Regardless of whether your business operates within the e-commerce, SaaS, or any other digital niche that uses Conversion Rate and Average Order Value (AOV) as main KPIs, deploying personalization is a potent and quite cost-effective way to boost your overall ROI. 

Users and shoppers are more likely to converge and take action within a marketing environment that has been tailored to their purchasing patterns and interests. The very product is paramount, but building a strong relationship with your customers is what keeps them returning and converting. 

According to a study conducted by Adobe, 40% of online revenue is generated by returning customers, who themselves represent only 8% of the entire website traffic. This is why providing your visitors with a personalized purchasing experience is a huge marketing component that helps you create a stronger relationship with your clients, which leads to better optimization of your revenue opportunities. 

That said, let’s delve into some actionable tips on how to ramp up your personalization efforts. 

Gather Quality Data on Your Clientele 

Knowing who your ideal target persona is the first step toward creating a personalized purchasing experience. In order to successfully frame your campaign, you need to have access to highly relevant and accurate customer data that you can use to create a more refined and detailed image of your target audience. 

Naturally, sharing personal information is not something that comes easy to all consumers, which is why you need to find ways to show them that the act of purchasing a product and/or service online is a two-way street. This can be done by providing your visitors with a uniquely tailored shopping experience that suits their interests the most. 

The most effective way of gleaning quality user information is to use cookies and their social media accounts when a person visits your page or signs up. The type of data you should be looking for includes:

• Age
• Gender 
• Interest
• Location/IP address 
• Entry channel (social media platform, email marketing, eBay, Amazon, etc) 
• Returning/New customer 
• Previous searches 
• Purchasing history 
• Shopping patterns (AOV is a handy parameter) 
• Customer segments (similar user cohorts) 

Once you have all the necessary information on your ideal demographic, you can start tailoring your content and your campaign so your customers have a highly personalized purchasing experience that will make them come back and turn into loyal paying customers. 

Focus on Product Recommendation and the Cart Won’t Be Empty

A pessimist will say that the cart is half-empty, an optimist that it’s half-full. We say – you can always fit a couple of more items in there. But in order to do that, you have to make the right items visible to the right customers. 

In fact, 80% of online shoppers are more likely to buy an item or pay for a service from a brand that provides personalized experiences, while 71% of customers are frustrated when the website offers them products they are not interested in. This makes it pretty obvious that you need to put a greater focus on product recommendations that are properly personalized, for only then will you be able to leverage the full potential of the customer data you’ve gathered. 

You sell more products, while the customer gets more value out of the entire experience. A win-win scenario that builds brand awareness and strengthens customer relations. Aside from your efforts to drive new clients to your platform, you should also focus on creating a better experience for your existing ones. Perhaps even more so. 

Use VoIP to Increase Conversion Rates & Customer Satisfaction

According to various studies, direct interaction with your customers leads to more conversions when compared to email marketing campaigns. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise as humans are essentially pack animals who thrive on and make progress via interaction. Though emails can also be quite effective and personalized to a certain extent, they simply aren’t as fruitful as direct human interaction and personalization on a more granular level. 

This is where VoIP phone services come into play. VoIP systems offer a highly efficient and cost-effective framework through which you can communicate with your clientele worldwide without the need for physical line installation or any additional on-site equipment. 

The VoIP system also enables you to target specific markets around the globe via local phone numbers, allowing you to connect with your clients, both potential and existing ones, on a more personal level and further build brand validation, as well as the relationships with your customers. 

Definitely a handy device to have in your marketing personalization toolset. 

Use Social Proof as a Conversion Rate Optimization Tool

Social Proof is a handy marketing device that uses people’s psychological need and tendency to imitate the behavior of others and thus perform the same or similar actions in a given situation. 

For example, let’s say a user is checking out a SaaS product that they need and are currently looking at the product’s home page. The user is then provided with a notification telling them how many people are using the tool at the moment, how many new users signed up within the last 7 days, the location of the users, etc. Seeing these pieces of information should invoke validation within the potential customer and therefore aid in the conversion process, as well as help you save on the acquisition process. 

This tactic is best deployed by using a social proof tool, and the equation for this type of experience personalization may look something like this: 

Quality Product/Service + Social Proof Tool + Brand Awareness = Conversion 

Make Sure You Properly Time Your Product Recommendations 

Timing is among the key factors in any type of marketing campaign. Naturally, different businesses, niches, and page types require different approaches to the timing factor, especially in terms of their personalization efforts. 

In order to fully leverage your customers’ page visit, you should – aside from the proper approach to product recommendations that we addressed earlier – figure out when the iron is hot so your strike is as effective as possible. 

For example, your visitor’s attention must be grabbed from their very first page-visit. You should be able to provide a product a customer highly relates to, while timing your product recommendations for when the visitor is checking out, for example. This may be an effective way to upsell your service and/or boost your Average Order Value. 

Successful e-commerce strategies and their personalization can be boiled down to the following equation:

Quality Product + Right Recommendations + Right Customers + Timing = Conversion 

Needless to say, there are various tactics and some may not work for your business, even though they work wonders for others. Feel free to play with various strategies across various audiences and see which tactic catches on.

Wrapping Up 

Online purchase is a journey, rather than an isolated event. There are a lot of moving parts and aspects of a user becoming – and even more importantly staying – your customer. Personalized user experience is a huge part of this journey, so making sure your personalization game is on point is definitely an investment that is highly likely to pay off in the long run.