An Ecommerce Personalization Guide for Marketers that Take Personalization Seriously

Tina Donati

How many times did you purchase something online in 2020?

You probably purchased from DTC brands more often than usual. But, you’re not the only one—so did everyone else. This is because the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major shift in consumer behavior.

With traditional brick-and-mortar stores having to close down, consumers discovered the simplicity and comfort of online shopping. This led to the ecommerce industry accelerating its growth ahead by what was initially projected to take five years (IBM). With the variety of ecommerce platforms on the market, it’s easy to create an online store and start selling online.

But, there was still one essential experience lacking for customers: personalization.

Moving into 2021, competition in the DTC space is more fierce than ever. Personalization will be key for brands to stay ahead of their competitors.

This guide is for DTC marketers that take personalization seriously. If that sounds like your cup of tea, read on because I’m going to tell you how to collect buyer profile data, what buyer profiles are and how to use your data to create personalized marketing campaigns.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is ecommerce personalization?

Personalization should go beyond just addressing a customer by their first name.

Advanced ecommerce personalization is when brands use data to share relevant, actionable and interesting content and products that enhance their customer’s shopping experience. When done well, personalization drives more conversions, builds loyalty, creates community and increases retention. In fact, marketers that have used personalization in their strategy have seen an average sales increase of 20%.

Personalization makes shopping with your brand more efficient, enjoyable and rewarding; it shows you’ve paid attention to a customer’s preferences and reacted in a way that’s adding more value to them.

How to collect more data about your customers

In order to meet the level of personalization your brand needs to succeed, you’ll need to collect buyer profile data. One of the best ways to collect buyer profile data is with an ecommerce quiz.

When built with data collection in mind, a quiz will capture a customer’s likes, dislikes, preferences, demographics and contact information. It will also guide customers to the right products and content, and provide a valuable experience that keeps them interested in your brand.

Did you know 71% of consumers feel frustrated with impersonal shopping experiences? A powerful quiz gives brands the ability to personalize every interaction with customers—from email, ads to customized web experiences.

What are buyer profiles?

A buyer profile is based on data and is not a fictional representation of a customer (like a buyer persona is). Collecting qualitative and quantitative data about a customer gives you a full profile of who exactly a customer is and what they need from your business.

Segment your buyer profile data by placing customers into like-minded groups. This gives you a list of unique profiles that you can sync to your other marketing tools, such as your ESP, Messenger app and ads account.

The type of information you can collect to build buyer profiles

With multiple choice, short answer and long answer questions, you can collect both qualitative and quantitative data about your customers. As a start, here are a few types of data you can collect:

Demographic data includes age, gender, location or the source from which a user discovered your brand.
Engagement data tells you how a customer is interacting with your business and the touchpoints they take. For example, you can segment customers by their quiz drop-off rate or the products they click on.
Attitudinal data is what customers think about your business. Are they satisfied? This information can be collected in a post-purchase survey.
Qualitative data is what tells you about a customer’s preferences, pain points and motivations.
Descriptive data includes customer lifestyle habits and behaviors, family details, career details or any other information that helps you understand their habits and intents.

Collecting this information with a quiz can be subtle. For example, Doe Lashes asks quiz users about their preferred TV show from when they were children. Although this may appear as a fun, out-of-the-box question, it’s actually used for Doe Lashes to understand a customer’s age range.

Example of a question asking what cartoon you liked best as a kid

Collecting information for these data buckets will show you where customers have similarities and where they differ. You can then group like-minded customers together to create unique experiences that feel personal to each group.

If you want to learn more about how businesses are succeeding with ecommerce quizzes, check out this case study with BeautyBio. They drove a 28% increase in AOV.

12 Ways to personalize your marketing channels

Once you’ve collected your buyer profile data and segmented customers into groups, the next step is to actually use that data in your marketing strategy. Here are a few successful examples of how ecommerce brands have leveraged data for deeper personalization:

Facebook Ad Campaigns

Retarget your buyer profile segments with paid ads that offer personalized product offerings and messaging.
Create lookalike audiences from your data to target like-minded prospects.
Even if customers don’t opt-in to your marketing while taking your quiz, use the Facebook Pixel integration to retarget those customers with ads.

Website personalization

Create a “recommended products” section on your homepage that shows relevant products to different buyer profiles.
Create unique pop-ups that offer exclusive opt-in content and offerings. Target each pop-up to specific website pages or product collections.
Create content to educate customers based on their pain points, including blog posts, videos and infographics.

Positioning and prospecting

Discover customers that have a higher conversion rate or AOV. Prospect similar audiences for a better ROAS.
Know who your customers are and where they spend their money to position your products better.
Discover a new segment of customers you didn’t know was shopping at your store. For example, Doe Lashes learned people who have never worn false lashes before were browsing their products.

Personalized automation

Send new customers a personalized welcome series on Facebook Messenger or by email. Make sure the messages are tailored to the specific information you’ve gathered.
Remind customers about their abandoned carts with more targeted and personalized messaging to increase the chances of them making the purchase. 1 out of 9 abandoned cart messages convert into a sale for Octane AI customers that use this approach.
Use your segmented buyer profile lists to create automated campaigns based on past purchases, customer preferences, interests, location and engagement. Keep your messaging relevant to every segment’s behavior and interests.

By following some of these practices, you’re improving the customer journey by only interacting with customers in a way that benefits them. This will lead to greater engagement and higher conversion rates. But, how do you know if your personalization efforts are doing what they’re supposed to? Let’s look at measuring your success next.

How to measure the success of your personalization strategies

Before you measure the success of anything, you must understand your goals. Did you decide to start collecting buyer profile data with the goal of increasing your conversion rate by 10%? Or, are you hoping to increase your customer retention rate?

Outline what your intended purpose of collecting this data is, and then decide what your KPIs are. Here are a few KPIs you could look at, depending on your goal.