The Hypothesis
A one-size-fits-all approach to ecommerce means many sites show inappropriate messaging to customers.
Without factoring in the intent of a visitor, retailers default to providing a templated, conversion-focused shopping experience. This results in irrelevant offers and messaging being shown to the majority of visitors who aren’t ready to buy.
Visitors require different content based on their stage in their buying journey. If a person has low intent or isn’t looking likely to return, the brand should build that intent by highlighting unique selling points. Reasons to buy, like brand history, product breadth, sustainability or quality. Something that engages a visitor to look closer or read further.
On the other hand, high intent customers likely need information about logistics such as returns, delivery, price promises and warranties. For many retailers, this kind of information often just sits at the top of the website below the navigation. But these are not often unique selling points, but more logistical details for the few who are ready to buy.
It’s hardly a stretch, but we hypothesise that by showing specific messaging to customers at different buying stages, retailers can be more effective. All by being more appropriate, instead of showcasing the same message to everyone.Â
The Tech You’ll Need
- The şÚÁĎ´óĘÂĽÇ Platform. Yes, yes, I know. But if you can find another way to segment and respond to intent in real time you can also use that.
- A Personalisation or Experimentation Platform, to tailor onsite content and unique selling points (USPs) based on customer intent segments.
Combining these technologies allows businesses to personalise content based on the real-time needs of a customer. şÚÁĎ´óĘÂĽÇ’s segment matching makes it possible to dynamically adapt the displayed messages to better suit the current phase of a customer’s buying journey.
Setting This Up
Here’s a quick look at how the şÚÁĎ´óĘÂĽÇ platform lets you respond to customer intent with targeted messaging.
The Target Segments
Prioritising onsite messaging is relevant to, well, any group within our intent-based segmentation framework really.
In the opening, we focused on proving that more logistical information shouldn’t be the priority for every customer. So, here is a segment where this kind of detail should be the priority, as well as two others that would benefit from something different.
Stalled Shoppers
Stalled Shoppers are people who were showing signs of committing to a product and high intent to purchase, but have just seen a significant drop in intent.
These customers who are evaluating a selected product should see messages about logistics, service quality and payment options. Social proof like customer reviews can also build conviction and facilitate the purchase. This type of messaging and strong product assets will be the key to converting this intent into a purchase.
Struggling Refiners
This segment is made up of customers who are refining their selection to a product category or type, but look unlikely to progress to a specific product as it stands.
Think: how do you help somebody move from a category to a product? Depending on your brand and product range, this segment may benefit from user-generated content, product quizzes and other decision-support tools. Try to highlight a specific product and help them to hone in on an option.
Unengaged or Struggling Browsers
The Unengaged and Struggling Browsers segments are people who look unlikely to progress from browsing to refining their selection.Â
While the two segments are distinct by the amount of interactions, your focus as a retailer should be on showcasing messages that facilitate their journey. As they are yet to show strong intent to a specific product, highlight the breadth of product available, your brand values or product quality. Give them a reason to move from browsing to refining or evaluating. Tell them about you, not just your deliveries.
The Impact
"Being able to see the intent of our customers is game changing. It's led us to create experiences that are more relevant to wants and needs. We've seen conversion rate increase of 20% plus on some of our experiences that are based on intent instead of being based on one-size fits all messaging."
‍Jan Bartczak, CCO, Value Lights
Highlighting key messages per intent phase increased conversion by 20% for Value Lights
Product detail pages (PDPs) are generally the same for all visitors, regardless of customer buying behaviour. Value Lights decided to personalise this experience by adding in messaging variants that only displayed depending on a visitor’s intent to purchase.
For low intent customers, “why we love it” USP messaging was shown and recommendations were also reprioritised. For high intent customers, “selling fast” social proof messaging with a next day delivery countdown was the focus. Meanwhile, medium intent customers saw an enhanced product description with a unique selling proposition banner below that.
Delivering appropriate messaging at the right time using şÚÁĎ´óĘÂĽÇ led to a 20% increase in conversion. Value Lights were able to determine the increase of the control segmented by different intent levels, and the biggest improvement in conversion, add to bag and bounce rates came from the lower intent users.
Cubitts increased conversion by 17% by tailoring their value propositions to where a user was in their journey
Cubitts have so many unique selling points about their offering (about 18, in fact). Putting all of these on a single page would be overwhelming and reduce cut through. Instead, Cubitts decided to be selective. Choosing to display what they felt were the most appropriate to the buying stage of each visitor using şÚÁĎ´óĘÂĽÇ.
For example, for people that were browsing, Cubitts informed them of the quality of the lenses to infer trust (e.g. how lenses are coated and made). Those customers that had a higher intent to purchase were informed of the benefits and logistics of buying a pair of frames from Cubitts (e.g. the warranty and free glasses case).
Shifting the focus in messaging to the buying stage of the visitor, not the location on a page or site, created a 17% increase in conversion rate when exposed to tailored message vs generic message. In other words, by being more focused on the right message, Cubitts create more impact.
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By prioritising messages based on customer intent, retailers can deliver more relevant and impactful experiences. Not only enhancing user engagement, but incremental revenue too. Tailoring messages to different stages of the buying journey ensures that every customer receives the information they need when they need it, making the shopping experience more personalised and effective.
If you’d like to get started with this yourself, you can learn more about how the şÚÁĎ´óĘÂĽÇ platform can help you respond to in-session intent or discover more intent-based plays in our playbook.
