Web shoppers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and they now expect the same experience online, as they would receive in a traditional bricks and mortar store – if not better, says multivariate testing and website personalisation expert, Mark Simpson

Web shoppers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and they now expect the same experience online, as they would receive in a traditional bricks and mortar store – if not better, says multivariate testing and website personalisation expert, Mark Simpson

Online shopping is where the latest ‘personalisation’ technology can make a real difference to online revenues, helping e-commerce businesses to engage with customers on a one-to-one basis, boosting sales and customer loyalty. However, years of vendor hype and over-promises mean that to date personalisation has not lived up to its billing in the industry, according to Mark Simpson, founder and president of Maxymiser.

It is only through a combination of ‘self-learning’ personalisation and multivariate testing technology and services, all delivered through a single platform, that e-commerce businesses can reap the benefits of truly personalised marketing to customers. But it must be an ongoing commitment – it’s about evolution rather than revolution.

Those e-commerce businesses that get personalisation right will be able to develop long-lasting relationships with customers and steal market share at the expense of slower moving competitors, insists Simpson.

Defining personalisation

“Personalising the customer experience has been marketing’s holy grail for over a decade,” he said. “Yet ask ten marketers to define personalisation and there will be no consensus, and few are in reality looking to achieve anything more than product recommendations and retargeting.”

According to Forrester, web personalisation is: “Creating experiences on web sites or through interactive media that are unique to individuals or segments of consumers.”

“And the web certainly provides amazing insight into customer desires, from search information to tracking online behaviour and purchases,” added Simpson. “In theory, leveraging this depth of information offers organisations the chance to deliver a personalised online experience that far exceeds anything that can be delivered in store without a dedicated personal shopper. With the right personalisation strategy and tools organisations can offer a customer the online equivalent of a bricks-and-mortar store, where anything they want to buy is located in a single aisle.

“Joining up that web-based insight with the growing volume of offline information, from the store or call centre, offers the chance to deliver a truly consistent, totally personalised multichannel model that reinforces the brand, drives loyalty and increases sales.”

Stepping stones

“So what has been the barrier to achieving true online personalisation – aside from the somewhat confused perceptions? One of the major challenges has been the need to expensively cobble together a number of disparate systems that were not fit for purpose. Banks, for example, which have led the way in personalisation, have achieved this through extensive investment in combining legacy systems with new technology – an expense simply not justifiable for the majority of businesses across the retail or leisure sectors.

“However, the latest generation of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology is transforming the landscape, bringing personalisation to the mass market. Indeed, in the US mass market personalisation is happening right now; and although the UK is lagging behind, the majority of companies will have embraced this model within the next 18 months.

“There are, therefore, huge opportunities for companies willing and able to leverage low cost SaaS solutions to move towards true personalisation, enabling organisations to achieve online what is already being done offline with propensity modelling and other business analytics. This is a significant development beyond the segmentation, recommendation and retargeting, that can already be achieved online, providing organisations with an opportunity to get truly close to the online customer for the first time.

“It is also important to recognise that personalisation alone is only going to realise half the potential benefits. If the design, layout and presentation is not optimised you are potentially wasting a great opportunity. Even those organisations that already have clearly defined customer segments can drive significant additional value from the use of a/b and multivariate testing in order to maximise value of all visitors.

Organisations need to continually test the content to refine the strategy, understand how customers are responding to personalisation and improve the return on investment. Without effective multivariate testing organisations will not only fail to continuously enhance the relevance of the personalised offers but they could also risk unknowingly disenfranchising customers through the provision of the wrong content,’ he said.

Maximising opportunity

Moreover, Simpson pointed out that: “Organisations that have already successfully leveraged the new SaaS personalisation and testing solutions have achieved, on average, a double-digit increase in conversions. And with more organisations looking to get in on the act, especially in the US, speed is key.

“The good news is that with the SaaS model, organisations can be up and running immediately. Add in multichannel data, from call centre and store or branch, and the business can have consistent, cross channel personalisation within a quarter.”

He concluded: “There is no doubt that, after years of hype and hyperbole, mass market personalisation is now on the way. Those organisations that get in ahead of the wave to automatically create engaging, targeted product and service recommendations based on real, multichannel customer behaviour will see not only a significant uplift in conversions but also deliver that critical consistent experience with brand and company.”