Slides from an American Marketing Association (AMA) webinar re: how to implement online personalization techniques - pitfalls, opportunities, best practices.
Personalization Best Practices for Engaging Online Experiences
1. Personalization Best Practices for Delivering
an Engaging Online Customer Experience
Carlos Carvajal, Sr. Director of Marketing, Baynote
April 28th, 2010
2. Agenda
• Personalization 101
• Common Pitfalls
• Always Right Personalization
• Real-World Use Cases & Results
3. What is Personalization?
Personalization is a strategy for delivering a customer
experience that is always personal, relevant and convenient
EXPLICIT IMPLICIT
• Profile-based • Behavioral-based
• Segment-based • Context-driven
• Rules-driven • Collaborative Filtering
4. Many Ways to Personalize… Implicit
Product
Recommendations
Content
Recommendations
5. Many Ways to Personalize… Explicit
Customization
Role-based
9. Four Common Personalization Pitfalls
1.Must Build a Comprehensive
Customer Profile First
2.Create Rules to Target Content
Based on Customer Preferences
3.“Ultimate Personalization!”
4.Personalization is Really Hard to
Get Right
10. Pitfall #1: Must Build A Comprehensive Profile First…
Brother Uncle
Husband
Engineer
CEO
Father
What to recommend???
13. Pitfall #4: Personalization is Really Hard to Get Right
Approval & Deployment BI, Analytics & MV Testing
• New issues with priority • Too much noisy data
• Missed deadlines • Rear-view mirror
• Out-of-sync with market • Guess work
Re-design
Re-launch
Re-platform
Annually
Quarterly
Monthly
Development & QA Tuning, Merchandizing & Editing
• Too many projects • Manual & costly
• Conflicting priorities • Top 5% most popular only
• Expensive • Expert bias
Too Slow, Too Expensive
17. Always Right Personalization
“By understanding who you are and your shopping
history… I can accurately predict which products you are
currently interested in.”
VS.
“What are you looking for?”
“Many customers who came before you liked this
beginner snowboard…”
18. Collective Intelligence Powers Always Right Personalization
Combination of Social and Cognitive Science
Sell 1 of many Crowds are free Invisible Crowds
Niche segments Crowds > Expert Actions > Words
Micro projects Crowds reduces cost Whole > Sum of parts
Real-time trends 7 deadly biases Real-time feedback
But how? Aligned incentives?
19. Respond to Changing Customer Needs in Real-Time
Approval & Deployment BI, Analytics & Observes
Automatically MV Testing
• New issues with priority • Too much noisy data
Emergent Patterns
• Missed deadlines Automatic Adjustments
Real-time • Rear-view mirror
• Out-of-sync with market • Guess work
Re-design
Re-launch
Re-platform
Annually
Quarterly
Monthly
Use Collective Intelligence
Development Little IT Involvement
& QA Tuning & Merchandizing
• Too many projects • Manual & costly
• Conflicting priorities • Top 5% most popular only
• Expensive • Expert bias
20. Three Principles for Achieving Always Right Personalization
1.Focus on Context First
2.Understand Customer Intent
Through Engagement
3.Like-Minded Peers Know What
They Like Best
21. Principle #1: Focus on Context First
Brother Uncle
Husband
Engineer
CEO
Father
What to recommend
CONTEXT DRIVES RELEVANCE
?
28. Use Case: Dynamic Navigation
• Real-time as trends emerge
• Based on aggregated visitor
behavior
• Brings content to the
navigation level
Popular content in category
36. Personalization Best Practices
Known
Contextual Recommendations Personalized Contextual
Recommendations
Context
Unknown
Most Popular Products Personal Recommendations
Unknown Profile Known
37. Real World Results: Bluefly
Results:
300% lift in sales in Q4 „09
Profile
• $84M High fashion discount eTailer
• 50K SKUS, 350 brands
Challenges
• Low inventory per item
• Constant turnover of product
• Needed real-time solution
“By making recommendations more
relevant from a time perspective, we
knew we would get a lift, but we had
no idea it would be this much"
– Marty Keane, SVP ecommerce
38. Real World Results: TurboTax
Results:
• 35% increase in site search
conversion rates within weeks
Profile
• 73% increase within a year
• 14M taxpayers
• Award-winning support site
Challenges
• Taxpayers unable to find answers
• Manually hard-coding content
recommendations in results
• Rapidly changing content &
seasonality
“The results were so overwhelmingly
positive that it became a no-brainer.”
Chris Jones, Web Analytics Manager
39. Baynote in a Nutshell
Company
• Pioneered real-time recommendations
using collective intelligence in 2005
• 200+ web sites use Baynote today
Technology
• Collective intelligence foundation
• Breakthrough UseRank® patents
Solutions
• Real-time personalization, targeting and
recommendations
• SEO and SEM – peer-driven
• Search optimization – re-ranking by
engagement
• Email & video recommendations
• Insights - Merchandising, Testing,
Reporting
40. Key Takeaways
1. Avoid Common Pitfalls
• Build a comprehensive customer profile first
• Create rules to target content…
• Personalization is really hard to get right
2. Best Practices for Success
• Understand customer intent thru engagement
• Use Collective Intelligence to respond to
changing customer needs in real-time
• Personal profiles serve as filters & constraints
3. Start Simple…
• Identify high-value personalization use case:
landing page, e-mail, product detail page
• Define clear success metrics and plan for
results within 8-12 weeks
• Use customer insights, run tests, adapt
41. Thank You for Your Participation!
Contact Information
• E-mail: carlos@baynote.com
• Twitter: @Baynote
To Learn More About Baynote
• www.baynote.com
• www.baynote.com/blog
Continue the Conversation on Twitter: #AMABaynote