Personalization has become the gold standard in ecommerce. According to research from Epsilon, 80% of customers feel more motivated to purchase from a brand if it offers a more personalized experience.
Ecommerce personalization involves tailoring your messaging, content, and product recommendations based on your customers’ feedback and behavior, such as their purchasing history or activity on your website. Its goal is to drive more sales by making the shopping experience more personal and human.
Personalization needs to be part of each ecommerce strategy. It drives more sales by reducing friction in the customer experience, targeting customers with the right recommendations, and optimizing your conversion rate. Here are key tips to add more personalization into your ecommerce customer journey.
1. Provide Cross-sell Offers After Checkout
Cross-selling consists of getting the customer to add more items to their basket by buying complementary products. It helps the customer get the most out of their order and makes their shopping experience more convenient.
On top of making the ecommerce experience more personalized, it also has a substantial impact on your bottom line. According to McKinsey & Company, cross-selling can increase your sales by 20% and profits by 30%.
It’s also important to keep in mind that it’s 60–70% easier to sell your products to existing customers, according to the book Marketing Metrics by Paul Farris. With cross-selling, you’re able to increase your sales and orders without having to acquire new customers.
Dollar Shave Club does this often with its customers during the checkout process. Each time the customer makes a purchase, they get recommendations of add-ons they can include as part of their order:
When a customer buys a razor, they are prompted to add complementary products such as post-shave cream or body cleanser. It helps customers get the most out of their beard care.
The key to effective cross-selling is to make your offers as relevant as possible with related products. To find the right products, dive into your data to look at the other products your customers buy so you can tailor your recommendations.
2. Run Personalized Retargeting Ads
If a customer didn’t purchase after a window-shopping session, you can always follow up with personalized retargeting ads that provide product recommendations.
With over 97% of people who visit a website never coming back, retargeting ads give the customer a second chance to purchase your product, and you a chance to win back lost sales.
For its retargeting ads, Madewell attracts the customer with recommendations based on the customer’s browsing history.
Without leaving the Facebook feed, potential customers can scroll through products they might like as if they were still on the company’s website. Since these recommendations are based on the shopper’s previous activity and not randomly picked, the ad feels relevant to the customer’s interests. If they’re interested in buying any clothing, they can click on the CTA “Shop Now” that directly leads them to Madewell’s product page.
In an interview with Databox, McCall Robison at Best Company recommended that you create custom audiences to create effective retargeting campaigns. One way to segment, Robison says, is to “create an entire Facebook retargeting campaign for the users that haven’t bought from you in six months. You can easily find this audience by going through past customers as well as filtering your email list of people who haven’t opened your recent emails.”
In an interview with Rebrandly, Vincent Magaline, Growth Marketing Manager at MobileMonkey, says another great way to optimize your retargeting ads is through coupons. It’s because they give customers the extra push they need to convert:
“Many times, the decision to [not purchase] was due to the price, which is emotional by nature. Segment this audience, and use a coupon to bring them back. Be sure to demonstrate urgency by using a time limit on the CTA (i.e. 24 hours).”
3. Offer Personalized Guidance With Marketplace Chat
Another effective way to make the ecommerce experience more personalized is to integrate marketplace chat on your website to connect buyers with sellers. Live chat allows buyers to ask questions and provide their feedback on what they want while shopping. It’s also another opportunity to offer personalized product recommendations.
Betabrand, a women’s apparel brand, differentiates itself by allowing customers to participate in its design process via social feeds and chat messaging. They did not have the time or resources to build their marketplace chat feature in-house, which is when they decided to partner up with Stream.
With the new chat option, customers can now communicate with Betabrand on the customized apparel designs they want, which the brand will then make available on its website. According to Jared Rapp, VP of Engineering at Betabrand, implementing chat with Stream’s API was a fast and efficient process:
“We are very, very happy with how fast it was to get a full-featured chat in place on our site through Stream,” says Rapp. “We have never seen that kind of turnaround time before. Stream saved us time and effort and helped us start making a lot of forward movement on our process.”
4. Show Recently Viewed Items
Another tactic to re-engage the interest of the customer is to remind them of recently viewed items.
Before purchasing, a customer may go through several of your products before making a final decision. Showing the visitor recently viewed items makes it easier for your customers to go back to products that interest them, increasing your chances of making a sale.
After a customer browses through multiple products, apparel company Zalando automatically personalizes the homepage with recently viewed items:
Thanks to this feature, Zalando customers can go back to any product that caught their eye instantly without having to actively search for it.
5. Make User-Generated Content Part of Your Strategy
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any content created by customers — such as social media posts of them wearing your apparel — and not by the brand itself. It’s a way of personalizing the ecommerce experience by inviting customers to become brand advocates.
UGC has a significant impact on sales and the perception of your brand. According to research by Stackla, UGC content is 9.8 times more impactful than influencer content. The same study also found that 79% of customers say UGC impacts their buying decisions.
UGC is powerful because it leverages social proof and improves your brand reputation. In return, customer trust increases your profitability.
Yoga apparel company Onzie highlights Instagram posts with #onziegear on its website to showcase pictures of its customers wearing its products. Customers can take a look at these pictures by scrolling down on its homepage.
If customers want to share their content, they have to include the #onziegear hashtag on their Instagram photos and tag Onzie. Onzie will then showcase these pictures on its homepage for other homepage visitors to see.
6. Segment Your Email Campaigns
Including personalization as part of your email campaigns can have a significant impact on your results, such as opens and sales. It ensures that you can better nurture the customer toward a sale by sending the right message at the right time.
Celebrations
Important dates like birthdays and anniversaries are also good opportunities to engage the customer by celebrating the event with special offers. In the email below, sports apparel company Nike celebrates the customer’s birthday by offering them a 25% discount they can use for their next purchase.
Customer Loyalty
Another effective use of personalization in email marketing is segmenting your emails based on the customer’s loyalty. Makeup brand Sephora, for example, likes to reward customers with a strong purchasing history by sending them special offers via email.
By using this approach, Sephora is able to win more sales by focusing on its best customers and increasing its retention.
Abandoned Carts
According to the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. To minimize this, you can send your customers abandoned cart emails or text messages to get them to finish their purchase.
Outdoor gear company Cotopaxi handles abandoned carts with an email that gives the customer a second chance to finish their purchase by including links to products they left behind.
Along with engaging imagery, notice how they keep the copy straightforward. The email includes basic product information, like a product image and price, with a link to checkout.
In a discussion with Emarsys, Adam Holden-Bache, Director of Email Marketing at Enventys Partners, recommends that you send your abandoned cart email within one hour. “If the shopper does not take action on the first message, I’ve found that sending a second [cart abandonment] message exactly 24 hours after abandonment yields the best results, as people are routine-based,” continues Holden-Bache.
Ecommerce Personalization Creates a Better Customer Experience
Including personalization as part of your ecommerce strategy will boost customer satisfaction, drive more revenue, and make your brand stand out from the crowd.
Ready to improve the ecommerce experience with Stream’s marketplace chat API? Contact our team to start exploring Stream!
