Companies that actively personalize the online experience with established business processes demonstrate an improvement in online conversion rates, average order value, and revenue per visit, according to Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks company. Best-in-Class companies deploy personalization tactics across the online experience, including email, cross-sell and sell-up, newsletters, homepages and site search results. Free report, courtesy of Criteo, Offermatica, and Optimost.

In the Aberdeen survey, 88% of Best-in-Class companies agree that they will recognize a return on their investment in personalization technologies, and 76% agree that the economic gains from personalization will outweigh the costs of implementation.

Increasing overall sales, both online and offline, was identified as a top pressure by 60% of leading companies and the primary reason for personalizing the online experience. Best-in-Class companies indicated that they deploy personalization tactics across multiple areas of their web site functionality, such as email (76%), cross-sell/up-sell (50%), newsletters (40%), homepages (31%) and site search results (29%). These efforts contributed to the 91% of Best-in-Class companies who demonstrated improvement in online conversion rates.

“Online personalization is not a technique to deploy with expectations of immediate big-bang impact and results. The benefits of personalization surface with careful planning and by gradually introducing personalization techniques in a calculated manner,” explains Andrew Boyd, Chief Research Officer at Aberdeen. “Sites that reveal the depths of their knowledge about a customer’s behavior will invoke privacy concerns and potentially undermine the benefits of revenue and loyalty they seek to gain. Effective personalization requires subtle use of implicit information and opportunities for site visitors to offer explicit information to guide their online experience.”

The report highlights the essential ingredients of a well-designed personalization strategy. By utilizing segmentation and unique user profiles and applying key technologies to them, such as predictive analysis and personalized recommendations, companies can create an online experience that is unobtrusive to the consumer yet ultimately moves them towards checkout more efficiently.

About this study

The Aberdeen Group report, This Time it’s Personal: Making On-Line Experiences Unique, educates readers on how to gain an advantage in the competitive world of online retail by utilizing different personalization strategies. The report also provides the results that Best-in-Class companies achieve across key metrics after employing online personalization processes and compares these companies to the Industry Average and Laggards who have not yet pursued a similar strategy. A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Criteo, Offermatica, and Optimost.

» Story on Analyst Firm Website

» Comments   Digg this    del.icio.us