In this video, Amelia Labovitch, explains 5 of the key trends in E-Commerce Personalization that your company should be considering when crafting your innovative digital strategy.

From a streamlined omnichannel experience to recommendations in real-time, these trends give a great overview of where to start.

In this video, Amelia Labovitch, identifies 6 consumer behaviors that should be considered in your digital strategy. The pandemic accelerated many behaviors in the digital space, but we expect many of them to remain long into 2021, influencing not online behaviors but also offline.

What does the word community mean to you? Typically a specific group or perhaps the television show might come to mind. However, in this week’s blog post, Amelia Labovitch dives into what you need to do to build a successful brand community and examines the examples of lululemon and Gymshark to understand how they balance their communities online and offline to create truly engaged brand ambassadors.

Did you know that 86% of the customers say that individual personalization influences their purchases? According to recent research, emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value. On top of that, they are much more likely to recommend your brand to others!

Personalization is a critical pillar of retention marketing as it makes the customer feel valued. Absence of personalization signals to customers that you don’t value their business, giving them a reason to spend money elsewhere. More than retaining revenue, it also drives more revenue as eighty-six percent (86%) of customers say that personalization influences their purchases (Infosys, 2013). According to recent research from Motista, emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value (LTV), stay with a brand for an average of 5.1 years vs. 3.4 years, and will recommend brands at a much higher rate (71% vs. 45%).

But why should you care about personalization, and what does it have to do with loyalty?

Personalization can be defined in a few different ways. From adding a customer’s name or initials to products to using a core statement that speaks to your core audience. Personalization helps your brand to connect your products and services to the right audience at the right time. While it may seem quite overwhelming at first, it really is quite simple. You can steer your customers in the right direction and predict their needs with artificial intelligence and machine learning.
From the minute someone lands on your website, the entire journey can be personalized and therefore relevant to each customer. No need to create personas anymore. Every journey will be unique. Let’s say when a potential customer is browsing your store aimlessly, a chatbot could make some unique suggestions to the visitor, highlighting some important articles, trying to guide the potential customer to make a purchase. Furthermore, if the visitor is logged in, or decides to create an account, all of the future interactions can be personalized based on their profile.

While it may sound a bit complex, the journey is all worth it as the numbers speak for themselves. Personalized home page promotions influenced 85 percent of consumers to make a purchase. Additionally, personalized shopping cart recommendations were responsible for influencing 92% of online shoppers (Instapage, 2019).

So let’s explore together the 3 important steps of how you can give your customers  a Personalized Experience:

1. Create Dashboards. Creating a personal home page allows the customer to see their past purchases, loyalty points, and potential rewards. You can take it a step further by personalizing all of the promotional banners on your homepage based on their purchase history.

‍2. Personalize all interactions. Social media is a powerful tool for driving sales, especially in the eCommerce industry, as they target the younger generations. However, you must not disregard the push notifications that customers receive from your app or via email. In fact, email remains one of the most used forms of communication. Nevertheless, all interactions must remain personalized and relevant to each of your customers. Mass emails, discounts, or campaigns will only drive customers away. Your brand must consider at all times how relevant a particular promotion is for your customer.

3. Restructure Loyalty Program. Lastly, it is important to restructure your loyalty program to incorporate rewards for better engagement. Rewarding your customers for uploading images on your product’s social media, for example, should now become part of your core strategy, which would allow for a more human experience & interaction with your brand. Offering a multitude of options for earning points allows the customers to interact with your brand on their terms. A great example is the North Face’s VIPPeak Program which allows customers to earn points for a curated experience, not just discounts on products.

Creating a relevant personal experience maintains customer loyalty

‍Overall, the experience accounts for 76% of what drives engagement, and out of that 12% is solely personal reverence. So creating a relevant and personal experience is key for maintaining customer loyalty (Motista, 2018).

Do loyalty programs really work? A loyalty program is a customer retention tool geared towards keeping and engaging your existing customers, so they will buy in higher quantities, shop more often, or interact with your brand more frequently. In this blog post, you will better understand why they are essential and how to achieve the highest benefits from them.

In the previous blog post, we have seen how loyalty has an essential impact on emotional engagement and therefore increasing brand loyalty. But what about loyalty programs? While we briefly touched upon them, this blog post will be dedicated to better understanding what they are, why they are important, and how to achieve a better one.

eCommerce has been on the rise for the past decade, and now with consumers having more time to spend searching for products, loyalty products are more important than ever as you will aim to keep all of the new business that you are getting. Relying solely on discounts won’t be enough to stand up to massive competitors like Amazon.
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An eCommerce loyalty program is an important customer retention tool geared towards keeping and engaging your existing customers, so they will buy in higher quantities, shop more often, and interact with your brand more frequently.  While many companies deploy high discounts to differentiate themselves, this has only conditioned shoppers to hunt for the best bargain, which made brand loyalty even harder to achieve. The best next-gen loyalty programs are not made of deep discounts but of fun and rewarding loyalty programs, which create an entire community around your brand.

But why are they important? On average, loyalty program members generate 12-18% more revenue per year than non-members. For Amazon Prime, shoppers spend a whopping 133% more per year.  
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We can all agree that loyalty programs are important, so let’s cover some of the most popular and successful types. There are multiple types of loyalty programs such as points-based, tiered, perk, hybrid, or subscription-based and below you’ll find the overview, with an example of each:

1. Points programs are among the most popular types of customer loyalty programs. Points are easy to earn and easy to redeem. For example, Walgreens has a popular customer loyalty rewards program that enables customers to unlock additional savings via coupons and special sales the more they buy. Personalization has been key in driving Walgreens' increased brand loyalty as they have collected their customer’s spending habits. This enabled them to offer personalized rewards and personalize their products and services to their customer’s needs.
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2. Tier-based programs are video-like points programs that allow customers to earn rewards with every purchase unlocking different spending levels with more significant benefits and more perks. Designer Shoe Warehouse (also known as DSW) is a popular shoe retailer that operates a hybrid program, mixing together tiers and free perks. Their tiers were designed based on annual spending amounts and offered rewards like free shipping and extra points for donating unwanted shoes. This enabled the desire to continue shopping as it enabled unlocking of higher tiers and higher rewards.

3. Mission-driven programs such as the one driven by Lush can be highly effective. Lush created the Charity Pot program, and customers can purchase certain goods while they donate the sales to charities supporting various causes. The benefit of a mission-driven customer loyalty program is that it allows customers to feel like their purchase, whether big or small, helps improve others’ lives.‍‍

‍4. Gaming programs introduce an element of fun into the mundane task of making a purchase. The world’s most recognizable coffee brand has one of the best (and most used) loyalty programs among today’s consumers.  Starbucks switched from a simple points program to a gamified approach in 2016, and now Starbucks leads the way among all major U.S. restaurant chains with 14M+ active U.S. members on the app. Customers can earn stars based on their purchases, but it doesn’t stop there.  With the app, loyalty customers get two stars for every $1 spent. They have created a gamified tier system, for which customers can unlock free reward-of-choice. Most importantly, all of Starbuck’s interactions are personalized.  They personalize emails with order options based on purchase history, and mobile order-ahead options are a nice perk for app members. Starbucks is one of the leaders because it covers the entire ecosystem, that spans from physical stores, an app, online and also uses location and purchase history to tailor the experience further.

There are multiple ways in which you can personalize your loyalty program in order to best suit your company’s goals and core values. However, you must have in mind that the average consumer belongs to 13 loyalty programs, but it is active in only half of them. Moreover, only 20% of customers say that they’re very satisfied with the amount of personalization that their loyalty program provides. And as we’ve seen earlier, personalization and tailoring the experience are part of every one of these loyalty programs’ success.

Personalize the loyalty programs only takes two steps
Let’s walk through the 2 steps to achieving loyalty program personalization, and it all revolves around data.

‍1. Firstly, you will need to obtain data. In addition to the basics name and email address, all further data points need to be carefully throughout. Ensure that you’re asking for information relevant to your product offerings and customer segments and developing a plan for how each data point will be leveraged. Finding out what additional information you need is based on the following 2 questions:
‍> How do I want to segment my customers?
> What do I know is an indicator of a high-value customer?

2. Secondly, in addition to the data you are asking your customers for, it is important also to track data. Some basics include:
‍> Purchase History, for example, includes how long a person has been a customer, how many days since the last purchase, and what their previous purchase was.

Customer loyalty is not an area to skimp on
‍The more data you have on the ways in which people interact with your brand (particularly their purchasing history), the more you can tailor your messages to resonate with them.
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Personalizing loyalty programs, for example, with preferred items (and often gamifying the experience) is a highly effective way to inspire purchases and encourage new buying behaviors.  

Have you ever been bombarded with the same recommendation over and over again while browsing a website?

This typically happens when the algorithm behind the recommendations focuses only on retargeting and not on personalization to you as an individual. In this blog post, Ada Ruxandra Aldea will show you 5 of the best strategies to consider when creating relevant content for your consumers.

Have you ever had an exchange with a friend about a holiday to Asia and then started seeing pop-ups everywhere? Well, you are not alone. Any person that has done something online has had at some point that creepy feeling that someone is listening to them or someone is watching them. In reality, this is just the result of a fairly poorly done algorithm focused on targeting rather than personalizing content.

Actually, when done right, personalized communications that are relevant and useful can create lasting customer loyalty and drive revenue growth of 10 to 30 percent (McKinsey, 2017). The challenge is to personalize in a way that doesn’t cross lines and delivers genuine value and relevance. In this video we will cover how to do push notifications the right way.

Let’s cover the 5 most important strategies for creating relevant content for your consumers

1. New Suggestions. Shoppers want to see recommendations for products they haven’t thought of yet or products that they might need, instead of similar products. Shoppers don’t want to be constantly reminded of products they’ve already bought or searched for, especially if the ads appear either too soon, too frequently, or too late in the process. While an already established technique to retarget customers with items that they have clicked on but never purchased, it may be much more interesting to target them with a personalized selection of shoes based on their clicks. Alternatively, shoppers may be interested in purchasing a cocktail dress after they have completed the purchase of stiletto shoes. For example, a successful story is from customers who browse at Nordstrom.com often get product recommendations for similar items in different product categories the next time they visit Facebook.

2. Important Reminders. One way to be relevant with customers is to specifically target customers with relevant reminders that might trigger their interest in purchasing an item. For example, targeting customers with a push notification on re-stocking or a sale of a desired item.  Push notifications work best when you’re messaging someone about something relevant that customers care about.  
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3. Valuable insight driven action. Companies have heaps of data points on customers and yet they fail to personalize pushed content. Use your customer data to determine what types of items your audience likes, then send them special deals based on their interests. You can use this also to attract customers to a new, high value category of items for your company. Starbucks’ bonus star challenge is one such example, with the company offering discounts on 2 frequently bought items and one new product.

4. Experience enhancing notifications. In a recent study, opt-in rates were highest in the travel and transportation niche at a whopping 78%. For example, like many airlines, JetBlue has adopted push notifications to remind its customers when to check-in. While this may not have a direct effect on sales straight away, it creates brand positivity as in this scenario, JetBlue creates high value, practical content that helps to improve the flying experience.

5. Engagement increasing notifications. For example, the Netflix push notifications strategy. With a vast sea of user data available to Netflix, the company can craft highly personalized push messages that draw on each customer’s viewing history. As they’ve found, sending a simple reminder about a series that someone has been watching is an excellent way to improve engagement.


Push notifications are perfect for reopening channels
‍Mobile internet access has soared in recent years and it’s quickly become entrenched in our culture. And with a total of 3.5 Billion registered mobile users worldwide, it is crucial to be present not only on mobile friendly websites but also have performant mobile apps that allow for effective push notifications.

Push notifications are an excellent tool for delivering value to your customers, improving brand loyalty and driving sales. Personalizing your messages based on user data keeps your content relevant and your customers engaged. Because push notifications are more intimate than other forms of communication, they’re ideal for reopening a channel of communication to previous customers and reminding users when they add an item to their cart but don’t complete the purchase.

Around 80% of businesses will have an online chatbot to maintain their customer base engaged, even when remote. With the help of sentiment analysis, Artificial Intelligence chatbots are able to determine the mood in interactive client sessions with ease and therefore create almost human connections.

Have you ever questioned how certain websites can provide a 24/7 live chat or what ‘Brian’ or ‘Stacey’ look like when you connect with them on a live chat service through your favourite clothing website?
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The answer is a very clever Artificial Intelligence (AI) system which learns and adapts after every conversation it has, to give the best possible experience and answers as if it were coming from a human.

A chatbot is far more than a simple messaging service, a chatbot is an artificial intelligence software used by many different industries. It can interact with a user in natural language through several platforms such as websites, messaging applications, apps and also over the phone. The chatbot is one of the most advanced methods of interaction between humans and machines.

The chatbot works in 2 stages
1. The first task that the chatbot performs is analysing the users request to identify the intent of the user and to extract any other relevant information. Identifying the user's intent is the most important step at the core of the chatbot. If the chatbot is unable to understand what the user wants then it won't be able to provide them with a correct answer.

2. Its second task is to return a response. Once the chatbot has identified and understood the users request it can then work to give the user the best possible answer.


With chatbots being an essential service on most websites nowadays and with covid-19 taking people away from brick and mortar retail stores and bringing them online to make their purchases, chatbots allow the businesses to provide that in-person customer experience through a chatbot. Not just through a greeting when they enter the website like you would receive when you are in person but also to provide returning and new customers with special deals or offers.

Chatbots can be easily adapted to different businesses and are perfect because they can interact with customers during the busiest times, cutting customer support costs by up to 30%. The top industries profiting from chatbots are real estate, travel, education, healthcare, and finance. and given its practicality around 80% of businesses will have a form of chat bot by 2020. Social media is also known for its masses of chatbots with facebook having over 300,000 of them on their website. The chatbot market is projected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by 2024 (McKinsey, 2020).


The future of the chatbots
‍As each conversation is had the chatbots will become more human-like. Chatbots will not just be about providing the correct response but also to create a pleasurable customer experience. This will be done with the help of sentiment analysis, it will allow chatbots to understand whether the conversation is going well and respond to the customers emotions accordingly.

Chatbots record all conversation which is how they can become so human-like. Then through sentiment analysis the bot can distinguish the annoyed and happy customers, with sentient analysis it allows chatbots to modify their responses depending on the user, but of course there are always customers that are not quite satisfied and become angry. These specific customers are often routed to a specialized team to provide personalized customer service.
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Innovation pipelines are typically the first area to be cut when a crisis hits a company. However, it is actually in these moments where innovating can have a huge impact on your business. In the final video of our eCommerce & personalization series, Amelia Labovitch will make the case for why you should invest in innovation, even in turbulent times.

Take your visitors on a personalized journey to find the right products in your webshop.

Use the intent to purchase a product as an opportunity to capture the attention of your customer.