What is Personalized Marketing?

The goal of personalized marketing in eCommerce is in essence to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time with the right product recommendations, in order to engage audiences and provide an enhanced marketing experience and boost sales and customer loyalty.

It all starts with data. eCommerce marketers use customer data, such as purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic information, to create customer profiles. These profiles are then used to generate content and product recommendations that are tailored to each customer’s unique profile, preferences, and needs.

To use personalization effectively, marketers must ensure they have the necessary data and tools in place. This includes a robust customer data platform, data analysis tools, and algorithms that can generate personalized content and recommendations in real-time. It is also handy to have certain default options in place should the data be insufficient.

• Email Marketing - segmenting the audience based on location, gender, or purchase behavior, personalizing subject lines and email copy with users’ names, and including product recommendations based on interests and purchase history.
• Push Notifications, SMS messages, and Pop-ups - personalizing content and copy
• On-site content - adding personalized product recommendations on the product pages according to users’ browsing and purchase history

Targeted and personalized marketing strategies let companies expand their customer base without spending money on unproductive advertising campaigns and ultimately increase customer engagement and sales.

On the one hand, personalized marketing makes customers feel like their needs are being met and their preferences are being catered to, therefore they are more likely to make a purchase and come back for more. This means businesses can focus their efforts and financial resources on other critical areas and enjoy higher ROI for their marketing activities.

On the other hand, customer buying behaviors have evolved to the extent that they expect businesses to tailor their shopping experience to their interests, and marketing personalization can help online shops meet these expectations while building strong brand loyalty which eventually contributes to increased customer lifetime value, as well as positive word-of-mouth and referrals.

Offering a personalized experience might sound impressive, but it can also be very challenging when it comes to collecting the necessary data.

Google Analytics can offer insights regarding customer behavior, but remarketing customers with ads can be irritating and feel intrusive to them. Additionally, businesses must be transparent with customers about how their data is being used to generate recommendations.

Although personalization can be automated, it still needs people to track, test, and refine processes and recommendations over time to ensure they are driving engagement and sales. And this involves additional human and financial resources.

Collecting user data from different sources and combining them into a CRM is time-consuming and it also takes a certain amount of data to be able to create a personalized marketing experience, which limits small businesses, with low website traffic.

In conclusion, personalized marketing is a powerful tool for eCommerce marketers looking to increase engagement, sales, and customer loyalty. By using customer data and algorithms to generate tailored content and product suggestions, businesses can create a more personalized shopping experience that drives results.