Time and time again, the strategy that is delivering great customer experience, driving business, and seeing some of the most significant returns is smart personalization, and in the digital world, smart personalization. Gartner predicts that e-commerce businesses that personalize their customer experience successfully could see profits rise by up to 15% by 2020. Apart from the vision, strategy, and talent, you need the right tools; and much like a carpenter is crippled without a hammer, our modern business landscape is growing ever reliant on personalization engines.
The goal of smart personalization is to make decisions easier and experiences more enjoyable, so I thought I’d do the same by compiling a synopsis of 21 smart personalization tools, all in one convenient location. While many of the features presented may overlap, each offers its own unique value, a value I’d encourage you to discover if you also wish to deliver an excellent customer experience. Just read below to uncover which personalization engine is the best fit for you.
Capitalizing on the fact that humans are visual creatures, this software takes a more visual approach to behavioural targeting, focusing on product sequencing to analyze – and ultimately optimize – what customers are looking at in order to increase the conversion rate tangibly. It also offers search services in over 40 languages, making it one of the few to have such broad, global implications and is an obvious choice for companies looking to expand their market internationally.
This software is set on improving the customer experience by analyzing and personalizing shopping not just while the actual shopping occurs, but even when it doesn’t work out. Leaving the website without a purchase or even cart abandonment where items don’t go all the way to a transaction, are part of this data gathering process. This coupled with retargeting emails, product recommendations, and real-time website personalization make Barilliance a great option to up your smart personalization efforts.
Modern commerce is all about omnichannel, which is part of the reason that Baynotes cross-device smart personalization engine is so appealing. Their solution works with existing systems and utilizes powerful algorithms to not only identify shopping behaviour patterns, but collect that data, analyze it, and in turn, deliver highly targeted responses. The behaviour data that is collected then helps brands gain a single view of their customer, like, where they came from and why; irrespective of the device the journey started from.
Based on the simple principle that it is impossible to market to your visitors if you don’t know who they are, BounceX offers a full segmentation stack comprised of sophisticated cohort rules that hyper-targets each unique visitor into strategic segments. It then couples the visitor’s data with their behaviour on-site, enabling for precise and targeted campaigns.
“You can sell more by getting personal” is the stance that Bunting takes, and given the plethora of features in their cloud-based personalization tool, I’d have to agree. Built for marketers, by marketers, Bunting offers Product Recommendations that can be tested to determine which is most efficient, Personalized Content, Urgency and Social Proof, and Cart Abandonment targeting that can help you increase your conversions.
This is another comprehensive package that integrates not just with catalogue and purchasing aspects of a website but also works with third-party systems for search, PIM, and more. It uses machine learning to improve its efforts over time, ever increasing the degree of personalization. This truly omnichannel platform is designed for the modern consumer, and with its new expandable add-ons, brands can further customize this tool to their specific needs.
The dream of every marketer is to achieve 1:1 customer engagement; and Everage promises to do just that. Combining customer data with advanced machine learning and in-depth behavioural analytics, Everage for E-Commerce Optimization allows you to systematically understand and interact with each visitor to your site or app; one at a time, in real-time, and at scale.
Power and price are two of the most significant selling factors when it comes to Exit Intelligence, a marketing tool that is primarily used to catch visitors before they leave your site. With their expertly managed pop-up software, this mobile-first tool provides gorgeous designs, reduced bounce and abandonment, split testing and targeting, and is easy to install. All this makes it particularly useful for design thinking experts, developers, and other stakeholders in the team to create a highly personalized customer experience. Plus it comes with an ROI tracker, so you’ll always know how your investment is paying off.
When it comes to personalization, the more granular that you can go, the better. Granify, a machine learning powered platform allows business to get specific with the data they are after. From in-depth shopping behaviour right down to “mouse hesitation,” Granify tracks over 400 specific micro-behaviours to give business a truly unique view of their customers.
A powerful combination of linguistic analysis technology and machine learning, LimeSpot is designed to not only target content but to understand it. Personalizer is their AI-powered option that helps to deliver personalized recommendations, upsell, and cross-sell, while, Approach, is a customized email campaign engine design to increase sales by targeting recipients with the products they are most likely to buy.
While the goal of business is to make things as easy and effortless for customers, that isn’t to say that important and valuable efforts like personalization need to be complicated. Monetate brings more than a decade of experience and over 300 brands in their portfolio to back up their platform that boasts 1:1 personalization, product recommendations, and an easy, customizable segmentation engine that builds and runs tests to ensure your automated messages are the type your audience is looking for.
Before you can optimize your marketing efforts for your buyers, you first need to understand them. With Omniconvert, you can do both at the same time. They claim to be the only tool that allows brands to survey, test, message, and segment all in one place, however, while that is undetermined, their premium support, 5-minute installation, top-notch security, and 30 day money back guarantee all make this tool a great option.
Bringing surgical like precision to e-commerce personalization, OptiMonk utilizes onsite retargeting technology that presents targeted popup overlays to your visitors. Not only that, but it also includes the ability to capture contact information like email as well as segment visitors based on a variety of categories like Cart-Contents, Engagement, and Page Stay Duration and then automatically provide personalized, relevant content.
Personyze uses the power of AI and powerful targeting to create tailored experiences for your audience. Giving the user the ability to set their target audience based on a list of 70 “out-of-the-box” characteristics as well as custom-defined ones, Personyze goes beyond just website personalization, offering recommendation engine, email personalization, targeted banners and pop-ups, as well as A/B testing features.
Anyone should be a little hesitant when a company claims to be able to increase online revenue, especially by a specific number like 26%, however, given the features of PureClarity’s platform, it may not be too far off. Combining AI and Big Data, this tool provides personalized site searches, personalized merchandising, personalized email marketing, and analytics; all in one platform that is packed with hundreds of segment variables.
A global leader when it comes to omnichannel personalization, RichRelevance is a highly acclaimed tool utilized by more than 200 multinational companies, all of whom trust it to deliver relevant and innovative customer experiences across web and mobile. Using machine learning and 125+ pre-built algorithms, this tool can learn and respond in real-time to customer behaviour and activity in order to provide them with the most relevant recommendations and content.
Few people in business can argue the power of video when it comes to customer engagement, and it is this fact that Softcube hopes to capitalize on. Powered by AI, Softcube boasts the ability to create videos showcasing your products in use automatically. Using an expansive video library and advanced neural networks, videos are effortlessly produced and can be showcased across a variety of platforms.
This software gathers first-party data in real-time, looking at search terms, purchase patterns, location, and other useful metrics to create an image of the customer. Not stopping there, SteelHouse also offers users the opportunity to create unlimited target segments; opening a new realm of possibilities for targeting. Users of DemandWare are also now able to enjoy increased integration with SteelHouse software thanks to a strategic partnership between the two companies, further adding to the power of the platform.
While many of the entries on this list offer a specific tool for enhanced personalization, UNBXD boasts a complete “product discovery suite.” This includes an impressive commerce search feature that provides enhanced product discovery and recommendations, all while subtly guiding customers in the direction you want. Perhaps the most unique offering by this tool is the ability to provide recommendations at the shopping cart, which can dramatically increase upselling and cross-selling.
One-to-one marketing just got easier thanks to WebEngage and their personalization module that comes integrated with a complete multi-channel marketing suite. So what does it include? More like what doesn’t it include, for it provides journey mapping and user profile creation, cross-device segmentations, geo-fencing and more, all working towards a single customer view. It also offers real-time user tracking with attribution so you can utilize those channels that yield the best results.
A personalization tool is only as effective as the features it has in proportion to the needs a business has. In regards to Yusp, you’d be hard pressed to find a feature it doesn’t have. This personalization engine boasts Product Recommendation, On-Site Personalization, Search Personalization, Mobile Personalization, Email Marketing Personalization, Personalized Couponing, Cart Abandonment Email, Social Personalization, Online Ad Retargeting Personalization; and if you can believe, more.
Smart Personalization, in all of its proven glory, is not to be considered “an effort for next quarter,” “an idea we’ll review next month,” or “something our customers just aren’t interested in yet.” Instead, it needs to be celebrated, much like the customers it is geared towards. With the possibility of providing tailored, unique, and personalized experiences, the question isn’t going to be when will it happen, but why hasn’t it already?
P.S. while my list is extensive, I’d encourage you to search out options I may have missed and also share it with me.
