers like
you can do to overcome them.
5. Personalization
defined.
Traditionally, personalization Instead of treating everyone exactly
the same, personalization is about
has meant: leveraging important clues about
each visitor, including their profile
(if they’ve completed one), their past
Serving specific content behaviors (such as recent purchases)
to a web visitor based and things like their browser version
or ability to handle Flash.
on the things you know
about him or her. Intent-driven Dynamic Personalization
adds an important dimension to the
traditional personalization vectors.
If a profile tells you about who is visiting,
intent clues can indicate why they’re there.
These intent-based indicators are driving
a new kind of personalization that’s
changing the way marketers think
about customer engagement.
6. The benefits of
personalization.
Done correctly, personalizing Increased conversion rates
However you define conversions –
your customers’ online sales, downloads, sign-ups –
experiences delivers massive the right personalization can
dramatically improve them.
benefits that can be grouped
into two big buckets: Happier customers
When they get what they came for, people
stay loyal, tell their friends and return fewer
products. So the big metrics that drive
customer lifetime value go up. And the
benefits go beyond e-commerce product
recommendations, extending to content
sites, too.
In a few months, we’ve had a significant
improvement in our conversion rates.
It’s been trending towards a double-digit
increase. And I don’t take that lightly.
Joe Nashif
US Appliance
7. The Eight Mistakes.
Here are eight of the top
personalization mistakes
and misconceptions we’ve
seen repeated over and
over again.
Some may seem obvious,
others might be new to you.
But they’re all much too
common for comfort…
8. Mistake #1
Living and dying
by profiles.
Most marketers think Think about it: if you’re marketing
effectively, a large proportion of your
you just can’t do web traffic will be new visitors; people
personalization without you have no data on. But that doesn’t
mean you know nothing about them.
detailed profiles.
They’re wrong. In fact, if you’re looking, you can pick
Understand Intent up dozens of clues from each session.
Think about the clues your web visitors are We call these intent clues because they
sending out as they click through your site – tell you what the visitor is trying to do –
things like scrolling, dwell time and on-site and they’re available to you whether or
search. Now think about how you can leverage not you know the name, address and shoe
these even if you don’t yet know the visitor. size of the visitor.
Once you’re tuned in to intent clues,
adding in profile data can be quite valuable.
But without any insight about intent,
profile data alone has limited
personalization power.
The shift to adaptive web technology
is a reflection of the fact that your customers
know themselves far better than you ever will.
Eric T. Peterson
Web Analytics Demystified
9. Mistake #2
Building your personalization
strategy on rules alone.
Most personalization tools They multiply like rabbits.
Rule stacks start growing on day
are essentially rules engines one and never stop. That creates
with digital bells whistles. a management headache that grows, too.
The rules (“If they do this, give them that.”) They clash.
are created by expert analysts who, ideally, As rules multiply, they start disagreeing
understand both web dynamics and with each other. These rule conflicts
the ins and outs of your business. are an overhead in themselves.
In other words, they’re rare and expensive
people doing a laborious manual task. Their uplift degrades.
Because of the above dynamics, the
The problem is that, on their own, benefits of rule-based personalization
personalization rules don’t work. always tend to get smaller and smaller
Here’s why: over time.
They’re labor-intensive and Dynamic Personalization uses rules,
Case notes consumer expert-intensive. but sparingly – to handle exceptions
nt clues to spot a
Urban O utfitters used inte Web content drivin
g Good rule sets are incredibly complex. (like promotions) and to hard-wire key
trend early , with Personalized a specific cut of dr
ess. business rules (like blocking licensed
crease in sales for Bad ones are, too.
a triple-digit in content from some territories). But rules
dising in action.
Dynamic merchan
They go out of date quickly. can never handle the real-time heavy lifting
As your business and your market that personalization demands.
changes, your rules need constant
tweaking and replacing. Out-of-date Adaptive Web systems generate the best
rules can inhibit conversion. content for each interaction automatically
based on intent clues – so the need
for manual rule creation and deployment
is minimal.
10. Mistake #3
Thinking like NASA.
A lot of marketers think If that’s your approach, it’s better
not to do it at all.
personalization is a massive
exercise requiring an overhaul To be effective, personalization needs
to be deployed quickly, require little
of people and processes or no change in the way you work,
The ROI was immediate. After a few short supported by expensive and deliver measurable ROI wins within
90 days (not nine months).
weeks we have already seen a 59 percent technology and long,
lift in average order value and a 38 percent
lift in conversion rates. painful deployments. First-generation personalization platforms
were like first-generation CRM – they
Scott Blair, Sun Ski Sports demanded wholesale organizational change
See Scott’s experience on video and they fell flat on their faces. Intent-
www.baynote.com/sunski based personalization is simple, automated
and self-improving. Better still: it pays
for itself with immediate and long-term
revenue uplift.
The new expert: all of us.
The best guide for accurate personalization is the crowd:
the tens of thousands of users that have already visited
your site. Dynamic Personalization allows merchants to
understand, “What did like-minded people with similar intent
do?” and “What content helped them do it?” Of course, to be
useful, the system has to generate the answers in real time
instead of waiting weeks for the data collection, analysis and
rule deployment.
11. Mistake #4
Waiting for the
‘big signals’.
Most personalization Paying attention to engagement activities
like page views, dwell times, mouse
solutions are based movements, scrolls and video views
on watching the big, can give you priceless intent clues –
as long as you can detect and act on them
fat, obvious behaviors in real time.
like purchases. The problem
Responding to these micro-behaviors
is, these behaviors are while the session is still live is where
by definition far less the real uplift comes from web
frequent than all the things personalization. Waiting for a purchase
so you can adapt the next visit
people do on your site is too little, too late. Dynamic
before they purchase. Personalization acts on real engagement
patterns before the visitor clicks away.
You can learn an awful lot from what
happens between the big behaviors.
At the other extreme, monitoring clicks
can mislead by being too ‘noisy’ – they’re
distorted by mistaken attempts to satisfy
a need (after all, the most popular click
on the web is the back button).
The sweet spot for understanding
intent is to focus in on what people
are engaging with.
12. The signals...
Engagement
Clicks Purchases or Conversions
Noisy Infrequent
13. Mistake #5
Looking backward
instead of forward.
Expert analysts It’s time to get over the ‘insight lag’
that plagues so many digital
and merchandisers marketing initiatives.
who understand the web
The adaptive web process creates a continual The Dynamic Web is automated.
feedback mechanism that responds quickly and your business are worth Instead of getting experts to analyze
to changes in visitor behavior that would their weight in gold. spreadsheets and look for patterns,
otherwise be difficult to discover. the system itself should be harvesting
They also tend to cost their what we call micro-behaviors to determine
Eric T. Peterson weight in gold – and for intent and deliver the best content
Web Analytics Demystified for the moment.
good reason.
If you’re using your experts to analyze Just as importantly, your Dynamic
thousands of web sessions, slice and dice Personalization solution should monitor
the data, generate insight and create rules the results of each interaction to
to capture that insight, you’ll never automatically improve over time.
be as responsive or as profitable Soon, the expertise is in the system instead
as you need to be. of in the heads of your rock star analysts –
so you can focus them on adding strategic
Because analytics are essentially looking value at a much higher level.
in the rear-view mirror – and customers tend
to be out in front of you, not trailing behind.
14. Mistake #6
Letting personas
drive personalization.
Personas – portraits Like-minded peers
The concept of like-minded peers is central
of representatives to the Dynamic Web vision. Again, the idea
of a typical consumer is simple: it’s not about grouping visitors
according to their demographics; it’s about
segment – are an important grouping people who shared a similar
way of adding depth intent, and using this insight to guide
personalization, in real-time.
and granularity to your
understanding of your Personas are static. Like-minded
web visitors. peer behavior is always being updated
by real-world engagements.
But no person is a persona. As a customer, And because it’s specifically intent-driven,
your persona changes with every visit the like-minded peer model addresses
to a website – or even within a visit – the reason each visitor is engaging with
as your intent changes. Today, you’re looking you at this moment.
for a gift for your newborn niece. Tomorrow,
you’re into tennis rackets.
Treating a visitor like a persona
is segmentation not personalization.
And visitors can feel the difference.
15. Mistake #7
Limiting your
personalization
to the web. Your website is probably An effective personalization strategy
is one that lets you take your learning
your most important from web interactions and apply it across
engagement channel all digital touchpoints, including the mobile
web, email, mobile apps and social media.
We’re continually improving what we’re but it’s not the only place
showing,” says Marty Keane, Senior VP you interact with people. The goal: consistently relevant
of ecommerce at Bluefly, Inc. “It’s a engagements across all channels that
quantitative way to ensure that the customer deliver the content each visitor is most
is seeing more of what she wants to see.” likely to respond to.
Your customers and prospects
Case notes see you as a single brand. Why raise your
Turkcell used visito responsiveness in one channel and leave
rb
intelligence to gen ehavior and crowd the others in the dark ages?
erate dynamic navi
menus within a m gation
obile application.
16. Mistake #8
Forgetting the
power of search.
Search is one of the most On-site search is just as powerful
an intent indicator and you can combine it
powerful intent signals with the micro-behaviors that led up to the
any user can transmit. search to further hone your response.
Valuable Insight But most websites (and many Of course, on-site search is more than
Analyzing your on-site search activity can be a powerful
guide for SEO and search marketing. Understanding personalization platforms) an intent indicator, it’s also a primary
user experience dynamic – and that means
how people search on your site can help you discover
new keywords improve paid search reach and boost natural ignore it completely. it deserves the benefits of personalization.
search performance. (Shameless Plug: our Search Insights
module does exactly this.) It’s a simple concept: the search key phrase
that brings a visitor to your site should
be a primary driver of the content they see.
Whether it’s natural search or pay-per-click,
the search term is a big, bright, neon
Case Notes
sign that says, “I’m looking for X.”
Baynote customer Intuit TurboTax use
d the To ignore it and serve up generic content
wisdom of crowds to achieve: is simply malpractice.
e
• Four times better search performanc
t savings
• More than $300,000 in support cos
• $300,000 in additional revenue
ax Uses
Forrester Research, Inc Intuit TurboT
t Less Taxing
Crowd Wisdom To Make Site Suppor
17. Let’s re-cap.
So where have we been?
We’ve seen that web We’ve also seen that eight common
mistakes are holding marketers back
personalization can strap from harnessing the power of web
a rocket to your conversion personalization:
rates; keep web visitors Over-relying on profiles – instead
coming back for more; of actual intent.
Depending only on rules – instead
and drive improvements of being guided by like-minded peers.
in all other digital channels. Thinking like NASA – instead of deploying
But only if you do it right. fast and driving ROI in weeks.
Mis-using your experts – instead
of automating the task and freeing
them to add real value.
Waiting for the big signals – instead
of responding to micro-behaviors.
Letting personas blind you – instead
of guide you.
Forgetting about other channels –
and limiting yourself to the web.
Under-valuing search behavior –
and all you can learn from it.
Some of these may sound obvious,
but in our experience with over 200
website deployments, they’re still
incredibly common.
If you’re eager to put personalization
to work, there’s a much better way.
18. Get personal. Use our stuff
Skip ahead a couple of pages for a bunch
So how can you start to apply the
of resource suggestions. Dive in to learn more
principles of Dynamic Personalization on about the wide world of web personalization,
your website and other digital channels? digital marketing optimization and (pardon
Here are some action points. the commercial) how Baynote can make it all
work for you.
Figure out how you’re personalizing now
If you aren’t sure, find out if you’re doing
any personalization today and how it’s being done.
Is it rule based? Who is creating and maintaining
the rules? How often are they being updated?
Then build on what’s being done already (if anything). Rally the troops
Get people excited. The potential of dynamic
personalization is huge and even though you don’t
have to run a NASA project (see mistake # 3 ),
you will need help and support. Plus, it’s more fun.
Get engaged
You know there’s more to life than clicks and purchases.
There’s engagement (remember mistake 4 ). But are
you doing anything with engagement to improve
your marketing now? Is it enough? Answering these Talk to Baynote!
questions can expose opportunities for both quick wins We’ve got lots more to show you than we
and big improvements. Play mistake bingo
Have some fun with these eight mistakes could ever cram into one eBook. Go on, give
(and gather some serious info in the process). us a call at (408) 973-1889 or send
Ask around your organization about us an email at personalization@baynote.com.
personalization - what’s been done, what’s We won’t give you the hard sell, we’ll just
worked (or not) and why. See how many of the share our enthusiasm for the Personalized
mistakes get mentioned. You’ll learn a lot about Web and show you how you can harness it
who’s thinking what and how you might have to within a few weeks.
position any initiatives with them.
19. Conclusion
You’re ready to improve It’s all part of the new paradigm that’s
completely changing the way companies
your web personalization. market themselves online.
Whatever you do, don’t repeat
the mistakes of the past. If we only leave you with one thought,
it should be this: serving customers’
immediate needs always pays dividends.
Think automation. With Dynamic Personalization, you detect
Think real-time. customer intent faster and respond
Think responsiveness. more effectively.
Think fast, light deployment.
Think crowd intelligence.
Shoppers cite e-commerce website
navigation and site search as features
that most need improving.
Baynote ‘Online Holiday Shopping
Experience Survey’
See the results of the survey here
www.baynote.com/shoppingsurvey
20. About Baynote
Baynote is a world leader in the Baynote’s Personalization Platform
is a completely new approach to optimizing
Dynamic Web. Heck, we helped digital engagement.
pioneer the concept.
Find out more from our website
We’ve helped over 200 top websites – www.baynote.com
including sites for ATT, Dell, Expedia,
Intuit, Fox, Urban Outfitters and many Book a live web demo
more –to improve their online engagement www.baynote.com/resource/
by listening to the intent of their visitors request-a-demo
and responding in real time.
Email a Baynote expert directly
www.baynote.com/about/advisors
Check out the Baynote Adaptive Web Blog
blog.baynote.com
Case notes
One marketing team saw a 400% uplift
in conversion by targeting emails to known
users based on the intent clues from their
recent web visits.
21. Resources
Liked the eBook? Top bloggers on digital Getelastic.com – What Linda Bustos dosen’t
know about e-commerce isn’t worth knowing.
Time to dig deeper marketing.
The Strategic Value of Dynamic
We get a lot of inspiration from Which Test Won? – Anne Holland’s excellent
blog on A/B and multivariate testing.
Personalization these top thinkers, bloggers and
A new white paper by Eric T Peterson
of Web Analytics Demystified, on the role of
online resources: Greg Verdino – Greg is a futurist, marketer and
author with keen insights into the rise of the
a dynamic approach in improving the online empowered consumer.
customer experience. Econsultancy – the online community
of digital marketers and publishers Steve Rubel – Steve is an insightful, engaging
Download it now of best-practice digital marketing advice. trend-watcher on digital marketing
Personalization Best Practices Webcast The Forrester Blog – a must-read for
In a presentation to the American Marketing The Content Marketing Institute – An excellent
interactive marketing professionals. resource for content marketers.
Association, Carlos Carvajal, Baynote CMO,
shares his personalization best practices based ReadWriteWeb – one of the best and most
on over ten years of experience working with Marketing Interactions blog – Ardath Albee is a
popular technology blogs in the world. hugely influential blogger and author on issues
hundreds of global brands.
relating to complex sales.
Watch it now Ann Handley – Ann the gang at Marketing
Profs share insight with wit. Nice. Retail Online Integration – including excellent
Dynamic Web Success Stories bloggers on online retailing.
Real-world experiences from the likes The Innovative Marketer – Steve Gershik
of Expedia, TurboTax and Netshoes. on all things demand gen.
Read them now
22. See you soon...
Contact StoneBridge Contact Baynote Sales
Asia-Pacific Headquarters US Headquarters sales@baynote.com
info@stonebridgesystems.com.au Baynote, Inc.
Partners
Phone: 1300.854.116 5300 Stevens Creek
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San Jose, CA 95129 Press
USA press@baynote.com
Phone: 408.973.1889