Comparing website personalisation to email personalisation is, I admit, a bit like comparing apples to oranges. For email you already know the individual’s email address and if you have that, chances are you know a bit more about them – their name for instance. At which point ‘personalisation’ can simply mean addressing them by their first name.
Websites on the other hand cater for a wider and broader spectrum of individuals. People you have come across before, clients and, most significantly in this situation, people who you don’t know or recognise (many of whom will be potential valuable prospects).
In fact, our clients tell us that they only recognise around 40% of their visitors…
The 60% you do recognise consist of clients who you can easily cater for through a client login – after which you can tailor their experience to suit them – and people who you have encountered before – for whom a cookie will tell you what they’ve done before.
However, just because you can ‘recognise’ this 60%, it doesn’t necessarily mean you truly know them, or know enough about them to deliver relevant and valued experiences.
Equally, the 40% you don’t know from Adam will all have the same generic top-level experience, during which you just have to hope you show them something that’s of interest and they end up converting – thereby giving you some information – or they leave but return at a later a date, with you not knowing any more about what they may be interested in other than what they looked at (and potentially didn’t like) before.
The solution lies with contextual information and the newly developed ability to apply this in real-time across all your site visitors.
We’ll be at DMEXCO this September to talk more about onsite personalisation, so whether you’re attending or not, please get in touch to find out how Experian can support your business.
Is third party data the solution?
The aspect of personalisation where I saw the most opportunity for brands was in the low use of third party data in personalisation (13%). When you consider only 28% of marketers do website personalisation, how small is the number using third party data in website personalisation?
One of the biggest barriers to personalisation was ‘easy access to the information’ (42%) which in this case I take to mean ‘how can I apply the data to my personalisation’ and I admit, it has been a problem that has dogged the industry for a while.
But now there is a solution. It’s called data at the point of interaction. More specifically it’s applying Experian’s third party anonymised data and segmentation tools to visiting cookies and devices so that websites know, in real time, the likely characteristics, behaviours and preferences of both the 40% and the 60%.*
This provides far more information on clients and returning visitors – further contextual insight to add to the decisioning process behind what content, message or offer to show them – and valuable knowledge about the people you have never met before. Now the first time they land on your website you can show them something they are much, much more likely to actually be interested in.
Finally, the technology has caught up with customer need. No longer does a website have to be such a leaky bucket and for the first-time brands can take full control of the experiences they offer their customers from start to finish.
Learn how our clients are using our data to improve their onsite personalisation and how we can help you too