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As marketers and content developers, we’ve heard a lot about data, personalization, and 1-1 buyer experiences over the last few years. But what exactly does website and content personalization mean? And more importantly, how can marketing and content teams implement web personalization programs that drive results?

I like to explain web personalization as the process by which we show one specific content to one specific user on your website using one specific data point or parameter. For example, if “Jake” types your website URL into Google and arrives to your home page, and Jake has visited your site before, we could identify Jake as a repeat home page visitor and show him customized a customized message like “Welcome back!”

We’re all familiar to email personalization to some degree. For example, when you receive an email blast that begins “Dear (Your Name)”, that’s a personalized field that pulls your name from the email list database and populates your email. Web personalization works the same way – only with a lot more potential data sources, data points, and content customization options.

But there’s another important difference. With email, you have a captive audience and and known profile / user that has been added to your email list. With web analytics, we are typically dealing with anonymous or mixed data traffic, so while we know something about the user, we often don’t know exactly who they are. We’ll get more into that in a bit.

Why Personalization Matters

According to some of the most recent research reports, web content personalization can make a significant impact on results. According to a recent study by Evergage, 96% of marketers are in agreement that personalization builds customer relationships. Even more impressive, that same report found that 58% of marketers experienced a lift of over 10% using personalization, and 15% of marketers experienced a lift of over 30% using personalization.

To give some more context about how personalization is used, let’s say you’re a personal trainer and sell an exercise program direct to consumers. If you’re able use a user’s search history, ad engagement history, or referring website to likely identify a website visitor as a man or a woman, you could then personalize your landing page content with more contextually relevant content.

Instead of showing all visitors the same image of a woman running, you could customize the image shown based on the visitor profile and data. In this, case, you might show the right side image to profiles instead of the left side image.

But let’s say you wanted to create a more personalized based on experience based on the a user’s geography. In this case, after identifying your user’s geo as Los Angeles, you could show them localized content, in this case custom text and imagery specifically for the Los Angeles market.

Whether your goal goal is improve buyer engagement or generate more leads, or both, it’s not hard to see how personalized web content can make a big impact on your buyer’s online experience.

One of the most effective ways of using personalization is with Call To Actions – such as a button, form, or popup. According to Hubspot’s review of 330,000 call to actions, personalized CTA’s performed 202% better than those without personalization!

Identifying and Tracking Users

While most of your visitors will remain anonymous – meaning you don’t know exactly who they are – we often have a lot of data about users at our disposal. This includes a demographic (age, gender) and behavioral (search history, interests, device, intention). From the moment a user lands on a page on your website, we use cookies begin tracking user.

In addition to data about the user, we’re interested in knowing what that user did after they arrived. For example, a user that spends a lot of time on your pricing and services page could be ready to make a purchase. In contrast, when a user spends time on your blog or subscribes to your newsletter, they be more interested getting more acquainted with your business and experience, but not ready to buy.

The way a user navigates your website, as well as other websites in their browsing history, enables personalization software to create a user profile. That data can be used to create a more engaging user experience.

Making Web Personalization Work For You

How could web and content personalization help your business boost buyer and customer engagement? With adoption rates of web personalization tech growing quickly, it makes sense for companies to start viewing web personalization as a part of their marketing arsenal, not a nice to have add on.

The good news is that personalization technologies and platforms are becoming more effective and – in some case – more affordable. If you’d like to discuss personalization for your business, shoot us a message.

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When a potential new customer arrives to your website for the first time, what is their experience like? From their first impression a few seconds after arrived until they decide to finally click off, how effective was your website in helping the customer move through the buying cycle?

Most company CEO’s probably could not accurately answer that question. That’s because as companies grow and become increasingly complex, so to do their websites and the quest to explain, engage, and connect with a diverse range of buyers.

Sure, there are a lot of metrics and tools to analyze your website effectiveness such as time on your website, articles read, and visitors converted to leads. But those numbers tell just part of the story. You really don’t know what the results would be if your website offered the optimal online experience.

In fact, when you become overly focused on just the metrics, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture and how your website shapes and builds your company’s relationship with its buyers.

To gain important insights into your website’s effectiveness, start by asking yourself these 3 questions:

#1: Does your website effectively tell your company’s story?

Whether it’s a first visit to an ecommerce website or a 3rd visit to a b2b technology website, buyers want to know why they should be doing business with you. Your company story goes beyond just talking about your product, services, and benefits and explains why you exists and why your customers should be doing business with you as a company.

Your company’s will help you build a more authentic connection with your buyers. Done the right way, your company story incorporates your brand character, messaging, visuals, and  everything else that results in delivering the right impression on your visitors throughout your website and at multiple points of engagement.

#2: Does your website inspire confidence and build credibility?

As buyers move through the buying process, they may return to your website multiple time to dig deeper. For some buyers, that may mean reading your blog and learning about specific topics or services. For others, that may be looking carefully at your customer stories or case studies.

Once buyer are already interested in your product, they begin to look more carefully at your company As a buyer moves closer to interest buyers are considering someone is interested in doing business with your company. Is yours a company they want to do business with? Can they trust that you will deliver?

Whether you’re a multinational consulting company or tech startup, your website should tell a credible story about your past successes and how that success translate into future results for any new client.

Over the past couple years, I’ve seen a consistent trend of moving customer stories front and center onto website home pages. It’s a highly effective move that because it helps minimize any doubt in buyers mind whether you can deliver results.

Does your website drive sales and marketing efficiency?

It easy to have a good looking website that impresses. But if your company’s goal is grow, your website needs to generate buyer demand and help your sales people close more deals.

All too often, websites are not built with a cohesive strategy that works to improve or optimize the sales process. Whether it’s targeted landing pages or personalized marketing assets, there are limitless ways to engineer your website around your sale and marketing efforts.

To get from a good website to great website, look for ways that your website can help optimize sales and marketing efforts and work together more effectively to drive results.

Wrapping Up

The next time you do a review of your website, keep the big picture in mind and consider how your website could better help you achieve your key business objectives. Does it offer the right messaging, positioning, and story?  Once you’ve achieved that, then it’s time to dive into the details and start the optimization process.

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