Did you have a chance to attend the Bazaarvoice Summit 2024?

If so, then we hope you had the chance to catch an amazing presentation from our client, Army & Air Force Exchange Service, aka The Exchange. Both Monetate and Bazaarvoice have the honor of working with The Exchange.

At Monetate, we work closely with their team to provide personalized experiences and relevant content for their customers shopping at their online store at shopmyexchange.com.

During the Bazaarvoice Summit, Shane Binion, E-commerce Marketing Manager, The Exchange, shared with attendees how his team is leveraging Monetate Personalization to build personalized experiences for active military, retirees, veterans, their families, and other personnel across the entire customer journey.

We’re proud to play a role in helping The Exchange to make the customer journey easier and more personalized, featuring trusted information from other shoppers when making purchases online.

Here we’re going to talk about The Exchange’s mission and how we support them in their endeavor.

Chapters:

1. What is the customer journey?
2. Why personalization matters for the customer journey
3. How to serve up personalized content
4. The impact of personalization on The Exchange’s customer journey

What is the customer journey?

The customer journey encompasses all the experiences customers undergo while engaging with your company and brand. Rather than focusing solely on isolated transactions or encounters, it captures the entirety of the customer experience.

In essence, it’s the series of steps a shopper takes to them becoming a customer. Optimizing the customer journey through personalization provides a better shopping experience, which leads to more purchases — personalization can increase revenue by up to 15%. For example, let’s look at The Exchange.

Why personalization matters for the customer journey

Serving an eligible customer base of 33.4 million shoppers worldwide, The Exchange is the US Department of Defense’s largest retailer.

The Exchange provides goods and services for the Army, Air Force, Space Force, Navy, Marines, and the Coast Guard. If you’ve ever been on a military base, then you might be familiar with PXs and BXs – The Exchange operates those locations too.

Their website features goods and services from top brands, including Nike, Graco, Disney, Lego, The Home Depot, Lego, Samsung, and more. All purchases are tax-free, feature exclusive military pricing, and 100% of The Exchange’s earnings support the military community.

For Shane Binion and his team, they use automated personalization and product recommendations to provide a superior user experience when shopping online.

When it comes to an e-commerce strategy, the following initiatives are important to The Exchange:

• Build and maintain trust and loyalty in a highly competitive retail environment
• Deliver on customer expectation of personalization when shopping online
• Serve dynamic product recommendations depending on where the customer is on the site or in the sales funnel

Just how do they accomplish these e-commerce and personalization goals?

How to serve up personalized content

It’s important for The Exchange to provide the most personalized and smoothest experience for every customer across the whole shopping journey. Shane and his team use personalized content in several different ways to serve their customers.

First, it’s important to note that only active military, veterans, their families and other military personnel past and present can shop on The Exchange’s website. Therefore, to shop, customers have to login as members.

What makes this shopping experience unique is that The Exchange has a wealth of first-party data about each customer. By the nature of their business, they know who their customers are, their location, their military branch, and more.

Here’s how this data, alongside Monetate Personalization, leads to personalized content.

Branch specific banners

Thanks to first-party member data, The Exchange knows what branch of the military their customers belong to. Therefore, they can serve products by branch – Army, Air Force and Space Force, etc., for a truly customized shopping experience.

Weather specific banners

Are members expecting rain? Snow? Cold temperatures? With geolocation from Monetate, The Exchange knows where their customers are located and what the predicted weather forecast is for their region.

For customers expecting stormy weather, The Exchange serves targeted banners promoting rain gear. For regions expecting snow and cold weather, customers see banners promoting winter gear.

The banners are scheduled to start appearing two days before the predicted weather situation, giving members time to purchase umbrellas, coats and other supplies to prepare for the weather conditions.

Become a military star

Another service provided by The Exchange is the Military Star credit card. Thanks to customer data, The Exchange knows which customers have the credit card and who does not.

For customers that don’t have the Military Star credit card, they’re served with a promotion to sign up, increasing the number of members to get the credit card.

Testing web banners

As any marketer and merchandiser can tell you, testing is important and necessary when building out the customer journey online. With Monetate, you can continue to experiment and build out your findings for refinement.

The Exchange leveraged Monetate to test whether placing “Story Elements” above “Shop By Category Elements” would end up increasing customer engagement and the depth of the customer drive.

But what The Exchange found is that this theory only worked for Patio, Garden & Garage, where placing “Story Elements” above “Shop By Category” resulted in a boost in average order value by +13%.

For all other categories results were flat, suggesting that customers tend to respond better to “Shop By Category” being higher up on the page.

The Exchange also conducted some tests around their homepage banner.

They felt their current style was too cluttered and distracting. They wanted to test whether a new banner that would take the visitor to a PLP (product landing page), featuring multiple CTA banners would be more effective and result in more clicks.

But what The Exchange found was that the metrics between the two experiences were flat. Customers responded to the complex banner the same as the simpler banner. Armed with these findings, The Exchange can keep refining the UX and customer journey on the website and impacting key metrics.

Product recommendations help customers find what they love

The Exchange has also done some incredible work in product recommendations leveraging Monetate.

They currently have 10 containers that are live and expanding. They also target both new and returning visitors, with trending items and actively promote cross sell items towards the end of the conversion funnel. On top of that, they’re even working on building a Deal’s Page to recommend sale items to help customers get a great deal.

As we discussed earlier, The Exchange honors the individual military branches customers belong to when shopping online. This strategy also rolls over into product recommendations, with The Exchange targeting various product recommendations based on branch of service.

One other fun example is how The Exchange leverages product recommendations and sports fandom. The Exchange has a Fan Shop where sport items, like team jerseys, are recommended to shoppers based on their team preferences.

The impact of personalization on The Exchange’s customer journey

Through working with The Exchange and with Shane and his team, Monetate has been key in helping the team to deliver success.

In 2023 alone, the team delivered 53 million personalized experiences, influencing 7.1% of revenue. Shane and his team also launched 104 digital experiences through the Monetate platform. So far, in 2024, The Exchange is on track for even more growth, delivering 4.8 million personalized sessions in January alone, influencing 4.4% of revenue.

We look forward to our continued work with The Exchange as they continue their personalization of the customer journey. Eager to hear more? Watch Monetate and The Exchange’s full on-demand Summit session right here.

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You’ve been served retargeting ads before, some more effectively than others. Some sites (not naming names, Amazon) love to retarget you with ads for items you’ve already bought. These ads are useless when the item they’re showing is one you (hopefully) won’t need to repurchase soon, like a toaster or a pair of headphones.

But sometimes, you see that cute top you were waffling over, or those pants you love now come in another color…and they’re on sale. 

This is the kind of retargeting you want your company to do: the kind that reaches high-potential buyers with info that will convince them to convert. Campaigns that can do this are a great option for online retailers, especially small and mid-sized outfits. They have a fantastic ROI and can help you increase sales among newcomers as well as returning customers.  

Okay, but what if you’ve never done retargeting marketing before? It may seem like a big world to jump into, especially given the looming changes to third-party cookies. But you don’t need to feel overwhelmed. Here’s how to sell your boss (or your boss’s boss) on green-lighting a campaign — and how to launch and administer it so their investment proves itself worthwhile. 

Chapters:

1. What is retargeting in marketing?
2. Three benefits of retargeting marketing
3. Elements of a good retargeting ad campaign
4. How to get started with retargeting marketing
5. Win at retargeting marketing with contextualization

What is retargeting in marketing?

Retargeting marketing campaigns exist to reach out to prospects who have already shown interest in your company or products in the hopes of convincing them to buy. The clue’s in the name.

As a marketer, you probably know the rule of seven. This guideline tells us that most customers need to encounter a brand at least seven times before making a purchase. It’s a concept that was born pre-internet but has been reaffirmed multiple times in the digital age.

Retargeting helps your brand reach that magic number by tracking your online visitors across the web to serve them branded ads. You can use retargeting for display ads on any website or to reach your prospects on social media. 

And now that the modern e-commerce funnel has changed (read: collapsed) and purchases can happen anywhere at any time, retargeting marketing increases your chances of driving purchases even further.

Preferably, these ads call back to a shopper’s interactions with your brand and products. Even if your target doesn’t click an ad, seeing it will increase their familiarity with your brand while keeping their shopping (sorry, browsing) experience top-of-mind.

The idea is to build enough trust and remind your would-be buyers about your products enough times to finally earn that sale. 

Three benefits of retargeting marketing

Anyone can launch and benefit from a retargeting marketing campaign. However, the upsides are especially big for small and mid-sized retailers. National and multinational brands have more to spend on marketing and, therefore, have a much easier time staying top-of-mind with audiences.

Retargeting marketing allows your small brand to do more with less and reach niche audiences much more easily.

1. Generate (targeted) awareness for less

Because people typically need familiarity with a brand before they choose to buy, merchants have to do a lot of work upfront to woo potential customers. Large brands can plaster the web (and the physical world) with ads and other buzzy marketing campaigns. Smaller brands simply don’t have that luxury.

Retargeting allows you to build awareness on a budget by focusing on a narrower (and high-potential) audience. When you spend money to retarget people who have heard of your brand and products at least once, you’re speaking to an audience that’s already somewhat engaged.

You’re not spending money on thousands of views that won’t result in any interest, you’re being smart with your ad spend to find those who already are. 

2. Easily promote new items or collections

A successful product launch requires significant investment in marketing. As with your awareness campaigns, using retargeting allows you to make a smaller investment without losing your chance to make a splash. 

Done well, retargeting allows you to segment your audience by behavior and/or interest. You can use your existing retargeting lists to pinpoint would-be buyers who are most likely to care about a new product.

For instance, shoppers who have previously looked at women’s activewear might want to know about those new yoga pants in stock. Those who have been browsing your phone cases might be a good target for ads sharing your stylish new power banks.

3. Increase customer lifetime value (CLV)

You don’t have to limit your retargeting efforts to prospective customers — why not reach out to those who have already bought from you to see if you can entice them to return? You can share a new product as mentioned above or maybe to let them know your company’s having a sale. If you sell items that need to be replenished regularly, maybe showing a new series of ads every other month will remind them and bring them back to your store.

Retargeting gives you a way to do personalized marketing on a small scale and effectively reach audiences who are likely to make a purchase. 

Elements of a good retargeting ad campaign

A retargeting marketing campaign isn’t guaranteed to work just because you’re reaching out to customers who have recently expressed interest in your brand. Your ads still need to speak to your audience’s needs and desires and reach them in the right place and at the right time.

Keep your campaigns effective by following these criteria.

Highly specific ads

Retargeting campaigns aren’t just about reminding people your brand exists. It’s about reminding people why they were interested in your brand to begin with. That’s why these ads typically feature products rather than generic brand imagery or content.

The more your ad speaks to a target’s reason for visiting your site in the first place, the better chance it has of achieving its desired goal — to bring them back so they’ll complete the purchase. Display the exact item(s) your target viewed, products within the same category or that share a use case, or items you know are popular among the demographic your target is part of. 

Specific ads give viewers a concrete reason to check out your site again, and when they come to your store with that reason in mind, they’re more likely to make a purchase.  

Coordinated landing pages

This is a must-have for any ad campaign, and it’s no different in the world of retargeting marketing. Your ads are specific, so your landing pages must be, too. 

Ads that tout the product someone was looking at but then bounce them to your homepage will leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth by wasting their time. They know what they are after — so take them straight to it, explain the benefits, and make the purchase easy to complete! 

Adequate longevity

Retargeting campaigns aren’t one-and-done. You’re looking to slowly build up familiarity with and trust in your brand. That means you should expect and want your audience members to view your retargeting ads more than once. You’ve caught them during a decision period, and you want to keep reaching them as they weigh your brand and product against other options.

The length of the decision period varies from product to product — someone who’s looking for a new TV is likely to spend more time browsing reviews than someone who just wants a fun new accessory for their summertime socializing. 

One thing to keep in mind is how often during the decision period a person sees your ads. Especially if they’re likely to spend a lot of time considering different options, constantly bombarding them with ads is more likely to annoy them than to win them over.

Most brands set frequency caps on retargeting ads for this exact reason, so no one feels like you’re following them around incessantly. 

Smart targeting

Retargeting ads are meant to go after potential buyers, but not everyone who visits your site is one of those. Don’t let these campaigns exceed their usefulness by casting too wide a net. 

For example, targeting everyone who hits your homepage will mean a lot of money spent on people who looked around and decided your brand didn’t match their needs. The same goes for targeting someone who spent ten seconds on a product page before bouncing. 

Make sure your retargeting marketing is aimed at individuals who have engaged with your brand. What that means may vary based on your industry and typical customer behaviors, but typically, it involves interacting with a product page by looking at product details or reading reviews, visiting multiple pages on your site, or signing up for an account. 

How to get started with retargeting marketing

Sold yet? If not, we’ll wait while you refresh yourself on the small percentage of buyers who actually make a purchase on any given visit to your e-commerce store. If yes, we hope you’re ready to get started — because jumping in doesn’t have to be a big deal. 

Don’t be afraid to start small with retargeting. Your initial campaigns can help you gather data and prove the effectiveness of the method. Here’s how to launch your very first one. 

Add a retargeting pixel to your website (and start gathering customer data)

The very first step in launching a retargeting campaign is finding ways to identify your audience so you can find them elsewhere online. You’ll want to add the Google Remarketing Tag and Facebook’s Conversions API to your site. 

Note that Google’s retargeting tag may not be helpful for long. In response to customer demands for more privacy (and governmental pushes for the same), third-party cookies like the tracking pixel are being phased out. Google is already blocking them for a small percentage of browser users and testing new advertising tools and techniques on that population. The company is still refining its new ad offerings, but it seems traditional cookie-based retargeting won’t have an analog in this new system. 

Therefore, you need to get something a bit more stable than a browser cookie. Facebook’s Conversions API is one example of a tool that will outlast this change — other sites may or may not release their own. You can take matters into your own hands by convincing visitors to sign up for your email list or share their phone number for text message marketing purposes.

Once third-party cookies are gone for good, customers’ contact information will be the best, if not the only, way to retarget them.

Link your pixel (and upload customer data) to retargeting ad providers

You can retarget ads through multiple platforms: Google Display Network, the Google SERP, and social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. (Note that the latter two also have their own retargeting pixels for you to install if you choose to use these platforms.)

The setup for each site is a little different, so we’ll let them explain best practices to you. 

For now, you may simply need to follow the steps on each site to set up your third-party cookies. However, if the option is available, we recommend you get used to uploading your email lists. You’ll have to start doing it someday, so why not build the foundations for your next-gen retargeting efforts now? 

As a plus, you can start learning how to best segment these audiences when cookies aren’t doing all the work for you.

Segment your audience by behavior and preferences

Personalized ads tend to work better, and the best way to personalize retargeting ads is by looking at what your customers do on your site. Of course, this type of retargeting marketing may become more time-intensive once third-party cookies are fully out of the picture. Still, let’s talk a little bit about what this kind of retargeting can do.

Even if your store has a very narrow niche, your shoppers likely came to the site looking for a specific item or type of product. The more you know about what they were after, the better; you can reach them with retargeting ads that promote the product or product category they were browsing. Ads that understand your audience’s needs will, of course, do a better job of bringing them back to your site.  

However, this type of retargeting requires the ability to track each user closely and then transmit their browsing data to an ad server, which will become much harder when third-party cookies are no longer allowed. It may be easier to build retargeting ad campaigns around your most popular products — the ones that your visitors are more likely to have looked at or at least know about.

You can then break out these ads by demographic, so you have a campaign aimed at millennial women, one for Gen Z women, one for millennial men, and so on.

Finally, sometimes audience behavior isn’t just about what they view on your site, it’s about how far they get in the customer journey. A person who browses your site for ten minutes has a different relationship to your brand than one who makes an account, and that person needs a different approach than one who put some items in their cart but then decided not to buy. 

To recap, here’s the ways you can segment your audience (and tailor ads accordingly):

• By product viewed: Serve ads that show the exact product(s) a visitor viewed on your site. This reminds viewers of the item they liked while building brand awareness and trust. 
• By product category: Serve ads that display the same type of products (for example, women’s going-out tops or healthy snacks) a visitor viewed on your site. This keeps your brand top-of-mind for any shopping your audience wishes to do in the same area.
• By audience demographic: Serve ads that speak to the various market segments you serve, whether that’s different generations or just “people who like running” vs. “people who like swimming.” These ads promote the demographic’s most-bought items to invite audiences to get in on a trend with your brand.
• By onsite behavior: Serve ads that target the most engaged customers — those who abandoned their carts (or, if your site has the capability, those who favorited items or added them to a wishlist). Use this campaign to remind shoppers of the items they almost bought and invite them to come back and finish the purchase.

Of course, there’s multiple ways to dice up audiences within each of these options. Choose one to get started with, and try different methods of targeting (or different types of ads) to see what works best. Or save time and work with a contextualization partner who can segment for you based on AI-powered insights.

Convince on-the-fence shoppers with UGC-based ads

Now, it’s time to create the actual ads! You’ve likely seen retargeting ads that follow you around the web with product pictures. They’re noticeable because of the familiarity, but this format doesn’t bring a lot to the table in terms of convincing audiences to give you a second look.

Ads that feature user-generated content (UGC) stand out and have a better chance of connecting with your audience. Imagine if, instead of seeing that set of dinnerware displayed against a white background, you saw an ad that showed the dinnerware in use at a fantastic party. Or, if the ad used reviews to tell you previous buyers thought it was “sturdy enough that you don’t have to worry about putting it in the dishwasher, despite the decorations.” 

These authentic product experiences can only be found in UGC, and they do a lot more to build trust because they show that other people trust you, too. 

Choose or create landing pages for your retargeting campaign

Whether you’re using existing pages as the target of your ads or creating new ones, make sure the content of the page matches what people saw in the ad. If your retargeting campaigns feature one item, you can probably just link audiences to that product page. Just make sure it’s easy for them to buy the item once they get there.

However, if you’re featuring more than one item in your retargeting ads, consider linking to a collection or product category.

The other option is to create a unique landing page with the item(s) you featured and a streamlined checkout — in other words, to save shoppers the hassle of doing the add to cart > visit cart > check out dance. You may see more conversions from this type of page, especially if you target it toward people who spent a long time on an item’s product page or denoted their interest in some other way. 

Either way, think about including UGC on your landing page as well. We’ll assume you already have reviews turned on, but do you share product videos or images, including the one(s) you used in your ad campaign? Showing that media again will make the interaction feel more cohesive and remind users why they clicked on your ad in the first place. 

Set your budget for your retargeting campaigns

You don’t have to spend a lot on retargeting campaigns to be successful. It’s possible to start off with just a few dollars a day when you’re only looking to reach a very small number of people. If you’ve never done retargeting marketing before, we recommend starting small. Retargeting tool AdRoll suggests smaller retailers can launch a campaign with around $50 per day. 

If even that’s a difficult sell to make, it might help to remind stakeholders that your budget will determine the quality of the results and data you gather. You shouldn’t build a campaign off “insights” you gathered from ten or twenty people. Likewise, hitting a larger number of people for a very limited amount of time (say, a week or two) is unlikely to show results because retargeting is about repeated exposure to your brand and products. 

Marketers who face budget constraints may consider limiting ads to one platform — try starting with your best-performing social site if you’re in this situation. You can also set frequency caps to make sure you don’t pop up in any one person’s feed too often. This allows you to keep the scope small without hampering your ability to retarget a good number of visitors. 

Track important retargeting metrics

The most important metrics in a retargeting campaign are your click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per conversion. You may track other data points as well to help you understand how many touches it takes to convince a target to return to your site and how many people come back even if they still aren’t ready to buy. But these are the big three.

• Click-through rate tells you how effective your ads are. You can compare your CTR across platforms to see which method is the best for reaching consumers, and across campaigns to see which ads are enticing the most customers to return to your site
• Conversion rate tells you how many of those clicks result in a sale. This is where you get the ROI from your retargeting marketing efforts, so you want to make sure you have these numbers on hand to prove your experiment is working!
• Cost per conversion helps you understand how efficient your ad campaign is. It helps you understand how retargeting ads perform compared to your other (non-retargeting) campaigns. This is another number that can work as justification to support continued retargeting efforts

Of course, not all retargeting campaigns result in someone clicking the ad and making a purchase — they may return to your site on their own accord after viewing a certain number of ads. While this behavior can’t be directly attributed to your ads (at least right now), keep track of when this happens. 

You may find your ad campaigns correlate with changes like a smaller gap between first visit and eventual purchase, visitors needing fewer site visits before they make a purchase, or other behavioral indicators that your ads are making a difference. 

Win at retargeting marketing with contextualization

The magic of retargeting marketing is that these ads directly respond to consumer actions, making personalization easy. You’re addressing a warm lead instead of trying to nurture a new one. Of course, this means you have to retarget your audience soon after their visit to your site.

Retargeting campaigns can’t be set up as a response to consumer behaviors, they have to be prepped and ready to deploy as soon as an individual shows sufficient interest.

You don’t have time to waste when setting up your retargeting marketing. Even if the first ads aren’t perfect (and when are they ever?), it’s more important to reach people while your brand and products are still top-of-mind. So, don’t let hesitation hold you back. Get started with a limited-scope retargeting campaign that uses UGC you’ve already gathered. Then, watch those customers who are “just browsing” come back and engage further with your brand. 

Retargeting is all about serving personalized ads based on user behaviors. Watch our new on-demand masterclass How contextualization is transforming online shopping to learn more tips that will boost your retargeting (and other marketing) campaigns. 

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How modern marketing strategies miss the mark for shoppers

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Marketing personalization gets the second date — or in this case, clicks and conversions.

Why’s that? Because personalized marketing is all about tailoring your campaigns to provide a customized experience for your e-commerce site visitors. And in the modern market, the majority of customers expect it, which means brands that design the same messaging for all their customers are so last season.

This is why Bazaarvoice partnered with Klaviyo — to help brands elevate their personalization strategies. It all starts with gaining knowledge about your customers and using it to provide them with an exceptional, tailored shopping experience.

Chapters:

1. What is personalized marketing?
2. Why is personalized marketing so important?
3. How to build a personalized marketing strategy
4. Personalized marketing examples
5. How to get started with personalized marketing

What is personalized marketing?

Personalized marketing uses information about your customers to create individualized, relevant messages and offers. For e-commerce businesses, this data-driven approach matches consumer demographics and behaviors with tailored website and marketing content.

There’s many applications of personalized marketing, from geo-sensitive push notifications that send discounts when you’re near a coffee shop, to abandoned cart emails that remind you of products you looked at but didn’t buy, to product recommendations based on order history. Just to name a few.

And personalized marketing is growing at a rapid pace. Nearly 40% of marketing decision-makers ranked personalization as the most important consumer experience. And a recent survey revealed that 33% of marketers in the US and UK devote over half of their online marketing budgets to personalization projects and initiatives.

The report predicts this trend will continue, driven by advancements in technology, data, and analytics that make personalization more widely available, as well as the rapid rise of generative AI tech.

Why is personalized marketing so important?

Personalized marketing allows you to gain extensive knowledge about your products and customers. You can learn what products, services, features, and messaging attracts customers and leads, then adapt your marketing and product strategy accordingly.

Customers receive marketing materials they actually want and make them feel connected to your brand. This leads to purchases in the short term and brand loyalty and customer retention in the long term.

Valuable information like this lets you focus on what works and scrap what doesn’t. If you only have blanket messaging and offers on your website and in campaigns, you’re missing out on opportunities to target visitors with effective content. According to McKinsey, personalization can

• Increase revenues by 5 – 15%
• Lower customer acquisition costs by up to 50%
• Increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10 – 30%

Increasing online privacy regulations makes user activity more secure and protected, but targeted marketing — like personalization — more challenging. The restrictions prohibit third-party data tracking that has historically helped marketers target campaigns to their website visitors.

This is why it’s extra important to know how to implement personalized marketing in the wake of new obstacles and a changing marketplace. Without the third-party tracking data that gives a broad view of users’ search behavior on various websites, marketers will need to rely on their own data and create campaigns based on that to reach their customers.

How to build your personalized marketing strategy

The basis of personalized marketing is having comprehensive and organized data about the people you’re trying to target.

Once you’ve assembled all your relevant data, you can use it to segment customers based on preferences, demographics, or order history. Then, you can identify the primary channels where customers engage in order to focus your distribution. Either your website, email, social media, live chat, or a combination.

1. Gather customer data and insights

Collect all the pertinent information on your customers that will be useful in serving them personalized content. This includes demographic data, like gender, age group, location, and income level.

Another big piece of the puzzle is shopping behavior, like purchase history and spending habits. With the advent of third-party tracking restrictions, this means relying heavily on collecting first-party data.

There’s different routes you can take to collect these insights, which require varying levels of oversight. Customer data platforms (CDP) are a primary resource for aggregating data from across multiple customer touchpoints. CDPs record when a customer visits your e-commerce website, is shown an ad, or opens a promotional email. And then how the customer interacts with each. CDPs then combine all this information into a single, data-rich customer profile.

A good example is our Bazaarvoice homepage. It appears slightly differently depending on whether you’re a social media manager or e-commerce manager. Each page is tailored to suit the relevant persona.

A personalization engine is similar to a CDP but with AI and machine learning that can assist in designing data-based, targeted campaigns.

Individual data sources also offer insights into your customers. These include social media and SEO management software, e-commerce and retail point of sale (POS) systems, and Google Analytics. These platforms will give you insights on customers who visit your website, engage with your brand on social media, and purchase your products or services.

2. Create customer segments

Next, you can create customer segments based on your data. Look for demographic and behavioral patterns in the data to determine how to segment your audience. Personalization engines and CDPs can combine and organize this data for you, or it can be done manually.

Some examples of customer segments to use for marketing personalization include age groups, occupations, spending amount tiers, product interest categories, and date of the most recent purchase. Once you have your different customer segments set up, tailor your messaging and offers according to the qualities and characteristics of each segment.

Segmentation is a planning tool for personalized marketing. To personalize content, you need to take it a step further. Personalized marketing takes customer segments and then individualizes content for the members of that segment.

For example, a segment could be a group of customers who regularly purchase higher-priced items. To create personalized content for a customer in that segment, you could send an email with product recommendations for luxury items in their size.

One brand who knows segmentation well is Little Sleepies. Wanting to boost their Black Friday sales, the apparel brand leveraged Klaviyo’s segmentation capabilities. Little Sleepies sent two campaigns in a day: the first to their full nurture list and the second to the segment that engaged with the first email but didn’t make a purchase.

They also targeted specific segments with personalized features like a countdown timer. Using Klaviyo’s segmentation paid off with a 138.2% year on year growth in revenue from email during Black Friday.

3. Personalize experiences based on UGC interactions

Leveraging the insights you find from consumer interactions with user-generated content (UGC) — like reviews and frequently asked questions — can be a powerful way to identify and segment audiences for win-back campaigns for unhappy customers. Or for surprise and delight campaigns for your biggest fans. 

Some example use cases include:

• Send review requests: Integrate flows to send post-purchase review request messages to your customers from Klaviyo. This ensures that any email communication is configured and managed within the Klaviyo platform, giving your teams a singular view of the communication with your customer
• Powerful segmentation and flows: Create flows within Klaviyo to thank your customers for writing a review, or segment based on review submissions to contact customers after they leave a positive or negative review
• Personalize your messages: Leverage past review data to notify satisfied customers of an upcoming promotion on a product they love or trigger a refer-a-friend invitation following a positive review submission 

Businesses can now incorporate Bazaarvoice data into their Klaviyo platform to drive additional intelligence to their marketing strategies and personalization triggers. Through the Bazaarvoice and Klaviyo integration, customers can leverage real-time UGC interaction data within email and SMS to create relevant shopping experiences for each customer and influence more purchases.

This integration enables brands to unlock the full potential of UGC while leveraging Klaviyo’s robust marketing automation capabilities to deliver personalized and impactful messages at scale.

Personalized marketing examples

Collecting and organizing customer data is only half the battle. The next step is putting that data to use with different types of personalized marketing tactics and campaigns.

Personalized email marketing

Only 8% of brands think email is important, which is surprising. Because not only do nearly a third of shoppers think personalized emails are important, but email is the top digital channel used for personalized marketing because it’s fairly easy to create customized email content for individual recipients.

After all, consumers have been getting promotional emails with their name in the subject line for years.

There’s multiple different types of email marketing campaigns that brands can personalize. Review request emails are the perfect opportunity to personalize content. They’re a direct response to a customer’s action, whether that’s a website visit, a cart abandonment, or a purchase.

Other types of emails, including product feature announcements, out of stock emails, newsletters, and special offers, can all be personalized. The most basic method is to simply include the customer’s name in the subject line or body of the email. Emails with personalized subject lines improve open rates by 26%, but this can also come off as heavy-handed. Product recommendations based on the customer’s preferences and order history are a more advanced way to appeal to the customer’s personal interests.

Enhance these emails with customer reviews and visual UGC of recommended products. UGC provides consumers with the social proof they need to learn more about products, and ultimately the confidence to make a purchase. You can go the extra mile and personalize the UGC itself. Example: If an email is going to someone in an older age bracket, include reviews or a photo created by someone close to their age that corresponds with the brand or product.

The way in which you collect UGC also plays an important role in personalization. One of the top recommended personalization campaigns is to send emails asking customers to review a recently purchased product. You can then use that UGC to display on your website, giving shoppers more details and insights from verified customers who have first-hand experience with products.

In this email example from Hulu, the streaming platform does a great job of using customer data to create a personalized campaign. It uses the customer’s demographic information (their date of birth) and purchase history. In this case, the customer was a previous subscriber who hadn’t renewed their subscription.

So, Hulu offers them a birthday gift in the form of a one-month free trial with the goal of winning back the customer.

SMS marketing

Often considered an extension of email, SMS marketing is an often overlooked but equally powerful tool — the average text open rate is 98%.

Much like with email, SMS works wonders for personalization because it’s easy enough to create custom content for specific segments. All you need to write is your customer’s name at the start and include messaging like “Exclusively for our text subscribers” to get going. 

There’s multiple types of personalization opportunities in SMS marketing:

• Promotional SMS include special offers like holiday sales and customer acknowledgement like a birthday message
• Post-interaction texts are usually sent post-purchase and post-delivery or even for abandoned cart notifications
• Customer service messaging can consist of shipping updates and delivery notifications

The key is to segment before you send. Types of SMS segment include loyalty program customers, engaged subscribers, or subscribers who’ve yet to make a purchase from you. And it works.

One brand, Fast Growing Trees, discovered this firsthand after they implemented a more personalized SMS strategy, using Klaviyo’s segment level campaign reporting. The brand started sending SMS messages to a more specific segment of subscribers — 60-day engaged as opposed to 180-day engaged — with the aim of increasing engagement and growing their SMS channel.

Since June 2023, their revenue per SMS message has already grown 35% quarter over quarter.

Website or app optimization

For e-commerce companies, your website or app is the ideal space for personalization. This is where you can deliver relevant calls to action (CTAs) for further browsing and exploration. Things like product recommendations of products similar to what’s in the shopper’s cart, or based on order history.

Some examples are “people also bought,” “you might also like,” “finish the look,” and “don’t forget to accessorize.”

Enabling your website search feature to produce relevant results and recommendations is another important aspect of website personalization. For example, if a website visitor searches for a black dress, everything that fits “black” + “dress” should populate.

And if you don’t carry a black dress, provide them with alternatives that closely match. That could be a navy dress or a grey dress, for example. If a search term is misspelled — like “black dress”— your technology should be able to understand that and produce results instead of no results.

Special offers tailored to different types of customers is an enticing website personalization tactic. Offer promo codes to first-time customers to use on their first order. Increase basket sizes by offering discounts on products or free samples that align with customers’ repeat purchases or interests.

Customized content is another way to provide a personalized experience for each website visitor. Create dedicated landing pages to include in emails that highlight personalized product updates and recommendations. Another way is to include the customer’s name and order history when they visit your website.

Netflix is an expert in the art of personalized marketing, particularly with its in-app recommendations. The company uses its subscribers’ viewing behaviors to create TV and movie categories based on their unique tastes. Examples of this in action are its “Because You Watched” and “Gems for You” lists.

Spotify does the work for you and curates recommendations into instantly consumable playlists. Some of its personalized playlists based on listener data include daily mixes, genre mixes, top artists mixes, Discover Weekly, and Release Radar.

The company’s highly anticipated annual Spotify Wrapped is a shining example of personalization in action. With this feature, they literally create a neatly packaged overview of each individual listener’s data and use it to make fun, shareable content and custom playlists.

Augmented reality

The use of augmented reality (AR) is a growing marketing trend that enables real-time personalization. The number of mobile AR users is expected to reach 1.73 billion this year. Some customers using the AR platform Adloid reported seeing up to a 200% increase in sales conversions.

AR is an example of advanced personalized marketing, where customers can see products superimposed on their own bodies, in their living spaces, or in other real-life settings. Some top retail and e-commerce industries that have quickly adopted AR include automotive, beauty, home goods and decor, and apparel.

On its website, L’Oreal’s Live Try On gives shoppers the opportunity to virtually apply its products from wherever they are using their mobile or desktop device.

And Target’s See It in Your Space feature is a great way to see how furniture and other products look in your home or office. Customers can accurately visualize these products and if they fit where they live and work.

Saying sorry

Elton John famously sang, “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” (Or Blue famously sang it, depending on the era you grew up in. Both are bangers). Either way, apologies can be tough. Not just for people, for brands too. But it really doesn’t have to be!

They’re the perfect opportunity to use personalization to turn a negative shopper experience into a positive one. 45% of consumers actually consider a brand apology to be the “coolest” personalization tactic they’ve seen.

Whether apologizing for an item being out-of-stock or following up on an abandoned shopping cart, there’s often a reason a brand needs to apologize. So if you have to do it, do it properly.

Take this tailored example from ZocDoc above. Not only does it provide a form of compensation to entice the customer to stay with the brand, it also uses the opportunity to gain customer feedback. This feedback can then be used to improve the service going forward, making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Product sampling

Launching a targeted sampling campaign creates a personalized experience for customers because you are sending products directly to them to try out for themselves. To maximize the personalization of each campaign, tailor the samples according to the individual customer.

For example, you can reward customers you consider high value because of their repeat business with pre-release samples of new products. You can target customers who have interests in specific product types with samples of new or similar products. You can include samples of relevant products along with order shipments.

With product sampling, not only do customers get a free gift based on their interests or customer history, but samples often create impactful UGC for brands.

In exchange for product samples, brands can ask recipients for feedback in the form of an online survey or a review, making sampling another valuable data-gathering tactic.

Conversational commerce

We’ve left the best til last. Knowing how to win at conversational commerce is a business necessity. Conversational commerce uses messaging apps and voice-activated technology to sell products and services, with help from artificial intelligence. Think of it as an online version of talking to a sales assistant in a store.

Whether shopping bots that aid a customer through the buyer journey, or customizable chatbots for customer inquiries, there’s a multitude of conversational commerce delivery methods. And each one provides a different personalization in its own right.

Take this example from our own Bazaarvoice website. You’ll have seen an iteration of it pop up in the bottom corner. Through some simple tweaking, our own lovely chatbot (Bazaarbot!) differs in messaging depending on who visits the site.

Let’s say a user has tried out our marketing ROI calculator tool. On their next site visit, our bot will encourage those with an ROI calculation to get in touch. As demonstrated below.

Using this example almost feels like spilling state secrets or insider trading. But you know what, it’s one of the multiple, successful customizations on our website. And you have to lead by example.

How to get started with personalized marketing

Personalized marketing is a proven way to win over customers, and it’s surprisingly simple to implement. But there’s a disparity between brands and shoppers when it comes to personalization — while retailers believe they’re excelling at personalized marketing, consumers disagree.

There’s multiple ways to solve this though — you already have most of the resources to do it. As it is, you can start personalizing with the data you already have and refine your strategy through more sophisticated collection and segmentation. But key areas of opportunity for brands include:

1. Focus on delivering the right content through the right channel at the right time
2. Use tailored offerings and purchasing incentives, like discounts, in exchange for personal information
3. Utilize the Bazaarvoice + Klaviyo integration to leverage real-time UGC within email and SMS in an automated way to create relevant shopping experiences for each user and influence more purchases

Over time, you’ll increasingly notice the impact it has. And your bottom line will thank you for it. Learn more on our dedicated Klaviyo + Bazaarvoice integration page or get started right away below.

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Research tells us that over half of consumers would be less loyal to a business if the e-commerce experience isn’t as enjoyable as in-person and 55% of customers claim they’d stop purchasing from a brand altogether after several bad experiences. Another 8% would end their relationship after just one bad experience.

An exceptional e-commerce experience is no longer just a surprise-and-delight bonus for customers. They’ve come to expect it. And their standards are higher than ever! Especially now that more people are shopping online and new technology keeps evolving. So for brands to remain competitive and attract and retain customers, they must emphasize the overall experience as much as they do the transaction.

Learn the criteria for an outstanding e-commerce experience and how top brands deliver it for their customers so you can emulate their success.

Chapters:

1. Benefits of a strong e-commerce experience
2. The traits of a superior e-commerce shopping experience
3. 6 brands acing the e-commerce experience
4. Measure the success of your e-commerce experience

Benefits of a strong e-commerce experience

The individual components of a successful e-commerce strategy all have their own benefits — together they create an overall winning customer experience. When you design your e-commerce strategy to exceed your customers’ expectations, they’ll show their appreciation. Customer experience is an important purchasing decision factor for 73% of consumers.

Just like going to the movies, people are willing to spend money for a better e-commerce experience. According to McKinsey, a positive customer experience results in a 10-15% increase in sales-conversion rates. In particular, 43% of consumers would pay more for greater convenience.

Customers are willing to volunteer their own data in exchange for a better experience. That data, including their email address, birthday, gender, location, preferences, and other information, fuels the very personalization that improves the experience. 

The traits of a superior e-commerce shopping experience

The key to creating an amazing e-commerce experience is supplying what your customers want and need. Focus on what will be most convenient, appealing, engaging, and user-friendly for them to guide your action plan.

Accessibility

Making your website accessible is fundamental to a high-quality e-commerce experience. Having an accessible website means that anyone can easily understand and navigate it, regardless of skill level, age, or physical capability. 

While this seems like common sense, a staggering 94% of the highest grossing e-commerce sites don’t meet accessibility requirements. Considering this reality, if your site is fully accessible, you’ll be an outlier among your competitors.

You also won’t risk losing customers and sales because of a poor or difficult website experience — inclusive marketing should be the bare minimum. So ensure your e-commerce site is accessible for your customers by following these standards:

• Optimize images with alt text and descriptions for visually impaired users
• Label hyperlinked images for visually impaired users
• Use adequate color contrasting on linked text for colorblind users
• Form fields should be sufficiently marked up with descriptive labels and prompts
• Videos should have captions for deaf and hearing-impaired users
• Your website should be operable using just keyboard navigation and be mobile optimized

Product recommendations

A wide range of potential customers visit online stores. Some people know exactly what they’re looking for, while others prefer to browse. Product recommendations are one of the most important social proof tools to help shoppers make decisions. They also drive discovery, as shoppers can find similar products or see products they might not have found otherwise. 

There’s a variety of ways to leverage your data when recommending products that can increase your sales. For instance, you can showcase items that are frequently purchased together or even highlight items that other people with similar product views rated highly.

Personalization

Personalization is another critical part of the customer experience. Personalized marketing is the practice of using customer data to deliver relevant offers and recommendations based on customer preferences and activity.

Personalization enhances and improves the customer experience because it delivers what shoppers are looking for: convenience, product discovery, or content that appeals to their curiosities and interests. It’s a growing priority for consumers, and has a significant business impact for e-commerce companies. 

Twilio Segment’s State of Personalization report found that almost half of the 3,000+ consumers surveyed would likely become repeat customers after a personalized shopping experience. Conversely, 62% of consumers claimed that they’d stop being loyal to a business after an un-personalized experience. Out of the business leaders surveyed, 80% say that customers spend an average of 34% more when their e-commerce experience is personalized. 

Augmented reality (AR) is growing as an immersive personalization trend — 74% of consumers are excited that brands are enhancing shopping experiences with AR. AR is a type of technology used in marketing that allows shoppers to virtually try on and experience products.

Snapchat and TikTok filters are examples of popular AR features from the past several years. Major beauty, apparel, and home decor brands leverage AR to let customers interact with and visualize products before making purchases.

Customer support

E-commerce sales, including mobile purchases, are increasing at a higher rate than brick-and-mortar sales for U.S. consumers. More consumers are drawn to online shopping each year because of the convenience and ability to browse, discover, and compare brands and products easily.

This shift towards online shopping also comes with high expectations for online customer support. Customers want their questions answered and problems solved on the same platform where they shop. 

Successful customer support empowers customers to solve problems themselves without escalation, and when issues require intervention, it entails fast and effective service. The result is happy customers and better performance for brands. Customer support that mitigates problems leads to increased customer acquisition and loyalty. 

“Value enhancement” customer support increases repurchase likelihood by 82%, wallet share by 86%, and sharing positive experiences by word of mouth by 97%. This approach focuses on predicting customer behavior to tailor interactions and allocating experienced customer reps for high-priority issues.

Effective online support methods include: 

• Robust FAQ pages
• Product pages with questions and answers features
• Live chat options
• Contact pages with customer support phone numbers and email addresses. 

Omnichannel marketing

These days, shoppers use a variety of digital touchpoints to search and purchase products. Building an omnichannel strategy enables you to reach all of your customers on each platform where they’re active. That means expanding your presence beyond your e-commerce site to social media channels, text messages, emails, and mobile apps, depending on your customer demographics. 

An important part of omnichannel marketing is meeting customers at every stage of the buyer journey. For e-commerce brands, that often means:

• On social media at the discovery stage
• On product pages at the consideration stage
• In emails at the loyalty stage

Practicing an omnichannel strategy is also a valuable tool for gathering and evaluating customer data. By collecting data on every touchpoint, you can build a more detailed and accurate profile for each of your customers. This ensures that you serve them pertinent messaging at the right time. For example, if a customer leaves a poor review on a product, they shouldn’t be seeing Facebook ads about that product. Likewise, if they already purchased a particular product, they shouldn’t see ads for that product.

The final step to completing a high-performing omnichannel strategy is linking your various channels for a seamless customer experience. If someone sees an ad on Instagram and starts a purchase on their phone, they should be able to finish it on their laptop at a later time if they choose. 

By taking an omnichannel approach, you’ll have more opportunities to capture customers and sales. Plus, you’ll provide a cohesive customer experience across the multiple channels they use to browse and shop. An omnichannel presence gives customers greater access to your brand and keeps it top of mind. 

Social commerce

Social commerce is an extension of e-commerce but on social media channels. People are already on social media all the time, so it makes sense for them to be able to do their shopping there, too. It eliminates friction along the buyer journey. 

Consumers have fully embraced social media as a marketplace. According to DataPortal’s Digital Statshot Report, 75% of global internet users use social media to research brands and products. And just in the U.S., social buyers are projected to grow to 114.3 million by 2025, an 18% increase from 2021. 

Gen Z is the biggest audience for social commerce, with 57% discovering new products on social channels in recent months. Almost half prefer Instagram Stories as a source of inspiration, followed by 41% who look to short-form videos on Instagram Reels and TikTok. Facebook and YouTube are more popular with older audiences. Twitter is anyone’s guess with Elon Musk in charge.

To provide the best experience for your customers on social media, tailor your content to match the most popular types on those channels. For consumers, the most memorable content from brands includes funny content, relatable content, and product tutorials and demos. Consumers also want the brands they follow to earn their trust by raising awareness and speaking up about important social issues. Brand building is equally as important as selling when it comes to the social commerce experience.

Gamification

Many e-commerce brands use gamification, like interactive quiz and surveys, to provide an engaging experience for their shoppers, and to also learn more about their customers. Shopper information obtained this way can be used to customize shopping experiences to better meet their needs and preferences.

Make sure to add a skip button or quick exit to allow your visitors the option of omitting questions they don’t want to respond to, and avoid launching a survey the moment a visitor arrives on your site. 

Enhanced segmentation

Every customer uniquely engages with your e-commerce store. Segmentation allows you to ensure that shoppers accomplish their objectives on your site, regardless of how they interact with it!

For example, you could highlight special promotions for winter gear to visitors living in areas that are cold. Variables could include location, age, income, if they’re a new or repeat customer, and lots more. By doing this, you can maximize the aforementioned personalization and set up your e-commerce site to provide the best customer experience.

Displaying UGC

Consumers are driven by peer-to-peer decisions more than any other marketing tool — When shopping on a brand or retailer’s website, 40% of shoppers won’t purchase if there isn’t UGC on the product page.

Including user-generated content (UGC) such as reviews, photos or social media posts will give your site a new dimension. Visitors can see how your products in real life by sharing images, videos, and customer reviews.

Offering a continual e-commerce shopping experience

By enabling customers to pick up where their virtual shopping baskets where they left off, you can easily reduce shopping cart abandonment. With this strategy, you can instantly notify guests of previously chosen products and preferences based on their web browsing history.

Although it’s a more intricate tactic, it can produce excellent results, and make shoppers feel valued.

6 brands that ace the e-commerce experience

There’s a lot to consider when crafting an A-list e-commerce experience. It requires smoothly integrating all the ingredients of a successful shopping spree for customers at every turn, on every channel. One good thing about a saturated market is there’s plenty of brands doing a stellar job to draw inspiration from. 

These examples show how different brands in various industries make online shopping seamless, educational, and fun at different points along the customer journey. Take notes to level up your own production value.

Plenty optimizes product pages with ratings and reviews

The volume and recency of product reviews are two of the biggest factors that influence purchase decisions. That’s why Plenty prioritizes their customer review strategy to optimize their e-commerce site for ready-to-purchase customers. Leveraging this powerful form of user-generated content UGC showcases their own customers’ feedback, providing social proof for other shoppers.

Plenty encourages reviews with a CTA for visitors to leave a review for a chance to win £100 every month. Their review collection efforts result in hundreds and thousands of reviews per product. They put those reviews to good use, analyzing the insights found in them to develop new products and marketing content.

For example, when pet adoptions surged in the U.K., so did reviews about how Plenty products help with pet clean-up. As a result, Plenty developed helpful blog and social media content for pet parents.

Samsonite inspires shoppers with customer photos

The luxury luggage brand Samsonite strengthened their omnichannel experience by funneling their social media content to their e-commerce site. Using Bazaarvoice Galleries, Samsonite displays visual UGC of customers and influencers with their products throughout their site. The images are linked with the featured products so customers can purchase directly from the gallery.

Using a social media hashtag campaign, Samsonite was able to generate 27,000 pieces of UGC to promote their products on social media and their product pages. This strategy resulted in a significantly higher dwell time on pages with galleries and a 245% increase in conversion rate. This boost in visual content supports consistent branding across channels and entices shoppers with relatable marketing.

Bemz personalizes social commerce

The Bemz business model relies on personalization, and so does its e-commerce experience for customers. Bemz makes customized, made-to-order covers for IKEA furniture. With so many product options, the brand realized it needed UGC to give shoppers an accurate representation of how their products look in real life settings.

Bemz leans on social media to collect and promote both branded and UGC media. They make their social content shoppable by enabling social commerce. By turning their social feed into a digital storefront, they increased their click-through rates on social channels by 41%.

Kohl’s innovates with augmented reality

Speaking of amazing movie experiences, remember that scene in Clueless when Cher picks out her outfit every morning with a computer program? That movie was really ahead of its time, because that’s exactly what Kohl’s AR feature does, except on Snapchat.

Kohl’s Virtual Closet gives shoppers the opportunity to mix and match different outfits from select Kohl’s products. This takes the concept of cross selling to a whole new level. With Snapchat’s selfie feature, users can also virtually try on products in the virtual closet. When shoppers find items they want to purchase, they can do so right on the app without ever leaving. 

This campaign combines augmented reality with social commerce for the ultimate e-commerce experience.

Snug brings the in-person experience online with live shopping

Snug thinks outside the delivery box regarding their e-commerce customer service. The sofa company solves the common customer dilemma of making a big furniture purchase online with their live shopping service. Their entire Live Shop program is a study in customer-centric e-commerce excellence. 

Snug’s Live Shop invites shoppers to book an appointment with a showroom consultant to get a better look at their sofas and ask any questions they have in real-time. As they outline on the Live Shop page of their e-commerce site, this feature fits into every stage of the customer journey:

1. Because you’ve just started looking
2. When you’ve seen a few different sofas
3. When you’re almost ready to buy

The landing page itself is a great customer service tool, complete with its own FAQ section, customer reviews specifically about the Live Shopping experience, and overall Snug reviews about their glowing customer service. 

Fresh stimulates visitors with an immersive experience

Over the past 30 years since its inception, Fresh has become a global natural beauty brand with an e-commerce experience to match the detail and care that goes into their products. One of the challenges with having a mostly online business for beauty brands is the inability for customers to try different products. There is no way to smell fragrances or feel textures. 

Instead, Fresh designs their website with interactive content and visuals for an intricate digital experience. The home page greets you with a fun and enticing “spin to win” mystery offer game. When you’ve won your prize, you can then explore product categories, curated gift sets, their sustainability practices, details on their ingredients, and much more.

Their product pages are just as rich and robust, giving a deep dive into individual product ingredients and clinical test results. Their collection of customer reviews features photo-first displays so you can see products on real people in addition to reading about them.

Measure the success of your customer e-commerce experience

After you’ve laid the foundation for a sparkling e-commerce experience, you need to track its performance. Determine if it resonates with customers and produces results by analyzing key performance indicators. There’s many different metrics you can look at to reach these conclusions, but here’s some important ones you can start with:

• Customer retention rate: The percentage of customers who make repeat purchases from your e-commerce shop. This is a great indicator of the quality of your e-commerce strategy, because if it satisfies customers, they’ll keep coming back
• Conversion rates: The percentage of website visits that result in a desired conversion, such as product clicks and orders. If your website is accessible and conveys the value of your products, your conversion rate will prove it 
• Average order value: The average purchase amount per order on your e-commerce and social commerce channels. When customers spend more money, that’s a good sign that they connect with your products, brand, and overall e-commerce presence
• Customer sentiment: Your customers’ feelings and opinions about your brand. You can measure customer sentiment by analyzing the insights from customer reviews and customer satisfaction surveys. This information provides you with specific feedback on your brand’s e-commerce experience

To get started, learn how retail giant Walmart has evolved its e-commerce experience, as explained by Alyssa Thomas, Director of Product, Content as Commerce, at Walmart.com, in our on-demand masterclass.

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Let’s channel your inner Don Corleone and learn how you can make consumers an offer they won’t refuse.

Chapters:

1. What is a lead magnet?
2. What makes a good lead magnet in e-commerce?
3. 10 lead magnet ideas for your e-commerce website
4. Optimize your e-commerce website for better lead magnet results

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is simply a trade where you offer something valuable in exchange for contact information or another action. 

Let’s paint a picture for you: you’re browsing online, not quite ready to buy, just casually looking. Then, something catches your eye — a guide on how to choose the perfect pair of running shoes, offered for free. All it asks for in return is your email. That’s a lead magnet in action, a sweet little nudge designed to turn you from a casual browser into an engaged potential customer. 

And once you have that information, you’ll do something with it to further engage the leads and turn them into paying customers. So this interaction is also the first hello in what you hope will be a long conversation. It’s where you start to build trust and show your value to potential customers. 

What makes a good lead magnet in e-commerce?

For starters, your lead magnet should offer immediate value. People have to be able to use it right away so they can experience the benefits of engaging with your brand without delay. This immediate gratification will satisfy the desire for quick rewards (because who doesn’t love those?) and make a positive first impression.

Ideally, what you offer should also solve a problem that your audience is facing. A lead magnet that tackles a real issue provides value and also positions your brand as helpful and authoritative. For example, a “5-Minute Meals for Busy Parents” recipe book from an online food store hits right at the heart of time-crunched families.

Lead magnets should showcase your expertise or the quality of your products. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate why your brand is trustworthy and knowledgeable. Say, a lead magnet like “The Complete Guide to Sustainable Fashion” from an eco-conscious clothing brand can establish thought leadership in that space.

Finally, the best lead magnets encourage future engagement. It doesn’t just end with the download or the discount but rather marks the start of a relationship. 

10 lead magnet ideas for your e-commerce website

There’s a lot of room for creativity where lead magnets are concerned, but we have the top 10 ideas that are tried and tested to get people through your digital door.

1. Discount codes

It’s a classic for a reason. Discounts are simple, yet effective — a percentage off, a fixed amount discount, or exclusive deals in exchange for an email sign-up or another small action. Because of the instant value they provide, discounts make the decision to engage with a brand a no-brainer for most shoppers. 

Why they work:

• Everyone loves to save money. A discount code taps into this universal appeal, offering immediate savings on future purchases

• For those on the fence because they never bought from your brand before, a discount can be the incentive they need to make their first purchase

Best practices:

• Make it exclusive. Your discount should feel special. If products on your website are always on sale, this type of offer could lose its appeal

• Set a time limit. Create a sense of urgency and encourage quick action by making the discount available for a limited time

2. Personalized consultations

Personalization is a lead magnet necessity. Personalized consultations are a golden opportunity to connect with your audience on a deeper level. They allow you to demonstrate your expertise, understand your customers’ unique needs, and provide tailored advice that can make a real difference in their decision-making process.

Why they work:

• Engaging directly with customers establishes brand trust, an essential ingredient for any successful relationship. 

• By tailoring advice to each individual’s situation, you show a level of care and attention that generic information just can’t match

• A consultation is an active, engaging process. It invites potential customers to interact with your brand, creating a memorable experience

Best practices:

• Streamline scheduling: Use an easy-to-navigate booking system to minimize friction in setting up consultations. The simpler it is to book, the more likely people are to go for it 

• Prepare and personalize: Before each consultation, gather information about the customer’s needs to offer the most relevant and helpful advice

• Follow-up: After the consultation, send a personalized email summarizing the advice you gave and suggesting next steps. A follow-up keeps the conversation going and nudges consumers towards a purchase based on the problems you identified

3. Early or exclusive access

There’s plenty of ways to give your potential customers the VIP treatment — chief among them, access to early sales and product drops. This strategy plays on the human desire to be part of an elite group and enjoy privileges that aren’t available to the general public. 

Why they work:

• Knowing they have access to something others don’t elevates the customer’s perception of the value you’re offering 

• The wait for early or exclusive access to products or sales can create buzz and excitement around your brand 

• Customers who receive special treatment are more likely to feel a stronger connection to your brand, helping you build that oh-so-coveted brand loyalty

Best practices:

• Clearly define the offer: Make sure your audience understands what they’re getting access to and why it’s valuable. Whether it’s a pre-sale, a limited edition product, or early access to content, the offer should be compelling 

• Deliver on your promise: Don’t falter. The early or exclusive access experience should be smooth and rewarding. Any hiccups can damage trust and diminish the perceived value of your offer

4. Free shipping

The people have spoken — they want free shipping. So much so that 62% of consumers won’t buy from a retailer if they don’t provide that option. Offering potential buyers the chance to unlock free shipping removes one of the biggest hurdles to completing an online purchase (added costs) and appeals to virtually every shopper’s desire to get more value out of their purchase.

Why they work:

• High shipping costs are the top reason for abandoning shopping carts. Eliminating this barrier can significantly increase your conversion rates

• Shoppers perceive free shipping as an added value to their purchase, making the deal seem much sweeter (there’s that honey again) 

• Often, free shipping is tied to a minimum purchase amount, which can encourage customers to add more items to their cart to qualify and increase average order value

Best practices:

• Set clear thresholds: If your free shipping offer requires a minimum purchase, make sure this threshold is clearly communicated and easily achievable

• Promote widely: Highlight your free shipping offer on your homepage, product pages, and during the checkout process. Also, mention it in your marketing emails and social media channels

• Test and analyze: Experiment with different thresholds for free shipping to find the sweet spot that increases average order value without hurting your margins

5. Free samples

Who doesn’t love free stuff? Offering free samples as your lead magnet is a tried-and-true method to introduce potential customers to your products with no strings attached. This approach not only allows customers to test and fall in love with your products but also demonstrates your confidence in the quality of what you’re selling.

With a product sampling marketing campaign you can even ask consumers to provide user-generated content (reviews, images, or videos) in exchange for the samples. Using UGC to populate your social media feeds and product pages is the best way to generate consumer trust in your brand and lift conversions, so there’s a lot to gain here besides contact information. 

Why they work:

• Free samples allow customers to try before they buy, reducing the perceived risk associated with buying new products

• By getting your products into the hands of potential customers, you’re increasing brand awareness and the likelihood of future purchases

• Offering something for free can create a positive association with your brand, fostering goodwill and a sense of reciprocity

Best practices:

• Easy redemption: The process to claim a free sample should be straightforward and require minimal effort from the customer

• Collect feedback: Use the opportunity to gather feedback on the sampled products and get your hands on valuable insights for product development and marketing strategies. 

• Follow-up: After sending out the samples, follow-up with an email offering a discount on the full-sized product to encourage a purchase

6. Contests and giveaways

The anticipation of possibly winning something cool is thrilling. That excitement is precisely what makes contests and giveaways such effective lead magnets. They speak to people’s natural love for competition and the allure of getting something for free. 

And you win too. By offering a prize that your target audience finds irresistible, you can significantly increase engagement, grow your email list, and boost social media followers, all while creating a fun experience for your audience.

Why they work:

• The interactive nature of contests and giveaways encourages active participation from your audience

• Participants often share contests with friends and family, which helps increase your brand’s visibility and reach 

• You can make following you on social media a mandatory requirement to enter the contest, so you can grow your presence on these channels while generating leads

Best practices:

• Leverage user-generated content: Encourage participants to share their own content related to the contest (e.g., photos using your product) to increase engagement and generate content for your brand

• Reach out to every participant: After the contest, send a thank you email to all participants and offer them a consolation prize, such as a discount code, to encourage them to make a purchase

7. Interactive quizzes

Quizzes are the best of both worlds. These lead magnets combine entertainment with personalization, offering instant gratification in the form of results that feel tailor-made. They keep potential customers engaged in a unique way and provide valuable insights into their preferences and behaviors. What’s not to love?

Why they work:

• Quizzes keep users clicking, engaged, and interested from start to finish, significantly increasing the time spent interacting with your brand

• With personalized results, quizzes make every participant feel seen and understood, enhancing their connection to your brand (and likelihood they’ll buy something based on the outcome of the quiz) 

• Quizzes are an effective tool for collecting zero-party data on your audience’s preferences and needs, which can inform future marketing strategies. With the collapse of third-party cookies upon us, this is a welcomed benefit.

Best practices:

• Shareable results: Make the results easily shareable on social media to increase the participant’s engagement and extend the quiz’s reach

• Follow-up with personalized recommendations: Use the data collected from the quiz to follow up with personalized product recommendations or content, turning engagement into conversion

• Optimize for all devices: Your quiz should be mobile-friendly to get users to engage with it on their smartphones (where they spend a lot of time. Seriously)

8. Exclusive members club

We already talked about the allure of exclusivity, but you know what’s better than early access to a product? Being part of an exclusive members club that continuously offers perks, special deals, and insider information. 

This type of lead magnet elevates the concept of exclusivity to a whole new level, as it creates a sense of belonging to a special community. It’s not just a one-time offer — it’s ongoing value.

Why they work:

• Humans are complex creatures, but when it comes to belonging, they’re actually quite simple. People love feeling like they’re part of an exclusive group, and members-only clubs deliver on that innate desire for community and recognition

• Contrary to a one-off download or discount, a members club offers continuous reasons for shoppers to engage with your brand

• Members are more likely to become repeat, loyal customers, thanks to the ongoing perks and the emotional investment in the brand

Best practices:

• Update, update, update. Regularly add new perks to keep the membership exciting and valuable. Stagnation is the enemy of engagement (Confucius didn’t say it, but he might as well have) 

• Exclusive, but inclusive: While the club should feel exclusive, make joining achievable for your target audience – it’s a lead magnet, after all

• Communicate regularly: Use email newsletters or a dedicated members area on your website to keep people informed about new perks and offers

9. Virtual events

Virtual events have surged in popularity, offering a unique way to connect with audiences from the comfort of their own homes. They entertain and inform, drawing in people with the promise of unique insights, valuable knowledge, and interactive experiences that they can’t get anywhere else.

Why they work:

• Virtual events allow for real-time interaction between the guests, moderators, and viewers, making the latter feel more connected to your brand

• They can attract a broad audience by offering valuable insights, entertainment, or access to experts, depending on the event’s focus

Best practices:

• Promote early and often: Use all your channels — email, social media, your website — to build anticipation and encourage sign-ups well in advance of the event 

• Offer exclusive content: Make sure the event provides unique value that can’t be found elsewhere, such as live Q&A sessions, behind-the-scenes tours, or first looks at new products 

• Make it accessible: Ensure the platform you choose is user-friendly and accessible to people with varying levels of tech-savviness

• Interact post-event: After the event, send out an email to attendees with key takeaways, additional resources, and a CTA, such as a special offer or invitation to sign up for your newsletter

• Record and repurpose: Not everyone who’s interested will be able to attend live. Plus, you’ve put a lot of effort into producing the event, so you should milk every drop of content out of it. Offer a recording to those who registered but couldn’t attend, and consider using parts of the event in future marketing materials

10. Free trials 

Subscription businesses might find it harder to send out samples of their products. Free trials solve this issue, as they allow potential customers to test your service in all its glory. Just like with samples, free trials are effective because they remove the risk from the customer’s decision-making process. People get to see firsthand if your service fits their needs and lifestyle before committing financially.

Why they work:

• Customers can try out your service without any financial commitment, making them more likely to give it a go

• Unlike a demo or a sneak peek, a free trial gives customers access to the entire service, allowing them to experience its full benefits

• By offering a free trial, you’re expressing confidence in the value of your service, which in turn builds trust with potential subscribers

Best practices:

• Clear communication: Make the terms of the free trial clear, including its duration and what happens when the trial ends. Transparency is key to trust

• Engage during the trial: Use the trial period to engage with users, offering tips on getting the most out of the service and highlighting features they might not discover on their own

• Seamless transition to paid: Make it easy for trial users to become paying subscribers, with a simple upgrade process and a compelling reason to continue beyond the trial

Optimize your e-commerce website for better lead magnet results

Your lead magnets are the hook that draws people in, but your website is where the magic really happens. It’s one of the places where initial interest turns into lasting relationships and, ultimately, sales. 

By focusing on both attracting customers with compelling lead magnets and providing an optimized online shopping experience, you lay the groundwork for e-commerce success. 

So, don’t let the momentum stop with the honey. Continue your journey to e-commerce excellence by ensuring your website is as optimized and as effective as your lead magnets. 

Okay, okay, maybe we’re being a bit hyperbolic. Nothing’s as bad as trying to find a half-decent potato while your least favorite Christmas song blares over the store sound system. However, we do know customers love the convenience offered by online shopping. Nearly 70% of consumers factor site speed into their willingness to purchase from an online retailer. And a majority of online shoppers expect a page load time of 3 seconds or less.

If you haven’t given your website a performance checkup lately, it’s well past time. Here’s how to evaluate your current performance, plus some steps anyone can take to optimize an e-commerce site for a speedy shopping experience. 

Chapters:

1. Why website performance matters
2. The 7 main website performance metrics
3. How to measure your website performance
4. How to improve your e-commerce website performance
5. Website performance is all about the need for speed

Why website performance matters

Does it really matter if you don’t hit that 3-second load mark? Yes, it does. Failing to prioritize website loading speed decreases the quality of your user experience, and that’s bad in multiple ways.

First and most obvious, higher load times mean an increased bounce rate. Even users who stick around through the first few slow page loads may give up on your site before making a purchase.

Lower initial conversion rates are likely to be matched by lower loyalty overall. Customers who remember their suboptimal shopping experience are less likely to return for another try — and they won’t want to follow links that direct them to your site. 

Bad website performance also affects your Google SERP rankings. Because the search engine’s algorithm prioritizes user experience, pages with a slow loading speed are pushed down in the search results. Smaller outlets competing for attention might lose out to their faster competitors. 

The 7 main website performance metrics

Page load time isn’t a standalone website performance metric. It’s an overarching assessment that rolls together multiple metrics. Four of these metrics are Google’s Core Web Vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint measures the loading speed of the largest page element users can see “above the fold” — that is, without scrolling down
• Interaction to Next Paint measures a page’s responsiveness to interactions, such as clicking an “add to cart” button or typing information into a form
• First Input Delay measures the time gap between when a user interacts with your website (say, clicking that “add to cart” button) and when their browser starts to process that request
• Cumulative Layout Shift measures how often page content moves while a page is loading

Google considers these aspects most important because they have the biggest effect on user experience. However, there’s four other metrics that also capture important parts of the user experience: 

• Time to First Byte measures the speed at which your DNS provider starts delivering your website content after receiving the request
• Total Blocking Time measures how long it takes for a web page to load enough that a user can interact with it (as browsers that are in the middle of loading pages cannot process interactions)
• First Contentful Paint measures how long it takes for the first of your website content to render

If you want to dive deep into any of these metrics, Google’s web.dev site explains more about why each one matters and how to measure them. Or, you can just keep reading as we discuss measuring your site’s performance. 

How to measure your website performance

Measuring your site’s performance is easy with Google’s free PageSpeed Insights. This tool assesses your site on the metrics listed above and ranks it as good, needs improvement, or poor. You’ll also get notes on your site’s performance, accessibility, use of best practices, and SEO. 

There’s an option to view how your site performs on mobile vs. desktop devices and tips to help you optimize your site. You get a lot of help for the low price of living in Google’s web ecosystem, and let’s face it — that’s already happening. 

When you’re looking at your report, you may notice Total Blocking Time is excluded from the “Core Web Vitals Assessment” box. Scroll down to the Performance box, then look at the Metrics table to see your results.

PageSpeed Insights makes it easy to understand why your site earned the rankings it did with color-coded graphics and personalized tips. Go ahead and run a test now — all it takes is a few seconds — so you can get a baseline of your site’s performance and see where you have room for improvement. 

How to improve your e-commerce website performance

If you’re still here, we’ll assume your Core Web Vitals Assessment showed you have some work to do. There’s no shame in that. Even Google’s web.dev site doesn’t pass the assessment! Here’s our best tips to help you improve the performance of your e-commerce website and the tools you need to make it happen. 

1. Cut down on HTTP requests

HTTP requests exist at the core of loading web pages. You don’t need to know the technical specifics here — only that a browser must make these requests to load CSS files, scripts, images, and other content on your page. Each request requires the browser to send a message to your web host, which then has to respond with the appropriate content.

The more HTTP requests you have, the longer it will take to complete them all. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and first asked for water and then, when your waiter returned, ordered a soda. When they brought the soda, you asked for an appetizer. And finally, after the appetizer arrived, you had decided on your entrees. It would take a long time for you to get and finish your meal, no matter how fast your server worked.

Give your (web) server a break by cutting out unnecessary HTTP requests. If you don’t need a script or CSS file, don’t reference it in your page’s header. You can also try to cut down on multimedia content to increase your page load speed. 

2. Use HTTP/2

Not all HTTP requests are made equal. HTTP/2, a standard that debuted in 2015, comes with capabilities that help your web pages load faster. For one, it allows developers to prioritize which elements load first, so you can tell browsers to request light resources before larger scripts. It can also serve multiple resources at once. To return to our restaurant metaphor, HTTP/2 allows you to give your whole order at once so the waiter can get your food to you more quickly.

KeyCDN has a free HTTP/2 test to determine whether your site supports the HTTP/2 protocol. Or, if you want a closer look, open your browser’s developer tools, navigate to the network tab, and look for the “Protocol” column. (You may have to right-click the list of columns and add Protocol.) 

HTTP/2 support is determined by your web host, so they’re the resource to turn to if you need to enable the protocol. The process is different for each provider. 

3. Eliminate unnecessary redirects

Many companies employ redirects to bypass link rot during website overhauls. However, each time you redirect a user to a new page, you’re forcing them to sit through another page load. Especially redirects that lead to another redirect — no thanks! By the time the user reaches the actual URL, they’ll already be ready to close out of your page.

Redirects have a habit of piling up over time. That means you need to audit them periodically; it’s especially important to do so after any redesign or re-architecting of your website.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider can help you check your entire site for redirects and even detect redirect chains and loops for you. You could also use the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar to check page-by-page, but we wouldn’t recommend this. Unless you have an obligation you really want to get out of.

4. Limit external scripts

Most developers use third-party scripts to add functionality they don’t have the resources to code in-house. Incorporating external scripts is always risky in terms of page speed, though. You don’t have control over the code, so you can’t do anything if the script is slow to load.

Slow-loading scripts make pages take longer to load and can cause problems like content jumping (measured by the Cumulative Layout Shift metric). 

Check each page to make sure no unnecessary scripts are loading. For instance, you may have a reviews feature enabled on your site as a whole, but you don’t need that script included on pages made for browsing. You may also ask yourself whether you really need that modal to collect customers’ emails or if it’s turning off more buyers than it’s bringing in.

More bells and whistles aren’t always better. A simple website with a good user experience can muscle out an overdesigned store.

5. Enable lazy (asynchronous) loading

When a browser renders a website, its default is to process each request in order, only moving on to the next command after finishing its current task. Large scripts slow up the entire process, as a browser must load the entire file before it can move on to rendering the rest of the content.

Avoid this delay by directing the browser to load your scripts asynchronously — that is, while continuing to render the webpage. Simply add the async attribute to your script tags (your code will look something like this: <script src=”my_script.js” async></script>).

Some experts recommend adding your <script> tags near the bottom of your body content as older browsers may not be able to read the async attribute, but there’s no need to do this. You’d be hard-pressed to find a browser in the wild that couldn’t handle the async tag. 

6. Use mobile-first designs

Website performance optimization needs to include mobile-first thinking. Smartphones are now the source of nearly four in five e-commerce website visits and two in three e-commerce purchases. Unfortunately, the mobile web is still a drag. Most sites have much longer load times on mobile devices. With over 50% of mobile visitors ready to jump ship if a site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, e-commerce retailers are likely losing out on a lot of business. 

Almost every website published these days is responsive, but designers who code for desktop and then later optimize for mobile may be going in the wrong order. Using mobile phone emulators to design for small screens puts the needs of this growing audience front and center. 

Plus, it’s easy — Google Chrome’s Dev Tools allow you to enter “device mode” to view what your site will look like on smaller screens. 

Designing for mobile phones also requires you to make the most of limited screen real estate, which may mean you opt for fewer decorative elements that can slow down a page. You’ll also want to simplify navigation and interactions rather than going for flashy or unique experiences that require external scripts and plugins. 

If you’re working with an existing site, you probably can’t implement this practice right now. Just keep it in mind for your next redesign. 

7. Compress text-based files with gzip

HTML and CSS files may not seem too onerous to load, but when you’re counting in milliseconds, every byte matters. Compression reduces the size of text-based files so they can make the trip from your server to a customer’s browser more quickly. Gzip is the most common compression framework, but Brotli and Deflate also work well to speed up your website. 

This is another feature that’s set up on the hosting side. Most hosts enable it by default, but it’s good to check yours using a free HTTP Compression test. If you find out your content isn’t compressed, it’s time to reach out to your hosting provider. 

8. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files

Compression frameworks like Gzip aren’t the only byte-savers. You can also minify your text files by removing anything that’s not a key part of the code — things like comments, formatting, or lengthy variable names. Many of these elements are helpful for human developers, but web browsers don’t need them to display your web page directly. 

There’s no need to go through and delete comments and extra spaces and tabs by yourself. Minifier.org offers a free tool that can handle CSS and JavaScript. Google’s web.dev recommends this free HTML minifier. 

If you’re looking for tools that can mass-minify, Google’s PageSpeed Module works with Apache or Nginx web servers and automatically minifies your files. However, installing tools like it or CSSNano may require you to call IT.

9. Optimize images and videos

Multimedia files often decrease website performance simply because they’re so large. E-commerce merchants, who rely heavily on images and videos, must be diligent about optimizing these files to reduce the burden on visitors’ internet connections. 

The easy part of optimizing images is resizing them. No file should exceed 20 megabytes (MB) — but really, only your hero images should be that big. Shopify recommends merchants keep images around 500 kilobytes (KB) if possible, though they allow that some sites need files up to 2 MB in size. You’ll likely have to compress your images to meet these goals. Thankfully, there’s plenty of free image compression tools out there you can use.

Once you’ve cut file sizes down, make sure you’re using responsive design principles to keep things speedy for users loading your site from smaller devices. MDN Web Docs, run by Mozilla, has a nice responsive images tutorial you can follow if you’re new to the subject. 

10. Take advantage of browser caching

Web browsers can store files locally on users’ machines, which speeds up loading times for repeat visitors. Instead of contacting your server for every file, browsers can pull cached assets from the machine’s local memory.

Caching is an excellent solution for most e-commerce merchants, as your assets remain fairly static. If you do a major site overhaul or replace product pictures, you’ll want to make sure browsers have instructions to re-download the new content and replace cached assets. However, this is a rare enough occurrence for most online retailers that setting up caching is the way to go.

Your web host is, once again, the party in charge of your caching settings. You’ll want to find its documentation and follow the instructions to enable local caches and set expiry dates (which instruct browsers how often they should refresh cached assets from your site). 

11. Use a content delivery network (CDN)

Browser caches only help audiences who have come to your website before. Content delivery networks, or CDNs, stash assets as close as possible to each visitor to cut down on load times. 

CDNs don’t rely on local machines to store assets. They simply distribute your assets to a network of servers in various locations. That means instead of having one server in Virginia that answers all requests, you may have a server in Virginia, one in California, one in Illinois, and so on. Companies that serve international audiences can work with international CDNs, so they have servers in multiple countries, regions, and continents. 

Whenever a browser sends a request to load your website, that request routes to the server that’s geographically closer to the user. It may not sound like a huge time-saver, but since page load speeds are measured on a very small scale, CDNs make a noticeable difference. 

12. Regularly audit your plugins

Plugins, add-ons, and extensions are a huge time-saver for most web developers. But, like external scripts, bloated plugins can drag your page speed down. Improve your website performance by revisiting your plugin library to see whether there are any hangers-on that you no longer use. 

Sometimes, you need all your plugins, but your pages are still loading way too slowly. In that case, it’s time to figure out the culprit. Copy your site into a staging environment, disable all your plugins, and test your site load speed. Then, enable plugins one at a time to determine whether a single plugin is tanking your performance metrics. (Make sure you enable, test, and then disable each plugin so you’re not accidentally measuring cumulative effects.)

Thankfully, with so many plugins out there, you’ll likely be able to find a replacement for any sluggish tools. 

One other option is to look for plugins that have been optimized for speed. For instance, our Ratings & Reviews display technology was designed to keep your website running quickly, and our developers shared the steps they took to fulfill that promise. Find tools built in this vein — ones that use best practices like minifying and reducing script files, caching, and lazy loading — to make your audits a breeze. 

13. Remove unnecessary pop-ups

Yes, we’ll say it. Pop-ups are super unpopular. They lead to a bad experience, especially on mobile devices. Even if you think your pop-ups are tastefully done and helpful, internet users are faced with a barrage of modals, overlays, and chat widgets all day long. Everyone has pop-up fatigue, and if you contribute, you’re eroding your consumers’ trust. 

Most pop-ups call outside scripts and reference assets like images and fonts, all of which a browser has to load. Modals that appear conditionally have to gather audience data before triggering, which also takes time. And if your Total Blocking Time is high, users may not be able to close out of these elements as the rest of your site renders. This delay would influence users’ perception of your site speed even if there was no actual slowdown. 

The slowdown is real, though, as is the nearly universal dislike for these tools. Removing them from your site is a win-win. 

14. Choose the fastest services

When a customer clicks a link or types in a URL, they’re telling their browser to query a DNS service to take them to their target site. That DNS service routes the browser to your site’s IP address. Then, their browser starts reading your HTML files and requesting assets from your server or CDN so it can render the website you’ve designed. 

That’s a lot of services coming together to make your site appear. If any one of them is slow, your page speed will be negatively affected. That’s why the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best option for your technical infrastructure. 

For instance, many base website hosting plans are shared. This means other websites use the same server you do, so a spike of traffic from one of them might slow down your load times. VPS hosting (for growing sites) or dedicated website servers (for those who can afford them) will return better results.

You also want to make sure your domain registrar, which handles DNS hosting, is a high performer. DNSPerf keeps an ongoing log of DNS performance so you can see for yourself how various providers stack up.

Of course, speed doesn’t only matter at the top levels. We talked about finding lightweight and streamlined plugins. You’ll also want to think about services like your security software and other backend tools. Though customers don’t interact with them directly, they can still impact your e-commerce website’s performance. 

15. Monitor website operations

Checking your website performance every once in a while to see if there’s big problems is a smart idea. Constantly monitoring your site so you’re aware the second a problem pops up is even smarter. 

You can invest in tools that collect data on your users’ experience to show how your site performs in the real world. Since many shoppers will be visiting you from setups unlike your own, real user monitoring provides a fresh perspective. 

Other tools pretend to be human visitors, using a series of scripts to navigate your website and test its performance. Synthetic monitoring setups like these are more useful for teams looking to gather data from controlled tests. If you’re in the midst of optimizing your site, synthetic monitoring will help you spot changes that actually make a difference. These systems can also run scheduled tests with the goal of catching major problems before your customers run into them. 

There’s plenty of tools that perform both of these jobs (and more):

• Site24x7 performs synthetic and real user monitoring for you
• LogRocket monitors users and identifies errors and site interactions users typically struggle with
• New Relic is an end-to-end synthetic monitoring system that integrates with just about every infrastructure there is 

Whichever tool you use, make sure you configure the alerts to tell you when something goes wrong. The quicker you can fix the problem, the fewer customers you’ll disappoint. 

Website performance is all about the need for speed

As internet and mobile connections become faster and even more ubiquitous, consumer standards will continue to rise. Providing a fast, convenient experience is a baseline expectation. Companies who can figure out how to excel on mobile and get those loading speeds down to a second or less will have a chance to capture more market share.

The customer experience you provide is directly connected to your conversion and retention rates, and your website’s performance is directly related to that customer experience. Website optimization isn’t a project that can wait for a rainy day. It’s an essential part of bringing customers to your site and making more sales.

Improving your site’s speed isn’t the only way to reach more customers. Check out these ways to increase organic traffic to keep your momentum on the SERP.

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: 3 powerful tactics to increase product page conversion rates

Watch here

Let’s take a look at each and find out which are best suited to your goals.

Chapters:

1. Customer care and support integrations
2. Marketing automation and personalization integrations
3. Customer experience optimization integrations
4. Brand loyalty integrations
5. Choose the right Bazaarvoice integration for your business

Customer care and support integrations

Your customers have come to expect exceptional experiences at every touchpoint, whether they find you on social, your website, or in ads. Keeping a customer first mindset and learning from the outside in is a powerful tool for brands and retailers that want to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customers engage through a variety of channels that include social, ratings & reviews, email, chat, call centers and support boards. Keeping and logging all of this information into your CRM system can take loads of time. Enter four integrations that connect your CRM data to your help desk platform. 

These integrations allow brands and retailers to integrate their Bazaarvoice Data (Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers) into their help desk platform so that customer support agents can more efficiently manage customer interactions through one unified interface.

1. Zendesk

Zendesk’s mission is to simplify the complexity of business and make it much easier for companies and customers to build better connections. Their customer experience software unlocks the power of billions of interactions, enabling businesses to build rich, meaningful relationships with their customers. 

The Bazaarvoice Zendesk integration makes responding to customer reviews and questions more streamlined (particularly if you have a high volume of reviews), helping you create better customer experiences, improve workflows, manage brand reputation at scale, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

2. Sprinklr

Sprinklr helps the world’s biggest companies and the most beloved teams make their customers and fans happier. Across 30+ digital channels, their industry-leading AI creates insights for deeper and more real-time customer and fan experiences.

Sprinklr Connector — the integration with Bazaarvoice — allows you to leverage the response management tool you’re already using to answer questions and respond to reviews on your own site. This allows you to drive online sales by turning negative reviews into a positive, identify the high-priority customer questions to answer first, and save time by including this data in your existing Sprinklr reports. 

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management software juggernaut But they also have applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development making them a perfect fit for Bazaarvoice.

If you’re a Salesforce user, you can now integrate your Bazaarvoice review data into your Salesforce Service Cloud. Not only does this provide a wealth of data to glean insights from, but it also enables CSMs to easily respond and interact with customer reviews left on the client’s website.

After implementing the Bazaarvoice Salesforce Connector, which allows the customer engagement team to respond to consumer questions, reviews, and other inquiries within one tool, the Nestle Canada customer service team saves on average eight minutes coding cases.

“We previously didn’t have the capacity and had to let go of engaging with as many of the reviews as we wanted. It would have taken eight minutes to open a case and transfer all of that content. Now, it’s all automated,” said Kristina Rapljenovic, Website Manager at Nestlé Canada.

4. 1440 Reputation Studio

1440 Reputation Studio is an all-in-one review management platform, designed specifically to work with Salesforce Service Cloud. That means you can generate, monitor, respond to, and analyze reviews from dozens of channels in a single place, giving you an omnichannel approach to your review management.

Now, instead of wasting time logging into multiple sources, simply manage Bazaarvoice reviews directly from the 1440 app in Salesforce. The Bazaarvoice 1440 integration means brands and retailers alike can facilitate effective follow-up action to all customer feedback they receive.

Marketing automation and personalization integrations

In addition to excellent customer service experiences, consumers expect personalized and contextualized touch points throughout their buying journey — regardless of what channel they’re on.

These types of integrations allow Bazaarvoice user-generated content (UGC) data to be pulled into marketing automation platforms to deliver truly personalized, real-time email or SMS messages that captivate your customers, driving higher engagement and conversions.

Smart marketers leverage this data based on recently browsed, abandoned, purchased, recommended, or pre-selected products. By meeting your customers where they want to be met, you’ll encourage more UGC creation and create meaningful connections with customers that enrich the customer’s shopping experience. 

5. MovableInk

MovableInk is a marketing automation platform that helps clients send customized emails to their customer base to help drive conversions.

The Bazaarvoice MovableInk integration lets you incorporate real-time UGC into email campaigns (customized per user that opens the email) and provide ratings and reviews, social content, and product sentiment for recently browsed, abandoned, or purchased items to inspire more shopper purchases. 

6. Attentive

Attentive is the leading conversational marketing platform, reinventing business to consumer communication. Their SMS-first software platform helps everyone from lean teams to enterprise brands strengthen relationships with their consumers in a new way.

73% of marketers say SMS drives incremental revenue for their business, but SMS is often an overlooked channel. Bazaarvoice partnered with Attentive to solve this by bringing authentic UGC into SMS campaigns, unlocking the power of customer advocacy.

By meeting your customers where they are, you encourage more UGC generation, driving more connections with customers and enriching their shopping experience.

7. Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a unified customer platform that gives online brands direct ownership of their consumer data and interactions, empowering them to turn transactions with customers into long-term relationships — at scale. With Klaviyo, brands can combine customer data with over 220 native integrations to automate personalized email and SMS communications that make customers feel seen.

Klaviyo Marketing Connector allows clients to request reviews through Klaviyo flows, as well as segment users based on UGC data to deliver hyper-personalized campaigns that nurture customer lifetime value.

Customer experience optimization integrations

Shoppers crave experiences. According to our research, 98% of consumers value experience over price. Customer experience optimization is the process of using software tools that leverage customer feedback and data to deliver a frictionless, effective and happy shopping experience across all touchpoints — online and offline.

While optimization integrations overlap with CRM, the clear distinction is the heavy use of analytics tools and AI recommendations with optimization, as retailers evaluate buyer behavior in real time to continually improve experience and outcome.

Our main goal with the Bazaarvoice optimization integrations is to increase sales conversion, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty.

8. Contentsquare

Contentsquare leads the way in digital experience intelligence. Are you struggling to quantify ROI for your UGC campaigns? By integrating Contentsquare’s digital experience analytics platform with Bazaarvoice, you can better understand the impact that UGC has on your engagement metrics, conversion rates, and online revenue, helping you determine ROI of your campaign(s).

The integration also ptimizes the timing and placement of UGC to perfect your digital experience. For example, natural beauty product retailer The Body Shop increased average order value by 13% and enhanced the customer experience with Bazaarvoice Galleries and Contentsquare to guide product detail page optimizations.

9. Monetate

Monetate, a customer experience optimization platform, partnered with Bazaarvoice to join customer intelligence with content intelligence and drive rapid growth and digital transformation. Bazaarvoice provides UGC and data, Monetate optimizes when and where that content should appear in the shopping journey.

Leading brands and retailers are then able to understand, optimize and personalize their customer experiences at scale to deliver authentic, insights-driven personalized customer journeys. The integration means you can:

1. Control the display of inline ratings on product pages
2. Control the display of UGC on product pages
3. Utilize reviews data in Monetate Product Recommendations

Brand loyalty integrations

Every brand knows a retained customer is more valuable than an acquired one — you’re about 70% more likely to sell to a previous customer than a new one. But with a well-executed loyalty and referral program, brand’s don’t have to choose.

Brand loyalty programs allow brands to engage and reward their most loyal customers resulting in significant increase in lifetime value and retention, as well as acquire new customers through program referrals. 

10. Annex Cloud

Annex Cloud transforms customer loyalty experiences for organizations, ultimately making beloved brands. The integration with Bazaarvoice combines best-in-class loyalty management with powerful engagement and communication modules, enabling organizations to improve retention and drive growth on every level.

When you combine Bazaarvoice UGC with Annex Cloud’s loyalty solutions, you’re enabling brands to amplify the voices of its most loyal customers to accelerate growth. And in a time when third-party cookies are phasing out, the solution collects first-party data to build unique customer profiles for you.

11. TokyWoky

TokyWoky and Bazaarvoice have teamed up to allow brands and retailers to get even more of their top customers. TokyWoky’s Community platform technology rewards shoppers for taking specific actions (e.g. — receiving points to leave a review).

This helps make ratings and reviews and social commerce programs successful and turns reviewers into loyal customers. And given that 57% of shoppers spend more with brands they feel loyal to, this can have a noticeable effect on your sales.

Choose the right Bazaarvoice integration for your business

Every one of these integrations has the same goal in mind: to help you get even more out of 2024 and deliver the best customer experiences possible for your brand. But each integration can suit different business needs. Whatever your KPIs for 2024 are, Bazaarvoice has an integration that’s got you covered.

Make this the year that you can get more from the tools you are already using. Get in touch to learn more and discover the right integration(s) for you.

We’re better together. Interested in becoming a Bazaarvoice partner? Apply here.

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People want a seamless experience when they shop, one that’s tailored to their preferences, needs, and behavior. And if brands meet these expectations, they’ll be rewarded with loyalty and revenue, even in times of rising inflation and economic uncertainty.

According to Salesforce, 65% of consumers say they will stay loyal to companies if they offer more personalized experiences. And in a recent Twilio Segment report, 80% of business leaders revealed consumers spend more (38% on average) when their experience is personalized.

Yet, many brands still struggle to deliver on this front. Salesforce research also discovered that consumers’ top frustrations range from disconnected experiences (40%) to being offered products that aren’t relevant to them (33%).

So how can you effectively answer the call for a personalized customer journey that rewards both you and your customer base? How can you deliver the right message, in the right place, at the right time? With contextualization.

Chapters:

1. What is contextualization?
2. The role of digital body language
3. Privacy concerns and first-party data
4. Contextualization strategies in action
5. Personalize the entire customer journey with a contextualization solution

What is contextualization?

Contextualization is the practice of seamlessly integrating e-commerce shopping opportunities into a shoppers daily life, regardless of what channel they’re on or where in the buying process. With contextualization, your shoppers are able to find and purchase products within the context in which they discover them, be it on an app, social platform, email, or wherever they are. In practice, this could be a voice command to an Amazon Echo or a “buy now” link on Instagram or a product page.

This hyper-personalized process delivers your customers (and potential customers) an elevated shopping experience which inspires more purchases.

But while personalization relies on information from customers that you’ve previously collected, contextualization anticipates shopper behavior and reacts based on this prediction. It’s like a digital version of reading a friend or family member’s body language.

The role of digital body language

Think about the last conversation you had with a friend over coffee. Chances are, words were just one part of how you communicated and understood each other. The unspoken element of body language also played a pivotal role. A tilt of the head, a furrowed brow, or a relaxed stance — these non-verbal cues often tell us more than words alone. 

Even if we’re not aware of doing so, we instinctively read, interpret, and react to these cues, adjusting our approach, tone, and even our words. This silent feedback guides us in how to build rapport, when to push forward, and when to step back. 

In e-commerce, you don’t have physical movements or facial expressions to guide you. Instead, you have digital body language, a virtual counterpart that is equally telling. Throughout the customer journey, every action a visitor takes — from the pages they linger on, to the products they zoom in on, to the reviews they read — is a form of digital body language. These contextual signals are rich with insights, mirroring the silent cues we rely on in personal interactions. 

Just as a smile or a frown in a physical store gives away a customer’s feelings, digital actions convey similar messages. A quick series of clicks might indicate excitement or urgency, while prolonged inactivity might suggest confusion or disinterest. Interpreting digital body language is what allows brands to understand and anticipate the needs and preferences of their customers, and create a more personalized, intuitive, and satisfying shopping journey.

How to analyze and respond to digital body language

Shoppers are leaving behind a valuable trail of digital breadcrumbs, but you need to decipher them and respond accordingly. This is best accomplished with machine learning software — tools that capture a vast array of user data, identifying patterns in behavior that might otherwise go unnoticed. 

For example, a customer’s hesitation at checkout, indicated by slower mouse movements, can be instantly recognized. The tech can then respond instantly by displaying a reassuring message about product quality, rich reviews, or a limited-time discount offer. 

One significant advantage of machine learning is its ability to analyze behavior without the need for user logins. Whether a shopper is a first-time visitor or a returning customer, you can glean valuable insights from their interactions on your site. But 97 – 98% of a website’s traffic is anonymous, which means that personalization based only on previous consumer data can fail to create contextual experiences for almost all of a site’s visitors.

And unlike traditional analytics, which require time for data processing and interpretation, machine learning operates in real-time. This immediacy is vital in the context of digital shopping, where a delay of minutes can mean the difference between a completed sale and an abandoned cart. 

Privacy concerns and first-party data

By now, you’ve realized that digital body language is essentially customer data, and acting on it (a.k.a. personalizing the shopping experience) inevitably involves collecting that data. With the collapse of third-party cookies set to become final by the end of 2024, how do you go about it in a way that’s safe and compliant? That’s where first-party data comes in.

First-party data is information collected directly from your customers through interactions with your brand –– be it clicks through to website, transactions, or product searches. Unlike third-party data, this information is owned only by your brand and is provided directly by your customers, meaning you don’t have to rely on data aggregators or third-party domains. And since it’s information you get directly from the source, it’s also more reliable than third-party data.

The key concept when talking about first-party data is consent. This means that to be compliant, you need explicit permission from customers to collect information about how they interact with you. You’ve likely seen this at work before, with websites asking you for permission to store first-party cookies on your browser while also giving you the option to opt in or out of data collection.

To ensure website visitors opt in, be transparent and make it clear that it’s a win-win situation. Tell them what data you’re collecting and why. 67% of shoppers are comfortable giving out their behavioral data to allow brands to enhance their experiences, so explain that by accepting, their information will be used precisely for that purpose. 

Contextualization strategies in action

You have your customers’ permission to freely collect their data. Now, it’s time to make the magic happen and use the information to personalize each interaction to their hearts’ content.

Displaying relevant product recommendations

What if you could waltz into a store where every product on display had been handpicked for you? The colors match your taste, the sizes are just right, and every item seems to call out to your unique preferences. You’d likely linger for a while and spend a lot more money than if you were faced with a pile of generic items you had to sift through until something stood out. The same logic can be applied to an e-commerce scenario.

By leveraging data like browsing history, purchase patterns, and search queries, you can curate personalized product suggestions that resonate with each shopper. For instance, if a customer frequently views outdoor gear, showing them the latest camping equipment or hiking apparel would enhance their shopping experience.

Types of product recommendations you can display based on customer data include: 

• Similar Items: Suggest products similar to what the customer is currently viewing, like showing different styles of running shoes to a shopper browsing a specific sneaker. 

• Previously viewed items: Remind customers of items they’ve looked at in the past, which can be particularly effective in nudging them towards a purchase. 

• Cross-selling: Suggest items that complement the customer’s current selection, like recommending a phone case to a customer buying a smartphone. 

• Upsell recommendations: Offer premium or upgraded versions of the products the customer is interested in. 

• Location-based recommendations: Tailoring suggestions based on the customer’s location can significantly enhance relevance. For example, suggesting lightweight clothing to customers in warmer climates or snow gear to those in colder regions. 

Online marketplace Vinted suggests products based on the shopper’s previously bought items.

Personalizing website elements

Websites are dynamic and rich with elements that can be tailored with dynamically updating content that resonates with each shopper. From the moment a customer lands on your page, you can make it so the layout, the content, and the offers are aligned with their interests and behaviors.

One effective approach is to recognize and cater to returning customers. This can be as simple as displaying discounts and highlighting the popularity of items they viewed but didn’t purchase during their last visit. A feature like this not only saves time for the shopper but also demonstrates that your brand values their interest and time. 

Other key website areas can dynamically adapt to the visitor’s preferences and behaviors. This includes: 

• Homepage banners: Tailor these to showcase products or offers relevant to the visitor’s past interactions. If they’re a first-time visitor, highlight your best-selling or featured products to give them a taste of what your brand offers

• Product pages: Adjust product descriptions and images based on what the visitor has shown interest in previously

• Product categories: Customize the display order of categories or highlight specific ones based on the user’s browsing history or the popularity of products within that category 

• Checkout or shopping cart page: Personalize these pages with last-minute additions based on the items in the cart or make the shopper feel great about their choices by highlighting how much money they’re saving

Amazon encourages customers to pick where they left off and prominently displays the most relevant product categories based on previous website behavior.

Enabling dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing involves adjusting prices based on factors like demand, competitor pricing, and inventory levels. For example, during high-demand periods, such as holiday seasons, prices may increase slightly. In the context of personalization, dynamic pricing means leveraging a customer’s purchase history and engagement levels to adapt pricing in real time.

Past purchase data provides insights into your customers’ preferences and spending habits. For instance, if a customer frequently purchases high-end products, they might be more receptive to premium offerings at slightly higher price points.

Conversely, customers who typically look for deals or budget items could be more price-sensitive, and offering them competitively priced products could increase the likelihood of repeat purchases.

Customer engagement is another critical factor in dynamic pricing. Customers who regularly interact with your site — whether through frequent visits, newsletter sign-ups, or consistent browsing — show a higher level of interest in your products. This engagement can be a signal to offer personalized discounts or deals, encouraging them to move from browsing to purchasing.

It’s important to remain transparent so you can maintain trust and prevent potential dissatisfaction. Customers should be aware that prices may vary based on several factors, including demand, seasonality, and their shopping behavior. 

Adopting triggered messaging

Triggered messages are automated responses to specific actions taken by customers while they peruse your website. Although usually pre-set by e-commerce teams rather than using diigtla body language, they’ll still improve the shopping experience.

Whether someone adds an item to their cart, spends time on a particular product page, or even shows signs of leaving the website, each action can trigger a tailored message that encourages them to move forward in their journey.

Triggered messages can look like:

• Welcome messages: Sent immediately after a new subscription or account creation, these set the tone for the customer relationship (and often include discounts for first-time visitors) 

• Abandoned cart reminders: Target customers who have added items to their cart but haven’t completed the purchase, gently nudging them to return. These usually pop up when the customer is about to leave the website, but can also appear when someone comes back

• Post-purchase follow-ups: Messages that thank the customer, provide shipping information, or suggest related products once they complete a purchase

• Special discounts: If a customer is lingering on a product page, a pop up can display a discount code, bundle deal, or a similar strategy that encourages purchase

• Time-sensitive/low-stock messages: These alerts inform customers about limited-time offers or notify them when an item they’ve shown interest in is running low in stock, or if it looks like the visitor is about to leave the page 

When it comes to triggered messages, timing matters. They should be sent when the customer’s interaction is still fresh so that the message is relevant and has a greater impact. 

Fashion brand Cider uses triggered messages to offer special discounts when first-time visitors access specific product pages.

Personalize the entire customer journey with a contextualization solution

Bazaarvoice’s AI-driven contextualization technology sets the stage for a new level of enhanced online shopping experiences and customer engagement. The solution offers unprecedented insights into shopper behavior, allowing you to deliver precisely timed, relevant content that resonates with each customer’s unique journey. 

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