Zach Wahl and Sara Mae O'Brien-Scott spoke at the 2022 Taxonomy Boot Camp in Washington, D.C. on taxonomy's critical role in delivering what every end user now expects—a seamless and personalized experience. Personalization is harnessed by the most successful organizations to anchor their content experience by allowing users to connect with content based on key characteristics. O’Brien-Scott and Wahl provided an understanding of how taxonomy powers personalization by detailing real-world use cases and best practices for taxonomy design for personalization. They discussed the personalization maturity scale, including how taxonomy lays the groundwork for enabling cutting-edge solutions such as recommendation engines, automated content assembly, and omnichannel delivery. They also shared expected outcomes of personalization such as increased conversion rates, a decrease in employee turnover, and stronger user engagement.

1. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Semantic Engineering
Consultant, Enterprise
Knowledge
Sara Mae
O’Brien-Scott
CEO, Enterprise
Knowledge
Zach
Wahl
Taxonomy in
the Age of
Personalization
Taxonomy Boot Camp 2022

2. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Foundations
Use Cases and Impact
Best Practices
Agenda

3. What is Personalization?
Personalization is a complete experience crafted for the individual based on
their identified characteristics and preferences.
⬢ A well-designed personalization strategy will drive more effective and efficient
interactions and enable meaningful experiences.
⬢ Organizations can optimize content experiences by intentionally targeting the
right end user to deliver the right content at the right time.

4. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Pillars of Personalization
Content
● Furnish the
right content
at the right
time
● Tailor content
type and
format to
users
● Orient users
based on
their
particular
needs
Navigation
● Use language
that
resonates
with the user
and matches
their skill and
background
Vocabulary
● Provide the
expected
aesthetic
experience
● Meet
accessibility
needs
Look & Feel
● Deliver
content so
that it is easily
accessed
from
anywhere a
user may be
Delivery

5. Trending Personalization Use Cases
Recommender Systems
Expertise Matching
Content Management &
Quality
Content Assembly
Omnichannel Delivery
Learning Journeys

6. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Problem: A large Pacific Northwest based
organization expanded its offices, created multiple
new roles, and recruited new employees. After an
initial influx of new employees, the organization
experienced a decline in employee retention.
New employees reported dissatisfaction with how
long it takes them to find critical business operations
information related to their role.
Long-term employees reported frustration with the
degree of difficulty they experienced sifting through
search results of content irrelevant to their role.
B2E Personalization
Solution: The organization implemented a
portal on their intranet with personalized
content delivery based on the user’s role. The
portal’s landing page included customized
welcome videos and post-click onboarding
content for new hires.
Results:
● New employees reported increased
satisfaction with onboarding resources.
● Employees reported increased success in
finding content related to their role.
● Analytics showed users require fewer
clicks to get to information.

7. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Problem: A global tech vendor experienced a drop in
customer satisfaction and engagement from the
previous year.
The vendor’s customer service team reported a
substantial increase in customer dissatisfaction with
the technical documentation on the product pages.
Web analytic tooling provided the vendor with data
highlighting most of their product pages as having
the highest drop-off and abandonment rate out of
all content published by the tech vendor.
B2C Personalization
Solution: The global tech vendor implemented a
self-help content hub with product-specific
portals. The new content hub leveraged
individual customer data profiles and only
showed information relevant to products the
customer admins or owns.
Customers also were enabled to opt-in to receive
text and email alerts for upcoming updates,
releases, and bug fixes.
Results:
● The customer service team reported a
decrease in the number of tickets opened
for information requests on product updates.
● Analytics showed that search abandonment
decreased.
● Customers reported an increase in trust and
confidence in technical documentation.

8. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Problem: A manufacturing company partnered
with an outside sales and support team to assist in
their marketing expansion efforts.
With the existing documentation portal, the partnered
customer support team struggled to find relevant
information in their call center’s system for
customer questions and issues.
The partner sales teams felt overwhelmed by a lack of
up-to-date product information and lacked
confidence because the information was not from a
single source and some sources still need to be
digitized
B2B Personalization
Solution: The manufacturing company
migrated all disparate data sources into a single
source that dynamically updates and delivers
personalized content. Partner sales and support
teams no longer needed to search through
support documentation and began receiving
daily announcements of new product offerings
with personalized information to communicate
to their clients.
Results:
● Overall call duration decreased for calls
related to new product releases.
● Members of the support team report
increased readiness and confidence in
providing information to customers.
● Members of the partnered sales team
reported increased confidence in the
documentation available to them.

9. Personalization Outcomes
Increased conversion rates
▪ Personalized calls to action convert
202% better than default or standard
calls to action (Forbes).
▪ Visitors who viewed three pages of
personalized content had a conversion
rate of 3.4%, double the rate (1.7%) for
those who were exposed to two pages
with personalized elements
(Marketingcharts).
Sustained loyalty
▪ 84% of consumers say being treated
like a person, not a number, is very
important to winning their business
(Salesforce).
▪ 76% of consumers said that receiving
personalized communications was a
key factor in prompting their
consideration of a brand (McKinsey).
Gains in revenue
▪ Marketers report personalized and
segmented email campaigns drive a
760% increase in revenue (Forbes).
▪ 93% of companies that used advanced
personalization strategies observed an
increase in their revenues (Monetate).
Engagement
▪ 72% of consumers says they only
engage with personalized messaging
(SmarterHQ).
▪ 66% of consumers say encountering
content that isn’t personalized would
stop them from making a purchase
(CMO by Adobe).

10. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Personalization Maturity
Maturity of Personalization
(Overall Granularity)
Pre-Taxonomy Taxonomy of Content
Taxonomy of User
Ontology
Configured
pages based
on user type
User chooses
content feeds
based on tags
User chooses
content feed
based on
faceted
taxonomy
System
matches
content to
user based on
definition of
user and
content
System
matches
content to
user based on
user, content,
and behavior
(analytics)
Context,
inference, and
AI
Pre-Defined Pages User Driven Customization System Driven Customization

11. Foundations of Mature
Personalization Strategy
Data
Insights
Context

12. The Role of Taxonomy
Define Audience Standardize Data
Enable
Capabilities
● Identify and
define the key
characteristics
of intended
users for
audience
segmentation
● Standardize and
align audience
terminology to
support
findability and
discoverability
● Support
content
tagging and
reporting
● Build
foundation for
aggregation
and inference

13. How does taxonomy power
personalization?
Location: Washington,
D.C.
Desired Competency: Civil
Engineering
Interest: Accessibility Design
Employee Status: New Hire
Upcoming Event
Learning Content
CoP
Onboarding Material
Connecting users to content through metadata

14. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Best Practices
LANDSCAPE STRATEGY GOVERNANCE MEASUREMENT
✓ Storage
✓ System Access
✓ Content
Quality
✓ Metadata
Quality
✓ Alignment
with business,
technology,
and content
changes
✓ Roles and
Responsibilities
✓ Handling
Change
✓ Goals
✓ KPIs
✓ Analytics

15. Thank You
Thank you for
joining us.

16. Contact Us
ZACH WAHL
CEO,
ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
ZWAHL@ENTERPRISE-KNOWLEDGE.COM
SARA MAE O’BRIEN-SCOTT
SEMANTIC ENGINEERING CONSULTANT,
ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
SOBRIEN-SCOTT@ENTERPRISE-KNOWLEDGE.COM