The 6 Best Ecommerce Personalization Strategies For Retailers

With the ecommerce industry growing year after year (eMarketer estimates that global retail sales will reach ~$30 trillion by 2030), and competition getting continuously rougher, brands struggle to build effective and long-lasting competitive advantages to increase their revenue and prevail.

Personalization is one of the biggest marketing trends and it likely will be for some years to come.

But what does personalization mean for an ecommerce business? That’s why we’ve gathered the best ecommerce personalization strategies, synthesized from our client data, that are going to make an impact right now.

What is ecommerce personalization?

Ecommerce personalization is the practice of creating personal experiences on ecommerce sites based on the user’s browsing behavior, purchase history data, and demographics.

How can ecommerce personalization boost conversions?

A brand can personalize its ecommerce site dynamically for each of its users by serving them the content that is more relevant and valuable for them in order to boost the conversions.

By serving content which is related to the customer’s browsing history and behavior maximizes the chances for better conversions.

The 6 best ecommerce personalization strategies to build your business

Below we have gathered 6 proven ecommerce personalization example strategies that can help any retailer or ecommerce business increase its customer retention and conversions.

The best part?

You will only need a powerful omnichannel customer engagement software to implement all of them:

Personalization Strategy #1: Cart abandonment email workflow

cart abandonment automation setup example

Why is it powerful?

Cart abandonment emails, depending on the sector, have an average open rate of about ~45% (source: MIG.com) – more than double than the traditional email. The conversion rate on cart abandonment emails is on average about ~5%, a truly impressive KPI considering average newsletter conversion rate ranges 1-2.

Start by setting up 3 cart abandonment emails, ideally 1 hour/1-day/3 days after abandonment and see your conversions explode.

Tip: Use Pinterest to spot some clever cart abandonment emails.

Personalization Strategy #2: Dynamic exit intent pop up based on URL

dynamic exit intent popup example contactpigeon

Why is it powerful?

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to check which page a customer is on, and know when he or she is going to leave the site to serve a pop-up with personalized content? Well, you can do that and we suggest that you should.

With such a strategy, you can offer discount codes, cross-sell and/or up-sell opportunities, or bring up your helpline if the customer has visited the FAQ more than two times. The combinations and opportunities are countless.

Start by creating a generic Exit-Intent pop-up and then create one dynamic pop up for each of your top-selling categories and products.

Personalization Strategy #3: Personalized product recommendation email automation

hawkers email product recommendation example

Why is it powerful?

Ok, here’s a scenario to help you realize why this strategy is a necessity:

You manage an ecommerce store selling consumer electronics and a customer buys an expensive smartphone.

As it turns out, you are one step ahead and you suggested extra accessories such as protection cases and cables during the checkout process, but the customer didn’t buy anything aside from the smartphone.

You could send an email later, with relevant and valuable items specifically for that customer. But that’s not all, you could send an email with product recommendations (e.g., headphones) if a user visited two or more headphone products on your site.

Alternatively, if a user visited three products from a specific category (e.g. cables) you could dynamically send an email with product suggestions for cables (hot products, top selling, offers etc.). The personalized product recommendation email automations are a must because you address the needs of the customers at the right time.

Personalization Strategy #4: Use custom geo-located content

Why is it powerful?

Oh, this one is great! You can track a user’s location and offer personalized recommendations based on his/her city/country. Much like all the other strategies we mention in this article, the geo-location personalization strategy offers great value to the customer by personalizing the experience.

Eight out of ten mobile users look for local businesses online and by counting the mobile penetration in ecommerce it means that the vast majority of your consumers are most likely to look for a local/localized business.

This is your opportunity to offer them the experience they are looking for by offering unique content based on their location. So, spot the biggest national days of your key markets, like Saint Patrick’s Day is for Ireland, create dedicated promotions for and watch your conversions rise.

saint patric location based marketing example
Saint Patrick newsletter example

Personalization Strategy #5: Show recently viewed products

Why is it powerful?

It might sound simple, but it is of great importance and value to your customers. Displaying recently viewed products to your users makes the ecommerce site they’re browsing instantly familiar and thus all the KPIs, qualitative (time on site, bounce rate etc) and quantitative (CR, Conversions, etc) are increased leading to the main goal which is, of course, a purchase.

asos personalization viewed products example

This one is one of the most basic yet essential personalization strategies you should implement.

Personalization Strategy #6: Always retarget customers with dynamic remarketing ads

instagram dynamic remarketing hawkers

Why is it powerful?

Much like the personalized product recommendation email automation strategy, retargeting (or remarketing if you prefer) ads are a great way to “push” a bounced visitor to make a purchase or make an up sell.

Statistics show that website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are more likely to convert by 70%. Just like the previous “tech eshop” example, you could serve dynamic banners with different content, based on the user’s behavior and actions on your site.

You could, for example, follow this user and serve him ads in Google Search, in the sites he visits – through GDN campaigns (Google Display Network) – on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. These ads shouldn’t be generic though, they should be highly specific and personalized, based on this user persona to maximize the chances to convert.

So, do you remember the user that purchased a smartphone in the earlier example? Besides the ecommerce personalization automation emails, you could retarget the user displaying cases for his new smartphone.

It always was personal (and will be)

A personalization strategy is indeed a must nowadays for any ecommerce business that desires to scale. The Web has been personal since its very first moments and nowadays hopefully marketing can be personal as well.

Artificial Intelligence, evolution and technologies like machine learning have greatly improved the level of personalization in marketing businesses can pursue in an affordable way.

Your task is to make bold market research, select reliable tools, and execute well because, at the end of the day, this is what derives winners from losers.

Related Reading: Personalized Marketing Statistics: Research-Backed Facts And Trends.