8 Ways to Boost Your Online Sales with Personalization

A personalized experience for website visitors increases sales, increases retention, and enhances the overall customer experience.

Knowing which personalization features to implement and where to place them can be challenging.

This article reveals eight sale-boosting personalization tactics anyone can implement into their eCommerce store, whether it was just opened or has been around for years.

What is eCommerce personalization?

Personalization creates a tailored experience for the customer based on their product interests and behaviors. If it is an effective personalization strategy, it will also help you understand your customer’s behaviors during their shopping session.

You will boost customer loyalty on your site by making every experience unique to the individual, which improves your conversion rate and keeps customers coming back time and time again.

1. Opt-in and email campaigns

Personalized opt-ins and emails for your customers is a great place to start because it works for the first-time visitor without knowing any of their preferences.

Collect contact information by offering a first-time visitor discount as soon as they reach the website, and in exchange, they provide their email address for future contact.

Later, once you have an idea of their product preferences and shopping behaviors, you can send personalized emails to recommend similar products to those they viewed or purchased previously to turn a first-time visitor into a loyal customer.

You can track their preferences by setting up automation. If they click an item but do not buy the product, an automated email gets sent recommending the product they clicked on in addition to related products. 

2. “Best-seller” product recommendations

Best-seller recommendations are one of the most effective ways to suggest products to website visitors.

This tactic works wonders without knowing a lot about your visitor’s shopping habits but is most effective once some information is collected.

A best-seller list suggests products to your visitor based on the shopping habits of others who visited your site. As more information about the individual is collected, it can recommend the most popular products within a category commonly searched by your customer.

For example, it can be a general best-sellers list of the most popular products if personalized information is lacking. However, once you know your visitor is looking for earrings, you can tailor the list to include your best-selling earrings, necklaces, and bracelets to increase the chance additional products get added to their cart.

3. Add user-generated content to your funnel

UGC (user-generated content) allows visitors to see what products would look like in real life.

Consumers are receptive to and persuaded by peer-based decisions, making this personalization tactic very influential.   

Implementing UGC is as easy as adding Instagram photos of customers wearing or using your product on your website and across your social media accounts.

Similar to a product review or testimonial, this method lets people see a product in action and visualize how it would fit into their own lives.

4. Personalized product recommendations

Personalized product recommendations are responsible for increasing the average number of items in the cart by over 68% and increasing conversions by 320% when done correctly.

As you learn the preferences of your site visitors automatically with a website tracking software, you can recommend similar products based on previous search or purchase history. You can recommend items on your website, on social media, or through email campaigns.

Eliminating time-consuming searches boosts the chance additional items are added to their cart that they otherwise wouldn’t have searched.

5. Increase average order value with message bars

Shipping costs are the primary reason for cart abandonment, and message bars can help eliminate that issue while increasing AOV (average order value).

After adding items to the cart, a pop-up message notifies the shopper how much more they need to spend to unlock free shipping.

It gives them the initiative to continue shopping to reach free shipping, even if the cost of the product outweighs that of the shipping while decreasing the chance they abandon the items in their cart.

6. Upsell, cross-sell, and down-sell surrounding check-out

This strategy goes hand in hand with the check-out process and should be present in all aspects.

• Upsell: suggest more expensive products than what is in the customer’s cart or have purchased in the past right before check-out
• Cross-sell: recommend items related to what the customer has in their cart or previous purchases
• Down-sell: suggest less expensive products right before check-out to encourage adding additional items to their cart.

Customers are most excited about their purchase around the time of check-out, so this is the best opportunity to recommend similar products.

7. Abandoned cart messaging

If a site visitor abandons their cart, something may have come up that caused them to leave before purchasing.

You can encourage them to come back and complete the purchase with an abandoned cart message.

You can send them an email reminding them of the items in their cart and jog their memory of their intended purchase resulting in a finalized purchase.

8. Retarget campaigns based on behavior

There are several ways you can retarget visitors to your site, whether they purchased or not.

You can create pop-ups on your website recommending recently viewed items or engage on social media and recommend similar products to those they viewed or purchased.

For this to work, timing is key. Retargeting is most effective within 7-14 days since this is the period most likely to result in engagement.

An exclusive discount on a recently viewed item is a great way to encourage customers to return to the site.

Personalization diversifies your brand and makes it a unique experience for every visitor.

Regardless of how established your eCommerce business may be, these are simple tips anyone can implement to increase conversions, improve customer experience, and boost sales.

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