Have you been tasked with implementing personalisation for your business? If so, you’re not alone.
Inspired by Amazon’s enormous success, marketing teams around the globe are looking at how they can build personalised experiences for their customers.
To do personalisation at scale you’re going to need technology. But which factors should you consider when comparing eCommerce personalisation platforms? How do you know which eCommerce personalisation software is best?
In this blog post, we give you the lowdown on choosing personalisation technology. Read on to learn all the questions to ask to conduct a thorough personalisation technology comparison for your brand.
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eCommerce Personalisation Technology Checklist
1. Does it offer multi-channel personalisation?
Some personalisation tools are channel specific. For example, they might enable you to personalise content in your emails but might not work across your website.
Choosing channel specific personalisation tools may cause problems if you eventually want to personalised across all key channels. You may end up buying different technology for each channel. These platforms may not be able to communicate with each other, leading to a disjointed, inconsistent experience for customers.
A better approach is to find a single solution that works across multiple channels. Look for platforms that offer multi-channel personalisation.
2. Does it draw from multiple data sets?
The goal of personalisation is to create a seamless customer experience. The more you understand about your customer, the better you can do this. This means drawing data from multiple sources.
Look for personalisation technology that draws from multiple data sets. These should include website behaviour, previous online and offline transactions, and CRM.
3. Does it work cross-device?
What does a typical customer journey look like for your brand?
Perhaps, most of your customers initially visit your website through search on their mobile. Maybe they come back days later to read your blog on desktop and sign up for your emails.
When they get your first email with welcome discount, they happen to be on their tablet. This is where they open, click-through, and make their first purchase.
Whatever your customer journeys look like, they are unlikely to be linear. Most customers research, engage with, consider, and buy from brands across multiple devices. The cross-device journey to purchase may happen over a number of days or months.
In order to offer a consistent, personalised experience throughout the cross-device journey to purchase, you need to be able to match a single user to different devices. To ensure you have this covered, look for personalisation technology that works cross-device.
4. Does it offer the ability to act on real-time data?
The fourth thing do check when comparing eCommerce personalisation technology is whether it offers the ability to act on real-time data.
Look for platforms that can insert dynamic content like product recommendations based on what people are browsing.
Some personalisation tools even offer the ability to deliver real-time weather-personalised content depending on the conditions. This is a great way to make your content hyper relevant, increasing engagement and conversions.
5. Does it offer triggered emails?
Next up, check whether the personalisation software offers triggered emails. These are the cornerstone of behavioural marketing.
Triggered emails are personalised messages that get sent when a customer carries out specific actions online. For example, a basket abandonment email which is sent when a customer leaves an item in their basket. Other examples include:
- welcome emails
- browse abandonment emails
- renewal emails
- replenishment emails
- back in stock emails
6. Does it offer testing and optimisation capabilities?
Like most areas of marketing, the way to get the best results from personalisation is by testing, learning, and refining your strategy.
It’s important to make sure the personalisation tools you choose allow you to test and optimise your personalisation tactics. Check they offer the ability to run A/B and multivariant testing.
Good eCommerce personalisation platforms offer advanced optimisation features. This may include tweaking the frequency and delays of abandonment emails to improve results.
7. Does it offer post-purchase personalisation?
Post-purchase marketing helps to increase repeat purchases and boost customer lifetime value. When comparing personalisation tools, check whether they are set up for post-purchase personalisation.
Look for tools that offer the ability cross-sell and upsell after a customer has bought from you. And double check the triggered emails on offer include one’s relevant to post-purchase marketing, like feedback requests. These are key ways to enhance the post-purchase journey.
8. Does it have segmentation capabilities?
Creating behaviour-based eCommerce buyer personas for each stage in the customer journey is a great way to increase the relevancy of your messages. Check that the personalisation tools you’re considering allow you to do this.
Can you identify VIPs, lapsed customers, and discount chasers? Are you able to build segments based on these to personalise content for?
Some tools also allow you to personalise for anonymous customers whose email addresses you are yet to get, by showing them subscription popovers. This is an effective way to encourage them to sign up to your list.
9. Does it allow you to plug-in in store transactional data?
If you have physical stores, personalising using website behaviour alone can lead to a disconnect between offline and online experiences.
Look for personalisation tools that give you the ability to bring brick-and-mortar data into the mix. This ensures you aren’t recommending products that people have already bought in store.
10. Is it backed by machine learning?
Many brands put off implementing personalisation because it seems too complex. They may assume their brand isn’t ready.
These concerns don’t have to hold you back if you choose the right personalisation software. Tools that use machine learning take the legwork out of personalisation. They make it simple.
Choosing personalisation technology that uses machine learning means your team won’t need to write complex rules. Instead, AI will personalise based on each customer’s behaviour and the wisdom of crowd-sourced data.
11. Is it easy to set-up and manage?
The final thing to consider before deciding to buy is ease of set up and ongoing management. Look for eCommerce personalisation technology that you can get off the ground easily.
Check it integrates easily with your eCommerce platform. Make sure it’s simple to set up and isn’t going to end up on your development team’s backlog.
Our personalisation tools use a single line of code to set up and we offer managed onboarding. We integrate on the front-end which means we can integrate with any eCommerce platform quickly and easily.
Takeaway
Choosing the right personalisation software is your first step to building better experiences for your customers. This will open the door to increased revenue.
Now you have a checklist of personalisation technology must-haves, you’re well placed to carry out a thorough comparison.
It goes without saying that we’d love for you to consider our own personalisation platform. Learn more about our platform or simply book a demo to see it in action.
