What personalized data delivers the biggest ROI for retailers?
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from MarketingCharts, a Watershed Publishing publication providing up-to-the-minute data and research to marketers.
While personal data (name, gender, location, etc.) is — unsurprisingly — the data type most commonly used to personalize the web experience, personalization based on purchase history has the biggest ROI impact, according to a recent survey from Econsultancy.
The findings were based on a survey of more than 700 marketers and agencies, roughly half of whom are based in the UK.
Asked to rate the ROI impact of personalization based on the various sources of data, almost three-quarters of company respondents said that personalizing based on purchase history has a high impact on ROI. Given that only around four in 10 respondents are currently personalizing based on this data, it appears that this is the area with the most opportunity.
Meanwhile, personalization based on user preferences (70 percent) and web property behavior (68 percent) also appear to have a high impact on ROI, while most see mobile app behavior and third-party demographic data having low or no impact.
Turning to the channels through which marketers and agencies are personalizing the digital experience, the report notes that e-mail (78 percent marketers; 80 percent agencies) is the most popular, followed by desktop websites (69 percent and 78 percent) and mobile websites (36 percent and 51 percent). Fewer than one-quarter are personalizing the paid search experience, despite a separate Econsultancy report finding that personalization's impact on conversion rates is highest for search engine marketing.
Sticking with conversion rates, the study finds that they are the leading metric for analyzing the benefits of personalization, used by 65 percent of company respondents. Customer acquisition is the second-most used metrics, ahead of customer retention.