Optimizely Personalisation
Website personalisation is something that many organisations are ignoring. Modern, digitally savvy website visitors expect their online experiences to be unique, seamless and personalised.
98% of internet users leave and then return to a website before making a purchase or taking a converting action. Having the technology to remember previous visits can increase the chance of conversion for up to 80% of potential customers and employees.
Personalised experiences are pivotal in driving and differentiating leading brands such as ASOS, Amazon and New Era Cap. Brands that have successfully implemented personalisation are reaping the benefits. Giving customers the opportunity to pick up where they left off makes user journeys seamless and more valuable for both your organisation and its customers.
How To Create Unique Experiences For Your Site Users
There are a list of factors that contribute to great user experience, some of which might be more specific to sectors or individual organisations. But a common denominator to successful UX is to select the right technology. Optimizely (formerly Episerver) has been recognised as an industry leader by Gartner for consecutive years and is increasingly becoming the go-to platform for ambitious, customer-centric organisations or those currently working with a legacy/ageing solution that simply doesn’t have the level of sophistication to deliver intelligent experimentation.
Booking a free Optimizely demo to view the technology in action and explore how simple it is to set up the feature is always recommended to ensure it’s the right fit for your business.
Personalisation with Optimizely:Option 1
Optimizely has multiple methods to set up live personalisation. The most efficient strategy is to implement the Optimizely Experiments Web Product by adding a snippet of Javascript to the top of all your site’s pages. This subscription will also give your digital team access to Optimizely A/B Testing and Optimizely Multivariate Testing products.
Gaining access to these leading digital marketing tools under one subscription and licence fee reduces financial waste. Naturally, implementing these tools into your arsenal allows your organisation to take their digital results to the next level and get ahead of the competition.
This method also allows your organisation to review the effect that personalisation has on user journeys as it is set up in the same manner as an experiment.
Personalisation in Optimizely: Option 2
Option two is through Optimizely CMS 12 User Groups. This feature comes out of the box with content management systems. While not as targeted and refined as the Web Experimentation Product, it is still an effective way to deliver a personalised experience to your users.
This is a more hands-on approach where you craft the journey in the CMS manually and typically select aspects such as pages or forms to trigger the personalisation. To review the influence this method has on a customer requires your site to be set up with Optimizely Data Platform (or a third-party option). Working with an ambitious data platform builds character profiles for your digital marketing team to review and make future decisions from data.
Manual Personalisation VS AI Personalisation
Manual Personalisation
Setting up personalisation manually consists of creating ‘visitor groups’ in the back end of your Optimizely CMS 12. Targeting a select group of site users who have achieved a specific goal (e.g. visiting the pet insurance sub-sector of your site) and tailoring the rest of their journey and future journeys around this.
This method can prioritise certain areas of the site with different levels of importance. Separating users such as job seekers from potential customers helps prevent users from getting lost or drifting away from the original intent due to an in-site distraction. Harnessing the ability to do this can create an unmatched and unique experience for everyone.
An example of this priority in the insurance sector could be:
1 – Careers
2 – Large Dog Breed Insurance
3 – Dog Insurance
4 – Pet Insurance
Funnelling users to a more accurate area of the site for their intent can increase the likelihood of conversion.
This strategy is sector agnostic and can be used in as much or as little detail as sought after. Coupled with unmatched industry knowledge your website has the potential to lead users exactly where they need to be to convert. It also gives your team the ability to upsell other relevant services and/or products relevant to what they are interacting with.
AI Personalisation
The suite also contains the tools such as Optimizely Recommendations to set up personalisation powered by machine learning Optimizely AI. Artificial Intelligence can contribute to increasing users’ time on site and the value that each session has.
This powerful technology recommends content and/or products that are of similar interest to the user’s journey. Over time the recommendations become even more accurate and unique by the AI reviewing what has been clicked on and what has been ignored (the machine learning ability).
This method requires minimum effort and can be used across multiple channels:
- On-Site Content Recommendations
- On-Site Product Recommendations
- Email Content Recommendations
- Email Product Recommendations
Out-of-the-box dashboards allow your team to review how the AI is performing and discover potential areas of improvement and growth in the site content.
Can You Use Optimizely Personalisation With A Different CMS?
“Yes”, is the short answer. When working with the Optimizely Web Experimentation product (mentioned above) there is the ability to integrate the tool into almost any website no matter the content management systems that are powering it.
The cloud-based SaaS is an easy-to-use multi-function product that not only allows for personalisation but also A/B testing, MVT testing and other experiments. The Optimizely pricing structure offers the pricing will match your organisation’s ambition.
Get Started With Market Leading Personalisation
Reaching out to an Optimizely specialist is the most effective way to start the process. Having an accredited strategist to aid in getting the most out of the product can help with achieving a positive ROI both quicker and more effectively.
Ultimedia is the ideal partner to help set up the experimentation tool. Our Optimizely specialists and digital strategy experts work together with your organisation. We aim to get a clear digital road map laid out and understand what your business hopes to achieve with the tools available.
We are the UK and Middle East’s #1 Optimizely Partner. With over 25 years of digital experience across a multitude of sectors, our digital professionals have delivered over 100 products in 32 different languages over the last 5 years. Contact us to arrange an Optimizely Demo to get started on your journey.
