Delivering Effective Personalization Through Automated Targeting

By Pete Olson, Amadesa

Companies have long embraced A/B and multivariate testing for website optimization and the creation of “personalized” customer experiences. These tools often perform well, improving conversion rates anywhere from 5 to 50 percent. Even with this success, it’s clear that there are far more possible customer segments and related options than just “A” or “B.” Customers may have common general attributes, but their specific traits can be used to deliver the single best offer, image or text tailoredto each individual. While a rules-based approach gets companies part of the way toward true personalization, automated content selection needs to be a part of a continuum of targeting options businesses employ to effectively personalize websites.

High-performance targeting offers numerous benefits beyond those provided by traditional, manual rules-based testing. These advantages include:

• The ability to match the right message to the right individual
• Automatic, hourly adjustments to changes in site traffic
• Reduced daily maintenance and freedom from running tests and building manual rules
• Insights and data regarding how content is performing, how traffic is allocated, and what is most beneficial to the customer

Onsite automated targeting is a powerful way to increase the ROI of existing website efforts, but companies shouldn’t jump into it without some pre-planning. Before running targeting on a site, time should be spent designing the approach and clarifying goals and objectives. These can include conversion rates, reduced marketing spend, loyalty and engagement increases.

Manual A/B and multivariate testing tools remain valuable; companies should use them as a starting point from which to design relevant website experiences for customers. As their strategies improve and mature, however, businesses should move toward more customer-specific personalization capabilities. Rules-based targeting solutions provide a greater level of control but require constant management to maintain. More preferable are automated targeting solutions that help businesses deliver truly personalized customer experiences and the kind of relevance, continuity and loyalty that results in increased conversions and sales.

About the Author

Pete is vice president of enterprise solutions at Amadesa. In this role, Pete is responsible for providing the strategic direction for the company’s technology platform, listening to the needs of customers, and offering a unique value proposition to the markets served by the company. He is also responsible for building relationships with key technology partners.

Prior to joining Amadesa, Pete was Senior Director of Product Management for Digital River, Inc (NASDAQ: DRIV), a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions for software and consumer technology. At Digital River, Pete was responsible for driving key decisions for the platform technology and internal integration strategies and he also assisted in M&A activity. Prior to Digital River, Pete was a member of the corporate marketing team at 3M. Pete has a BS degree in Marketing and Agriculture Business from Iowa State University.