The Conversion Optimization Agent

Imagine an AI-powered conversion optimization agent that continuously analyzes data from diverse analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics and user recording tools like Hotjar. This agent autonomously identifies conversion issues, such as cart abandonment patterns, user interface friction points, or technical glitches. Once identified, these issues are automatically routed to the appropriate teams along with detailed, actionable insights and suggested solutions. For instance, technical problems are directed to the technical team with clearly defined recommendations, simplifying the resolution process.

Instead of manually combing through extensive data, eCommerce managers and their teams will receive concise, prioritized alerts that help them swiftly address issues and enhance the overall user experience.

Autonomous Content Optimization Agent

AI agents will also transform how eCommerce content is optimized. Managers will no longer need to navigate cumbersome CMS platforms; instead, they’ll interact with a user-friendly interface. Through simple interactions, managers can request content changes, experiments, and optimizations without coding knowledge.

AI will autonomously implement these content adjustments, generating the necessary code changes automatically. Managers simply review and approve the adjustments.

Centralized AI Interface: Unified Insights and Interaction

In the future, eCommerce managers will benefit significantly from a centralized, chat-like interface powered by AI, streamlining how they interact with multiple systems. This interface will consolidate data from analytics platforms, inventory management systems, merchandising tools, and other essential sources into a single intuitive platform.

Rather than logging into multiple tools, managers will effortlessly communicate their queries and requests through conversational interactions. AI agents will provide timely and relevant insights, alerting managers about critical issues, highlighting opportunities, and recommending immediate actions. By simplifying and centralizing interactions, managers will be able to quickly make informed decisions, enhancing productivity and responsiveness.

Intelligent Merchandising Agent

AI will also revolutionize merchandising through specialized agents designed to optimize product display and inventory management. These intelligent agents analyze sales data, customer browsing behaviors, inventory statuses, seasonal trends, and market conditions. They then dynamically arrange products on digital shelves to maximize relevance, visibility, and sales potential.

By automating merchandising decisions, these agents ensure optimal inventory turnover and personalized customer experiences, ultimately driving higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Autonomous Pricing Optimization

Additionally, specialized AI agents dedicated to pricing optimization will play a crucial role. These agents will dynamically adjust pricing strategies based on factors like current inventory levels, demand trends, competitor pricing strategies, and customer buying behavior.

By processing and responding to real-time market conditions, these agents will optimize margins and competitiveness simultaneously, enabling retailers to stay agile and responsive.

Human-AI Collaboration: Enhancing Efficiency and Strategy

The future of eCommerce doesn’t involve replacing human oversight but enhancing it. AI agents will handle data-intensive tasks, freeing human managers and their teams to concentrate on high-value strategic initiatives, brand development, and building stronger customer relationships.

Companies that adopt these collaborative AI strategies early will significantly benefit from increased operational efficiency, deeper customer insights, and improved conversion rates.

At Barilliance, our focus remains on developing innovative AI-driven solutions that address the evolving challenges and opportunities faced by eCommerce businesses. By continuously exploring and investing in intelligent technology, we help online retailers stay ahead in an increasingly complex and competitive market.

Embracing AI today means preparing for a more efficient, insight-driven, and customer-centric tomorrow.

The post The Future of eCommerce: How AI Agents Will Transform the Day-to-Day of eCommerce Managers appeared first on Barilliance.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current cart abandonment strategies retailers are using in 2023.

The most common mistake in cart abandonment email campaigns…

According to our study covering 200 eCommerce stores worldwide, the highest performing cart abandonment campaigns recovered 40% of revenue! 

The key?

Sending more than one email.

Despite this, the vast majority of eCommerce stores only sent one or two abandonment emails. To maximize conversions,  you don’t need to write a single cart abandonment email template. You need to write a minimum of three. 

And the single most important factor of each email is the subject line.

Free Cart Abandonment Audit: Get a complete audit on your checkout process, with screenshots and next actions to take. Request Here. 

The Single Most Important Part of Your Cart Abandonment Email: Subject Line

According to Chadwick Martin Bailey, 64% of people open their emails based on the subject line. 

The challenge is, the best cart abandonment subject line is going to change depending on where in the funnel the email comes from.

The best cart abandonment subject lines result in incredible conversion rates.

• Email 1 – Sent one hour after cart abandonment, 20.3% Conversion Rate
• Email 2 – 24 hours after cart abandonment, 17.7% Conversion Rate
• Email 3 – 72 hours after cart abandonment, 18.2% Conversion Rate

With Barilliance, clients are able to use advanced multi-step cart abandonment campaigns with an average email conversion rate of 18.64%!

How Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines Affect Open Rates

Shopping cart abandonment emails should have some of the highest open rates in your triggered email arsenal. These are customers who have indicated clear interest in your product. On average, Barilliance customers have been able to generate 43.33% open rates with effective subject lines!

The Best Cart Abandonment Subject Lines of 2023

I’m about to share with you some of the best cart abandonment subject line examples.

First up, The Honest Company.

The Honest Company focuses on natural health and food products, and is currently valued at $1.7 billion.

A huge factor in their amazing success is their ability to maximize revenue from each site visitor. Look at how well they construct their cart abandonment subject lines to compel the prospect to click through and complete their purchase.

Email #1

I love this subject line for a number of reasons.

First, it has great voice and tempo. It is short, direct, and upbeat. Second, The Honest Company makes the best use of customized email preview text I saw during the study.

They employ brackets around an all cap sized [OPENED] to stand out and tease a “to see” with ellipsis for good measure.  

Email #2

The second email was sent exactly 24 hours after the first.

It was congruent in tone and voice to the first email. Even though the words themselves were simple, they convey an upbeat, friendly tone.

Again, The Honest Company makes excellent use of the preview text.

Lastly, The Honest Company uses a new tactic in their second email – urgency. They accomplish this through an imposed scarcity  of an expiring cart, and the copy centers around the fact that their cart will be expiring soon.

Email #3

Their third abandoned cart email follows the cadence of the second, triggered to send 48 hours from the first.

Here, the subject line puts even more focus on urgency and loses the friendly tone. Instead, it is more matter of fact, underlining the urgency of the subject line.

Lastly, the preview text is again used to great measure. In this case, The Honest Company hints at an added benefit of free shipping.

While I wish this line was more personalized based on the shopper’s cart, it still accomplishes it’s goal of imposing time pressure and adding incentive to act now.

Email #4

The final subject line in the sequence is a last chance email. 

What is most instructive is how persistent The Honest Company is once they have a lead with demonstrated purchase intent. 

Despite the customer not responding to previous emails, they don’t give up. Instead, they keep their promise, expire their cart, and invite them to come back. 

The Honest Company used a variety of techniques to create a fantastic. abandoned cart campaign. 

As we went over company after company, we saw many recurring themes, tactics, and strategies used. We consolidated the most common subject line types below, and provide a few examples for your swipe file.

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8 Types of Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines

In total, we discovered 8 subject line archetypes that retailers used to maximize conversions. 

1. Accept My Bribe Subject Lines

Incentives work. You want to be abundantly clear that your prospective customer is getting hooked up with an excellent deal if they complete the purchase. Words such as deal, promotion, % off are all powerful trigger words for price conscious shoppers.

Bonobos executes this subject line perfectly.

The bribe is upfront and clear. The call to action is direct, and uses an active verb. Empty your cart – save 20%.

One important best practice when using incentives is email suppression.

The technology you use should understand when a customer redeems an offer, and not send additional incentives after.

Barilliance comes standard with email suppression, and is an important feature in any cart abandonment technology.

Accept My Bribe Subject Line Template Examples

• Empty your cart with XX% off.
• Take XX% off your cart before it’s gone.
• {Company Name} XX% off on your entire order for 24 hours only

Above is an example of “Accept My Bribe” cart abandonment subject line by Sephora.

2. Curiosity Subject Lines

Curiosity based subject lines are the exact opposite of the Accept My Bribe types. Instead of being direct and upfront with your offer, these headings get prospects to click through because they pique interest.

Everlane lets their prospects know that they are about to receive something. They just won’t reveal what that something is until they click through. 

Again, I encourage you to contrast this to the example above as they really are two sides of the same coin. They both focus on creating value, but pull the reader into opening the email in completely opposite ways.

Curiosity Subject Line Template Examples

• A Gift For You
• Hi {Customer Name}, continue shopping with a discount!

3. Product Shout-Out Subject Lines

Consistency and recognition are powerful motivators to complete purchase.

Product shout-out subject lines leverage this to it’s fullest. They are to the point, and resurface the want or need the customer originally had when they placed the product in their cart.

Here, The RealReal uses a simple, friendly tone. They then personalize the subject line with dynamic cart insertion to create a relevant message to their prospect.

Product Shout-Out Subject Line Template Examples

• Still Deciding? Your {Product Name} Is Waiting!
• {Product Name} might be the one – Shipping and returns are both free

4. Suggestive Subject Lines

Suggesive subject lines often make use of the Assumption Principal, which underpins the famous “assumptive close”. The Assumption Principal functions by assuming the customer has already decided to make a purchase. In other words, it implies that the reason the customer abandoned their cart is because they forgot it rather than any other issue, such as costs, shipping, or finding a better alternatives.

Forever 21 gives a standard example. The subject line is simply “Did you forget about me?”, and can easily fit for most brands.

Suggestive Subject Line Template Examples

• Forgetting Something?
• {Customer Name}, You Forgot Something!

5. Friendly Subject Lines

People don’t always appreciate the hard sell. Simply being nice is a great way to engage prospects on a personal level. These subject lines establish a relationship that is not transactional based. Instead, they focus on being “friendly”. 

Chubbies is a great example of this style. The subject line isn’t trying to sell anyting.

Instead, it focuses on being human, greeting their prospect the way a friend would great someone they haven’t seen in awhile. The body of the email carries the same voice. 

Friendly Subject Line Template Examples

• Howdy Bud
• Where’d You Go?!

6. Customer Service Subject Lines

Customer service subject lines actively try and solve customer’s problems for not completing their purchase.

Oftentimes, these subject lines open a conversation with a simple question such as “Was there a problem with your order?” to learn what the issue was.  

Customer Service Subject Line Template Examples

• Can We Help?

7. Brand Personality Subject Lines

You don’t need to make an offer in the heading to get your abandoned cart email opened. Humanity centered subject lines work great.  Brand Personality lines do so with a focus on establishing the type of relationship you want with your customer. Oftentimes, these subject lines use humor to emulate a real conversation.

Here, Mouth plays on their name and stays light/playful throughout their copy calling their products “goodies” in the preview text.

If you go this route, make sure that your tone is consistant throughout all of your interactions with your customer.

8. Urgency Inducing Subject Lines

Urgency and scarcity are often cited as the most powerful psychological ploys to get customers to act. We see eCommerce brands create urgency in one of three ways.The first is centered on the cart itself. Sometimes, they set the cart to expire, creating a sense that the customer needs to complete their purchase now. This is the tactic that The Honest Company used above.Second, retailers create urgency around specific products within the cart. It may be a limited item, selling fast, or approaching out of stock. Lastly, you can create urgency in your subject lines by pairing it with an incentive. Many retailers create discount codes that are only valid for a limited time to get customers to compete their purchase.

Customer Service Subject Line Template Examples

• Hurry, the items in your cart are going fast!
• Your cart is about to expire – still interested?

Key Takeaways

You can learn a lot from successful campaigns.

Ultimately though, you are in an unique market, at a unique moment in time, with unique customers. Take these subject line examples and tailor them to fit your company based on your own brand. 

Lastly, you can (and should) personalize your subject line as much as possible, whether through their shopping behavior, cart contents, or previously gathered information.

The Best Cart Abandonment Subject Lines: Emails That Get Opened

Below are real examples of cart abandonment subject lines used by some of the most successful retailers in the world.

We’ve organized the subject lines by industry to make it easier to navigate and compare across industries. We’ll be adding to this list over time as we gather more and more examples.

Note* When the email preview text was utilized to complement the subject line, we placed the preview text after a hyphen. 

Fashion Cart Abandonment Email Subject Lines

Example 1: The RealReal

Email #1: Still Deciding? Your Dolce & Gabbana Three-Button Wool Blazer Is Waiting!

Example 2: Warby Parker

Email #1: Downing might be the one – Shipping and returns are both free

Email #2: Downing felt the Connection

Example 3: Bespoke Post

Email #1: You’ve Left Something Behind

Email #2: Forgetting Something?

Example 4: BonobosEmail #1: Empty your cart with 20% off.

Email #2: Take 20% off your cart before it’s gone.

Example 5: Modern CitizenEmail #1: A gentle reminder…

Example 6: ChubbiesEmail #1: clocking in

Email #2: Howdy Bud

Example 7:  Surfdome

Email #1: Thanks for visiting

Example 8: Forever 21Email #1: Did you forget about me?

Example 9: Black Milk Clothing

Email #1: Where’d You Go?!

Example 10: SurfStitchEmail #1: Reminder: Get Your Items Before They Sell Out

Example 11: BooHoo

Email #1: Don’t miss out! Your basket expires soon

Example 12: Everlane

Email #1: A Gift For You

Example 13: Under Armour

Email #1: Your Cart’s Loaded & Ready To Go – Free Shipping. No Minimum.

Email #2: UA Curry 4 Low Is Still in Your Cart

Health & Beauty Cart Abandonment Subject Lines

Example 14: The Honest Company

Email #1: Cart Reserved! [OPEN] to see…

Email #2: Don’t miss out! Your cart is expiring soon…

Email #3: Your cart is about to expire – You may qualify for free shipping >

Email #4: Cart Expired – [Items might still be available] – your cart expired!

Example 15: Urban Skin Rx

Email #1: Stephan, You Forgot Something!

Example 16: EyeBuyDirect

Email #1: EyeBuyDirect 15% off on your entire order

Email #2: EyeBuyDirect 15% off on your entire order for 24 hours only

Grocery Cart Abandonment Subject Lines

Example 17:  Thrive Market

Email #1: Oops, you forgot something

Email #2: Hurry, the items in your cart are going fast!

Email #3: Complete your purchase now – you made great choices. Check out now

Example 18: Mouth

Email #1: You left your Mouth open!

Other eCommerce Cart Abandonment Subject Lines

Example 19:  Real Truck

Email #1: There’s something in your cart.

Example 20: Shower Pass

Email #1: We saved your cart for you

Email #2: Your cart is about to expire – Still interested?

Example 21: FloraQueen

Email #1: Hi Stephan, continue shopping with a discount!

Free Bonus: Click here to get access to a free PDF field guide that shows you 19 tactics to increase email opt-ins – the most essential step in shopping cart abandonment.

How Target Combines Personalization & Triggered Emails to Create Effective Email Subject Lines

Target Corp increased digital sales 42% last quarter.

2019 is the 5th straight year of 25% or more growth for their eCommerce store – and makes Target Corp an excellent candidate to study a cart abandonment subject lines.

Sign-Up & Reminder Emails

I first visited Target.com on September 13th.  After opening a new account, I added this item to my cart.

After abandoning the cart, I received a number of transactional related emails.

Importantly, none of these were specifically a cart abandonment email. Instead, it seems that Target suppresses triggered cart abandonment emails while they are sending establishing the relationship with a new client.

These emails, while not directly encouraging a new visitor to complete their purchase, do give clear reasons to return to the site and implicitly remind them of their previous visit.

Another important note is the frequency of contact.

Target finds distinct reasons to email me four times in the first three days.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Email #1, Sent Day 3

The first true cart abandonment email Target sends is sent on day 3.

The subject line is a simple prompt to “Come back & see what’s new” with some minor personalization at the front.

Cart Abandonment Email #1 Subject Line: “Kitchen & Dining Furniture: Come back & see what’s new.”

Target’s Shopping Cart Abandonment Email #2 & #3, Sent Day 4

The next day, Target sends a significant discount across the entire category I was browsing.

The offer is front and center – placed directly in the subject line and the first call out in the body of the email.

Cart Abandonment Email #2 Subject Line: “Need furniture? Take up to 20% off today.”

A few hours later, Target blasts off a much more specific offer.

They leave some ambiguity in the subject line, but the offer is clear – a nice price reduction for an item left in my cart.

Target’s Shopping Cart Abandonment Email #4, Sent Day 5

The following day, they resend the notification regarding the price drop for my cart.

The email has an updated subject line – this time simply stating: “Price drop alert.”

Target’s Shopping Cart Abandonment Email #5, Sent Day 6

After the two failed attempts at the specific item, Target shifts back to category offers.

The first email simply has “Now seating dinner guests.” and displays numerous types of chairs in all styles.

Target’s Shopping Cart Abandonment Email #6, Sent Day 7

And the next day they personalize based on the style of the chair I selected. They pick out numerous “neutral furniture” pieces, from bookcases to chairs to upholstered items.

How Walmart maximizes Cyber Monday sales w/ email campaigns

The next subject line example that I want to showcase comes from Walmart. At the time of writing, Cyber Monday just passed, one of the most important times for eCommerce stores to maximize conversions.

Walmart Cyber Monday intro subject line (email 1)

Walmart begins their campaign with an introduction to their Cyber Monday sale. As we will see, the content team at Walmart has found incorporating emoji’s into their subject lines increases conversions. Email 1 Subject Line:  CYBER MONDAY starts NOW The introductory email has a number of widgets inside. First, is simple product recommendation widget highlighting the most popular gifts. Each product belongs to it’s own category.

Followed by a more direct call to action on across various categories. Walmart doesn’t know which categories are most relevant to me. In this context, the email serves as an entry point to help shortcut my shopping experience and aid in product discovery.

Walmart Cyber Monday 3rd email subject line 

Email 3 Subject Line: Epic DEALS won’t last long! Beginning in the third email, Walmart shifts the tone of it’s messaging from excitement to scarcity.

While the general format of the subject line remains the same (emoji, text, repeat emoji), the content is very different. Clocks are used to insinuate time is ticking. Risk aversion and time sensitivity language is also employed.Likewise, the lead content is changed to reinforce this message.

Walmart Cyber Monday 4th email subject line 

Email subject line 4:  Sun is setting on CYBER MONDAY!

The scarcity them is followed up in the next email This time, the main copy reads “final hours” in the email body. Again, the calls to action all revolve around discovery.

Walmart Cyber Monday 5th+ email subject line 

If a customer doesn’t convert during Cyber Monday, Walmart actually extends the various deals. They do this through a mini email series that is triggered if the customer did not complete a purchase. Here we will just highlight the subject lines. Email subject line 5: CYBER DEALS EXTENDED Email subject line 6: Top home deals at LOW prices!Email subject line 7: DEALS ending SOON (this time for real!)Email subject line 8: THIS. IS. IT.

Browse Abandonment Email Subject Lines

While the majority of this post has focused on cart abandonment triggered email campaigns, the same principles apply to browse abandonment.

Browse abandonment emails follow the same structure as abandoned cart emails. The main difference is one of customer intent. In cart abandonment, the visitor has already placed an item in their cart, whereas browse abandonment occurs further up the funnel, before the visitor has taken that action.

For browse abandonment email subject lines, use this post as a guide.

However, to build a full browse abandonment campaign that increases conversions, click here.

Above, Zaful uses a combination of tactics in their browse abandonment email. From their subject line which makes use of breaking characters to the curiosity based “unused coupons”.  

How one Barilliance Customer Improved CTR by 26.96% with one Subject Line Change

Lastly, I want to share with you the power of testing different abandoned cart email components. 

Barilliance comes with A/B testing that allows you to experiment and achieve higher results over time.  Skandium, a furniture eCommerce store, tested two versions of their subject line and found a dramatic increase in CTR using dynamic product injection (+26.96% CTR).

You can see the full case study here. 

Next Steps

The subject line is the first line of a cart abandonment email. You still have a long way to go. Below are some additional resources for you as you build out your own cart abandonment campaign.

• Cart Abandonment Email Templates – Learn the best strategies with complete cart abandonment email templates here.
• Shopping Cart Abandonment Guide – Learn how to put together an entire shopping cart abandonment campaign here.
• Request a Demo – Learn how Barilliance empowers hundreds of retailers to execute these strategies here.
• Shopping Cart Audit – Request a free cart abandonment audit. Receive annotated screenshots and action steps to recover sales here.

The post Abandoned Email Subject Lines: Definitive Guide (Updated 2023) appeared first on Barilliance.

What is customer attrition? A definition.

Customer attrition is when a business losses a customer. While there are many ways to measure customer retention rate (we have a preference), many consider a customer lost when they no longer have a relationship with you.In eCommerce, many terms are used for describing how to lower customer attrition. You may hear customer retention, lowering customer churn, customer loyalty, or even broader terms such as lifetime value and customer lifecycle marketing.

Image Credit

How to prevent customer attrition: An attrition prevention framework

Understanding how to lower customer attrition depends on understanding customer relationships. The first insight is that relationships are dynamic. There is no stasis. Each customer is either incorporating you into their lives or slowly forgetting your existence. To help understand customer attrition we built a quick framework to think through the various stages in keeping customers.

• Understand why customers leave – First, why are customers leaving in the first place. 
• Identify leading indicators and segment  – Second, what leads up to customers leaving? We want to group at risk customers based on clear data and bring them back with retention strategies. 
• Create strategies to bring customers back – Third, we want to create retention campaigns based on our understanding of why people leave. These campaigns should be triggered when customers enter our at risk segments.  

Advanced Reactivation Campaigns: See how Barilliance combines online and offline data, automatic segmentation, and triggered behavioral emails to create advanced reactivation campaigns. Request a demo here.

Tactics to lower customer attrition

Below are a variety of tactics to reduce customer attrition. To create your own customer attrition prevention strategy, consider implementing one or more of these ideas.

1. Create replenishment campaigns

Many products have natural lifecycles. Consumables, food, and pet products are all consumables that customers go through quickly. Even durable goods, such as books, can have high frequency buyer segments.Understanding how quickly customers go through your products and developing a replenishment campaign to drive them back to your store is a great way to reduce customer churn. Below is an example from the high growth healthcare brand Tula.

Above, Tula offers a variety of benefits to drive repeat purchases and make Tula a part of daily life. 15% off products, free shipping, and bundled gifts are some of the bonuses.

2. Use customer data to influence merchandizing

Determining which offers to bring back customers can be difficult. However, through a combination of customer insight (from using a customer data platform) and AB testing, you can dramatically increase your success. In a recent interview with Daasity, Zack Abbell of Tula was asked “What data has been most impactful to the organization to date.” His response highlighted data’s role on Tula’s merchandizing decisions.

“Lifecycle campaigns for email understanding what was bought first vs. subsequent purchases” – Zack Abbell, VP Digital Marketing, TULA

Learning which products have the most traction ought to influence how your promotions work. Personalization software like Barilliance gives you the ability to override AI suggestions for a given segment and align personalized recommendations with merchandizing needs and insights.

Dynamic Product Recommendations: Don’t use static product recommendations. Click Here to see how Barilliance personalizes recommendations on your home, category, and product pages. 

3. Identify bright spots in your customer base

A bright spot, simply put, is an area where things are going well. The technique was brought to focus in the book Switch. In the context of eCommerce, your loyal customers are the bright spot. And, we can learn a lot from customers who are engaged with us. What products do they purchase most often? What is their true replenishment rate? And endless other quantitative and qualitative data points.Take learnings from your loyal customers and deploy them across your site and in your customer reactivation campaigns.

4. Develop excellent loyalty programs

Loyalty programs have the potential to extend lifetime value through continued purchases. We created an in-depth guide on how to create loyalty programs with best practices from Starbucks and Costco here. Below are other examples.First is Dell. Their program “Dell Rewards” gives immediate cash like rewards for each purchase along with free delivery. Unexpected shipping costs are the top reason for cart abandonment. Coupling free expedited shipping with exclusive discounts and rewards is an excellent way to bolster conversion rates.

Above is the first welcome email into Dell’s loyalty program.

One of my favorite examples of successfully using loyalty programs to prompt repeat purchases is Starbucks. Their loyalty program is integral to Starbuck’s omni-channel strategy, driving in store visits from a combination of app notifications, text messages, and emails.

Next Steps

Personalization is a fundamental tool to prevent customer attrition.We put together a variety of resources to help eCommerce stores select the right personalization partner for them. First, I suggest “How to Select a Personalization Vendor”. It covers the most important questions you should ask as well as the most common pitfalls in personalization technology. Second, you can gain some inspiration by checking out a series of eCommerce personalization examples. Finally, if you think Barilliance may be able to help, request an in-person demo here.

The post Tactics to lower customer attrition rate + enjoy repeat sales. appeared first on Barilliance.

How Home Depot increases conversions on product pages

Home Depot provides an excellent example in product page optimization. With over $150 billion dollars in total sales. Online sales currently account for 14.3% of total sales, and grew a whopping 27.1% last quarter!How is Home Depot improving online sales? One key component is constant optimization of their online channels. Below we break down specific tactics they use to optimize their product pages.

1. Provide at scale product images

At scale product images help establish accurate customer expectations. Another benefit is allowing your customers to better envision having your product. Below, Home Depot shows their product where it would be located. You can see the firepit in a beautiful backyard surrounded by furniture.

2. Provide multiple shipping options

We’ve looked into how click and collect strategies allowed Target to increase same day fulfillment sales by 273%.Allowing multiple shipping options, including varying delivery dates and pickup options are expected in today’s environment. It also acknowledges that customers have different requirements and shopping behaviors. 

3. Leverage cross-sales and upsales to increase AOV

Upsales are incredibly important to increase per visit profits. Below, Home Depot injects both a product insurance cross sale to protect their customer’s purchase. This cross sale is excellent in that it is additive, personalized to the product being purchased, and is equivalent to a price increase on the same sku. 

This has an outsized impact on profitability. In fact, we explored at length pricing impact on increased profits here, showing that even a 1% increase in price can often result in 11%+ increase in net revenues.

4. Create dynamic bundles based on purchase behavior (advanced product recommendations)

Bundling is fantastic upsale tactic.  Taking advantage of machine learning and advanced product recommendations, it is possible to create dynamic product bundles based on a variety of factors.Below, Home Depot’s product recommendation engine creates bundles based on aggregated customer purchase behavior. By identifying items commonly bought together, they can anticipate the needs of their customers, including implicitly educating them about what they need to make the most of their product.

5. Aid discovery and selection through detailed comparison tables

We often think of home, search capabilities, and category pages as the primary way to help in product discovery. However,  clicking through to a product page is a strong indicator in a customer’s preferences. Incorporating this data into on-page elements is crucial for effective personalization – and it starts with product page widgets. Below, Home Depot creates comparison tables between the currently viewed product and alternative choices from their product catalog. They display a number of like product attributes, and enhance the widget with product labels such as “current product” and “top rated”.

Next steps…

Product pages represent a huge opportunity to maximize sales. This post covered a series of personalization tactics and optimizations to increase conversions. To see if Barilliance can help you transform behavioral data into increased sales, schedule a demo here.

The post [Guide] Listing page optimization to increase sales appeared first on Barilliance.

Table Of Contents

Website Personalization Examples
1. Save my cart pop-ups based on cart content
2. Create seasonal offers with dynamic content and merchandizing rules
Examples from Target: using seasonal offerings to increase sales
3. Increase AOV with personalized bundles based on page viewed
Examples from Fasion Nova: Creating bundles to increase AOV
4. Using Personalized Recommendations to Surface Like products
Examples from Fashion Nova: How to update product recommendations in real time
5. Welcome returning visitors
Examples from Bookings: Creating special experiences for returning visitors
6. Insert “live” product labels
Examples from Bookings.com: How to use website personalization with product labelsFeat Missguided
7. Contextual email and loyalty program opt-in offersExamples from Target: Context based loyalty program enrollment offersExamples from Fashion Nova: Context based newsletter enrollment offers
8. Incentivize first time customers with special discountsNext Steps…

Website Personalization Examples

1. Save my cart pop-ups based on cart content

Adding an item to a cart is an incredibly strong signal. As such, creating experiences around this action is a great opportunity to increase ROI in personalization.  One of our favorite techniques in response to adding an item to a cart is a “save your cart” functionality. For our clients, these campaigns are among the highest converting emails you can send, converting an incredible 22.73% of customers.

We recommend this technique be implemented inside a browse abandonment campaign. If the customer wants to continue shopping or converts on their own, than they won’t experience the personalization.However, if it looks like they are about to navigate away from your site, we can display a simple message, saving them time and ensuring you are able to capture their contact information.

2. Create seasonal offers with dynamic content and merchandizing rules

Many products have high and low seasons. Creating relevant offers goes beyond looking at averages such as top sellers, and takes into consideration other factors like time of year or particular customer segments. 

Examples from Target: using seasonal offerings to increase sales

Target is a master at creating merchandizing rules to override other products. Below are two screenshots from their home page, taken at different times of the year. As you can see, the first image is promoting season end sales. Meanwhile, the second image is highlighting an upcoming holiday (Thanksgiving). 

Above, Target drives repeat purchases with dynamically inserted seasonal offers.

3. Increase AOV with personalized bundles based on page viewed

When a customer navigates to a product page, they reveal a number of affinities including product style, category, color, and size. Web personalization software allows you to combine these product attributes to create personal recommendations. You can take this a step further and create product bundles for your customers. 

Examples from Fasion Nova: Creating bundles to increase AOV

Online fashion store Fashion Nova touts it’s affordability as a primary benefit. With each item being priced lower, they need a way to make up lost profit in volume. Since inception, they’ve implemented a number of successfu strategies to increase average order value (AOV) in their ecommerce store.

One example of their web personalization is dynamically bundled products. Fashion Nova calls these “looks”. Customers can easily add all the items in a look to their cart at once. 

The look itself is showcased with their model. This allows Fashion Nova to present the most relevant cross-sales possible. Expertly matched outfits sold as a whole, each item being one of their low priced offers from the jeans to top to shoes to accessories.  All this combines into a high-converting product page design. 

4. Using Personalized Recommendations to Surface Like products

Continuing with the example above, once a customer has expressed interest in a product, product recommendations should be personalized based on the expressed affinity. 

Examples from Fashion Nova: How to update product recommendations in real time

Even if a customer doesn’t place the item viewed into their cart for purchase, they’ve still revealed that they are actively looking for that product type.  In this example, I navigated to a page selling skinny jeans. Fashion Nova updates their product recommendations in real time. Once I navigate back to the home page, I am greeted with an updated product recommendation widget.Now, instead of displaying the top selling items across categories I see a variety of choices tailored to my current search intent.

5. Welcome returning visitors

Returning visitors are an incredibly profitable customer segment. In our latest study on return visitors, we found that this segment

• Added items to carts 65.16% more than first time visitors
• Converted 73.72% more than first time visitors
• Spent 16.15% more per transaction

Examples from Bookings: Creating special experiences for returning visitors

Generating over $15 billion USD per year, Booking Holding is continually optimizing how to increase LTV from their customer base. One simple way is through welcome messaging. When you land on the site, if you aren’t signed in they encourage you to do so. 

Gathering as much onsite-data is important for omni-channel strategies. If you are able to connect data across devices, you can use in-session behavior to create behavioral segments, triggering high converting marketing messages across channels. 

6. Insert “live” product labels

Live product labels are a more unique web personalization example. When used correctly, product labels can generate trust and a sense of urgency for the user. 

Examples from Bookings.com: How to use website personalization with product labels

Personally, I haven’t found an eCommerce site leverage product labels and live notifications more than Bookings.com. In fact, we put together a full case study on Bookings.com with numerous examples of their website personalization strategy here.

Feat Missguided

UK based Missguided is another example of web personalization at work. Below, they dynamically insert product labels based on real time customer interactions. 

7. Contextual email and loyalty program opt-in offers

Customer lifecycle marketing is an important concept for any eCommerce store.

The idea is to build your relationship with each customer, gradually gaining higher and higher permission to engage with them. Often, the first step in a lifecycle marketing is moving an anonymous visitor to a known customer. Enrollment offers are crucial here. The best stores use in-session behavior to personalize these enrollment offers. 

Examples from Target: Context based loyalty program enrollment offers

Building on our example above, once you click an offer on Target’s homepage, they may dynamically insert an enrollment offer. In this case, I clicked on a content advertising Thanksgiving Dinner Ideas. Once I land on the page, Target presents an offer that aligns perfectly with the content I’m viewing – a Save $10 when you spend $50 available for Circle Members. The call to action is below, simply reading “Get the offer”.

Examples from Fashion Nova: Context based newsletter enrollment offers

Likewise, Fashion Nova uses in-session behavior to dictate what type of newsletter offer they showcase. Below, I navigate to the page “Influencer Looks”. Inline of the various products, Fashion Nova presents a “Get 30% Off Influencer Looks” code. To receive it, I simply need to subscribe to their newsletter. 

8. Incentivize first time customers with special discounts

First time customers are an important customer segment.One way to reduce risk is through simple price discounts. Price discounting can be an effective way to win the first sale and begin building a relationship with the visitor. 

Above, amaryllis invites first time visitors to “Join the Trend” and receive 15% off their first order.

Next Steps…

These examples of website personalization demonstrate how to identify important customer segments by behavior, create relevant offers and experiences for each segment, and ultimately convert these segments into repeat, loyal customers. 

If you’d like to learn more about why eCommerce stores should use personalization software, check out our Guide on How to Select a Personalization Vendor. And, if you think Barilliance might be able to help you create personalized experiences for your customers, request a demo here. 

The post Adv. Website Personalization Examples from Top Brands appeared first on Barilliance.

According to a McKinsey study, “customer experience leaders gain rapid insights to build customer loyalty, make employees happier, achieve revenue gains of 5 to 10 percent, and reduce costs by 15 to 25 percent within two or three years.”

I want to explore how to create effective customer experience strategies.

The first section creates a basic framework to build better customer experiences.

Then, we apply this framework to common customer experience touch points such as navigation bars, category pages, and product pages.

To help illustrate, we pull examples from top DTC and international brands.

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Skip to the eCommerce customer experience examples here, or read on for a detailed framework for improving customer experience strategy.

Why is digital customer experience important?

We’ve  highlighted some benefits of superior customer experience strategy.

• Revenue gains between 5-10%​
• Builds customer loyalty  
• Happier employees
• Reduced costs between 15-25% 

The challenge is creating a simple framework to create superior customer experiences.

Defining the problem is the first step.

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When we say customer experience, we mean how  a brand interacts with it’s customers over the entire customer journey.

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This includes before, during, and after a sale.

In 2020, the challenge for many eCommerce stores is a) how to provide a seamless customer experience across devices and b) how to create an omnichannel customer strategy to deliver superior experiences regardless of channel.

“Customer experience leaders… achieve revenue gains of 5 to 10 percent, and reduce costs by 15 to 25 percent within two or three years.” – McKinsey and Company

For eCommerce brands, a customer’s experience strategy revolves around a customer’s digital customer journey.

What is a digital customer journey?

Understanding your customer’s digital journey is the first step to creating a customer experience strategy.

A customer journey is simply the series of touch points your customers have. Importantly, a journey is “end-to-end”. It isn’t one, siloed function within your company such as onboarding or support.

How to improve customer experience?

Now that we’ve defined both customer experience and digital customer journeys, we can create a framework for building customer experience strategies.

There are three steps.

• Define touch points in  your customer’s digital journey – First, we want to identify the various touch points that comprise your customer’s journey. This starts with how a customer first hears about your offer, to all the steps required to purchase the item, to any after sale and service interactions.
• Remove friction–  Next,  question how you can remove friction in your current journey. Are there any steps that you can eliminate?  Can you remove any unnecessary screens or form fields? 
• Optimize remaining touch points – Finally, we can optimize each remaining touch point. 

The touch point will determine what you want to optimize.

A customer who is on the checkout page is trying to complete their purchase as soon as possible. Compare that to a customer on a category page who is looking for the perfect product.

By understanding customer’s intention at each step of the process, we can anticipate needs and create a seamless customer experience.

Below we break down a few common elements in eCommerce digital customer journeys.

eCommerce customer experience examples: navigation bar

eCommerce navigation bars remain a staple UI element.

Effective customer experience strategy requires addressing multiple buyer journeys at once.  Your navigation bar is the most important tool in allowing customer types to reveal themselves and dynamically address their particular needs.

The goal is to shorten the path to purchase. Here’s some examples.

“Effective customer experience strategy requires addressing multiple buyer journeys at once.” – Barilliance Research

Create Personalized Customer Journeys

Barilliance empowers hundreds of eCommerce stores to create personalized customer journeys with advanced behavioral targeting, real time dynamic content based on in-session data, and dozens of custom widgets. ​Click here to see if Barilliance is the right personalization partner for you. 

Parachute’s navigation bar customer experience strategy

Parachute uses a mega menu design.

The top level navigation features two types of categories.  The first are product based categories (bedding, bath, mattress and decor).

The second type is behavior and merchandise based. They offer short cuts to the most popular items, new products, and products that are being rotated out.

Once a category is selected, a drop down dynamically populates. Here we select the “Bedding” category.

The mega menu reveals four sub-categories. Again, there is a split between product defined categories and curated categories. In the most prominent spot are “Featured Bedding” which again offers new arrivals, popular selections, and bundled savings. Adjacent are two product based categories: sheetings + top of bed, as well as bedding inserts. Finally, there is an option to shop by material.

We can draw a number of lessons from the way Parachute approaches navigation.

• Address various buyer personas –  Parachute uses social proof with “Most Popular”, urgency with “Last Chance”, promises of savings with “Bundle Savings”, and the latest opportunities with “New Arrivals”.  
• Give deep navigation options – Create shortcuts for visitors. Don’t force them to click through multiple layers of categories if they don’t want to. Parachute lets customers land on a category page with a minimal number of products, all relevant to the search. 
• Anticipate buyer shopping actions – Finally, consider what type of product attributes are important to your customers. For Parachute, the material is an important consideration. Therefore, they allow shoppers to filter results by material. 

eCommerce customer experience examples category pages

Similar to navigation bars, category pages are an essential step in a buyer’s digital customer journey.

On category pages, you should optimize your customer experience for quick product discovery.

Provide deep product taxonomies and sub-categories like Target

When applicable, customers should be given the ability to navigate to sub-categories.

Above is a screenshot of Target’s top level category of “Woman’s Clothing”. They quickly and visually allow buyers to navigate to the appropriate location.

Create advanced filtering options like Target

Providing advanced filtering options creates convenience and lets customers find their ideal products soon as possible.

Again, Target provides an excellent example. On their category page, there are 7 filtering options and mentions immediately available.

1. “Filter Results” header

Target places front and center that you are able to Filter Results.

This gives customers confidence they can interact with the page and get what they want if the initial options are not what they are looking for.

2. Filter by delivery type

Your buyers have different expectations for delivery. Target understand that some digital shoppers are ok waiting for products to ship.

But others are expecting to research online and pickup in store. Target gives buyers the option upfront.

This prevents shoppers from being annoyed with items not available in their preferred delivery.

3. More filters

Target is an excellent example of a company that understands the importance of filters.

Each item is thoroughly scoped with meta data. In the dress examples, these include type, neckline, length and pattern.

Customers can quickly select which attributes are important to them and see the product selection change in real time.  Below you can see how helpful this is. I simply select that I am looking for an “a line” style of dress with polka dot patters. One second later Target presents the right selection.

Create Dynamic Product Recommendations Like Target 

Barilliance helps hundreds of eCommerce stores create dynamic product recommendations. You can easily set up advanced merchandising rules or allow our AI to present the most relevant items.

Click here to see if Barilliance is the right solution for you.  

4. Filter by Occassion

Customers often shop with intention. In target’s case, they “need something for work”, or “a dress for a special occasion”.

Target does a beautiful job entering this conversion. Filtering by occasion is the most prominent option. Buyers can express their desire and be served with highly relevant items that fill their expressed need.

5. Sort by common filters

Basic sorting functionality is expected. Target incorporates common eCommerce filtering techniques in the far right drop down menu.

The drop down includes sorting such as “Price- low to high”, “Price – high to low”, “Best sellers” and defaults to “Featured”.

6. In widget similar items

On load Target takes a best guess at which products buyers are interested in. But for each product, they allow you to see “similar items”.

When a buyer interacts with the button, a side widget pulls up displaying similar items.

7. In widget item variations

Again, the main purpose of the category page is to facilitate shopping.

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In addition to similar items, buyers can also preview variations of the current item they are looking at without leaving the category page.

This saves buyers from having to click into a product, click various colors, and then click back out to the category page to continue shopping.

Parachute’s category page customer experience strategy

Parachute has a much smaller product catalogue than Target.

However they still incorporate advanced optimizations. One of the more clever was to show each product in a different color.

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In Parachute’s case, most products are available in the same collection of base colors. By showing a variety of colors on the category page, customers are able to preview many colors at once.

eCommerce customer experience examples: product pages

We’ve covered the importance of product page design in depth here.

Effective product pages depend on optimizing

• Product Page Images– How customers are able to see the product
• Product page buy area – How customers are able to select particular product attributes and add to cart
• Cross sales – And how upsales and cross sales are presented to the customer. 

When you are optimizing your product page’s customer experience, I recommend our guides on product page conversion optimization and product page design.

Below we quickly explore Parachute’s product page customer experience strategy.

Parachute’s product page customer experience strategy

The most common customer needs on product pages are a) item selection and b) item valuation.

When a customer is ready to purchase, they need to be able to quickly select which product variation they want and proceed to the checkout.

However, it is also common for customers to be in an evaluation stage on the product page. Here, they are trying to determine if this is the right product for them.

Selecting product attributes

Parachute does a fantastic job at limiting the interactions needed by customers before they can checkout.

All options are presented upfront in a clear, image oriented way.

Contrast this to product pages that feature drop down menus, tabs, or other elements that require customer interaction to see what options are available.

Additionally, when a customer attempts to add the product to cart without selecting a product attribute, clear helper text is presented (highlighted above).

Once a product is added to the cart, a side widget slides in. It shows confirmation that the product was successfully added, allows customers to update the quantity, and gives clear next step to checkout.

When you go to update the quantity, a simple dropdown is presented.

They also give a monthly payment option through Affirm. The text snippet is dynamically placed above the checkout button which lowers the perceived cost of the item.

They address the most common cause for cart abandonment – shipping costs, by providing free shipping and returns.

Lastly, they reduce risk by giving a 60 day trial, no questions asked.

Creating social proof with product page reviews

For customers in the evaluation stage, they also provide a review widget.  The widget is a carousel that gives customers the ability to scroll through and read reviews.

Each individual review captures a number of important pieces of data for customers.

• 1 – Standard 5 star rating system  – 5 star ratings are intuitive for users to immediately understand. 
• 2 – Inline text reviews – Customers can easily read through reviews with both the title and more information through inline text. 
• 3- Verified buyer – Verified buyer gives credibility to the review. With more and more companies gaming review systems, providing both the name, date, and a “Verified Buyer” label gives the review credibility.
• 4 – Helpful meta-data – Lastly, Parachute allows shoppers to say if the more review is helpful or not. This allows them to then surface more helpful reviews and bury those that are not.

Next Steps…

We covered some major eCommerce customer experience factors including navigation bars, category pages, and product pages.

The next step is being able to recognize which customer type shoppers belong to through behavioral segmentation and personalize shoppers experience.

If you’d like to see how Barilliance can help you create personalized experiences for your customers you can request a demo here.

The post Superior Customer Experience Strategy: Examples from Target, Parachute, and more appeared first on Barilliance.

Free Resource (no opt-in): Our complete data-driven roadmap to reduce shopping cart abandonment. Click here to view. 

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current cart abandonment statistics in 2022.

Average Cart Abandonment Rate 2022 Update

There have been hundreds of studies surrounding cart abandonment statistics.

Some studies place abandonment as high as 80%, while other studies place cart abandonment as low as 55%.

In our study, we found the average cart abandonment rate for 2016 was77.24%. This number rose slightly in 2017 to 78.65%. 

In other words, over 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave the site without completing a purchase.

However – as we show below – there is much more to the story of cart abandonment than the average. We segment these aggregate stat across three primary dimensions:

• Over Time – How is cart abandonment changing over time?
• Across Countries – How does customer cart abandonment change between regions?
• Across Device – How does customer cart abandonment change between mobile and desktop?
• Cart Recovery – How effective are current cart recovery campaigns

In fact, even the calendar can change cart abandonment rate.

In 2019, Black Friday saw global cart abandonment rates of 73.78%. Just a few days later on Cyber Monday, cart abandonment rate dropped to 68.94%.

The good news is that you have a massive opportunity to dramatically increase revenue by transforming these abandoned carts into recovered ones.

Average Cart Abandonment Rate 2019 by Country

In 2019, the average cart abandonment rate was 77.13%.

In addition to looking at the global average, we segmented the database by the most represented countries in our database and found significant differences.

Spain had the highest cart abandonment rate at 86.15%. Meanwhile the Netherlands had the lowest cart abandonment rate at 65.49%. The United States was the second lowest with an average cart abandonment rate of 71.86%.

Average Cart Abandonment Rate 2019 by Device

We also segmented the cart abandonment rate data by device.

Again, while the global average is 77.73%, breaking out the segments tells a much richer story. On phone devices cart abandonment rate shot up to 80.79%. Meanwhile sessions on desktops only had a cart abandonment rate of 73.93%, a 6.86% improvement!

Cart Abandonment Email Statistics and Benchmarks

Cart Abandonment Email Open Rates: 2016-2022

Cart abandonment email open rates are incredibly high. Since 2016, open rates have hovered around 43%. However 2022 was a breakout year across industries, with open rates spiking to over 49%!Despite increasing competition, our clients have seen increasing open rates on average for the past four years. Ultimately, shopping cart emails are on average more relevant than non cart abandonment, and show how incorporating personalization into your email strategies can improve results.

Cart Abandonment Email CTR: 2016-2022

Looking at the average click through rate for cart abandonment emails, we again see consistent, excellent results.  In 2021, the average click through rate for cart abandonment emails was 8.76%, and has been right around the average since 2016. In 2022, conversion rates have dipped back down, to a level of 8.38%.

We define a conversion here as a recovered transaction, and calculate the conversion rate by taking the number of recovered transactions divided by the number of opened cart abandonment emails.

This again points to the efficacy of using in-session data for marketing. Being able to recognize when a customer is interested in a product, and reaching back to draw them in produces results. And there is no better way to do this than with cart abandonment emails.

There are a number of important stats to keep track of an optimize in a full fledge cart abandonment campaign.

Below is a quick definition of the most important cart abandonment statistics. I’ve also included some global stats from the folks at MooSend.

• Email Capture Rate – What percent of visitors are you able to capture a good email address?
• Cart Abandonment Rate– What percent of your visitors abandon their shopping carts?
• Abandoned Items Value– What is the monetary amount that you are losing to cart abandonment?
• Cart Abandonment Email Open Rate– What percent of your cart recovery campaign emails are opened? According to MooSend, 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened on average.
• Cart Abandonment Email Click Through Rate What percent of your cart recovery campaign emails that are opened are acted upon by clicking through to your site? According to MooSend, 21% of the emails are clicked on.
• Cart Abandonment Email Conversion Rate– What percent of your cart recovery campaign emails result in a recovered cart? According to MooSend, 10.7% completed their purchased!

These stats fall in line with our own study of email marketing statistics, which found that the average conversion rate for shopping cart abandonment emails was 18.64%.

If you are a Barilliance customer, all of these statistics will be tracked automatically in your dashboard.

You can find examples of cart abandonment emails (along with best practices and templates) here. 

Cart Abandonment Rate Trends: 2006- 2022

We compared abandonment rates between 2015 and 2016. Unfortunately, what we found was not encouraging.In 2015, the global average abandonment rate was 71.39%. In one year, stores on average experienced an 8.4% increase in shoppers leaving without completing their purchase.This trend held true across all devices.

Third party analysis from Statisa shows a similar trend.

In 2006, 59.8% of shoppers abandoned their cart. By 2017 that number has risen to 69.23%, a 15.79% increase.

Wallet functionality and impact

Given cart abandonment’s impact on eCommerce, cart functions are increasingly becoming a point of competitive advantage. Below we highlight the work of Dan Jian et el from the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research.The study focused on checkout carts from the largest Chinese websites. The comparison shows a variety of checkout capabilities stores are using to help shoppers complete purchases within the cart. These include the ability to display additional product information, reducing prices in cart, options for promotions, setting a product cap, handling and deleting products, and sorting/classifying products in cart.Importantly, the study showed that choice overload was a primary contributor to cart abandonment. 

Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics by Device

Today mobile traffic accounts for over half (50.48%) of all traffic in eCommerce. 

Unfortunately, according to our own research done in 2015, there is a clear correlation between small screens and increased cart abandonment.

• Desktop – 73.07% average shopping cart abandonment rate.
• Tablet – 80.74% average shopping cart abandonment rate.
• Mobile – 85.65% average shopping cart abandonment rate.

Mobile has the highest cart abandonment rates, with 85.65% of all transactions ending without a sale. Meanwhile, tablets converted sales 80.74% of the time, a 5.7% improvement in revenue.Desktops performed the best in terms of cart abandonment, with 73.07% of transactions failed.The trend is obvious. The smaller the size of the screen, the more likely a customer is to not purchase. This is problematic considering that for the first time ever, more digital buyers will use smartphones than desktops to shop.

The trend has continued through 2017, where mobile cart abandonment continues to outpace desktop by 16%.Why is this?According to RetailDive, eCommerce shops are still not optimized for mobile. Slow load times abound. Many stores remain unresponsive, forcing customers to zoom in and out to navigate a page.Worse, pop-ups that are fine on desktop take up are often not fine on mobile.

To see how to create effective pop-ups to halt abandonment, check out our guide on advanced content personalization here.  

Further, every inconvenience driving cart abandonment on desktop – such as mandatory registrations and long checkout processes, are intensified on smartphones.

Industry Cart Abandonment Rate  Statistics

Data in aggregate can be misleading. The truth is, abandonment rates vary drastically from industry to industry.In order to understand how your store is performing, you should compare your current checkout rates to other stores within your industry.A study conducted by Statista shows that the abandonment rate went up by over 24% from the Gaming Industry to the Finance Industry.This graphic from SalesCycle illustrates the point nicely.

As you can see, a “good” cart abandonment rate changes dramatically depending on what industry your store is in.

Finance and Non-Profits experience some of the highest cart abandonment rates, averaging over 10% more than the global average shopping cart abandonment rate. 

Meanwhile, Gaming and Fashion industries experience some of the lowest rates. 

Key Takeaways

Shopping cart abandonment is a major problem across all devices and industries.

However, the biggest challenges come on smaller screens (smartphones/tablets) and industries that require a lot of steps to complete such as finance.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate Reasons

We’ve put together an in-depth article on the top 10 reasons for cart abandonment and their solutions here. 

Two key takeaways to touch on here.

First, a full 22% of respondents said that they abandoned their carts because they were asked to create a new user account. 

When you combine that with other time-consuming and frustrating tasks from the user’s point of view (literally labeled “Long and Confusing Checkout” in the survey), you can reduce your abandonment rate by 31% by simply streamlining your checkout process!

Second, some customers simply abandon carts because they are comparison shopping.

While you won’t be able to prevent these visitors from shopping other stores, it does stress the importance of implementing cart recovery campaigns to get back in touch with prospects and distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Free Cart Abandonment Audit: Get a complete audit on your checkout process, with screenshots and next actions to take. Request Here. 

Shopping Cart Abandonment Email Statistics

Cart abandonment emails remain the primary way to battle shopping cart abandonment. While we’ve put together an entire article focused email marketing statistics, here we highlight stats from this fantastic study done by Klaviyo.Below is one example from the team, showing the amount of revenue recovered in their study period by the number of emails sent.

Turns out the third email sent in a cart abandonment campaign generated the most revenues, at $24.85mm, with the second email sent coming in at $16.4mm.

Other Types of Shopping Cart Abandonment

While this article has focused on shopping cart abandonment, there are many other abandonment points that you should consider.

1. Form Abandonment

Form abandonment occurs when customers begin filling out fields in a form, but for some reason decide to leave before completing.These forms could be for free products such as newsletters, more information such as a free demo request or price requests, or online applications.In general, the longer the form, the more friction customers experience, and the greater possibility that they will not fill out the form.

2. Browser Abandonment

Browse abandonment is a higher level form of abandonment. Sometimes, shoppers clearly engage with a product category, viewing multiple products, zooming in on pictures, and comparing prices without placing a product into a cart.Browse abandonment refers to customers who show this level of engagement, but leave the site without either placing an item in a cart or completing a purchase.We covered how to reduce browse abandonment in our post titled “Guide: Multi-Channel Browse Abandonment to Drive Conversions“. The guide includes a breakdown of effective eCommerce interruptions as well as screenshots from top performing companies.

Above, Care.com re-engages customers to finish signing up for their premium product. To see more examples of browse abandonment campaigns, click here. 

3. Email my cart abandonment

Finally, we have “email my cart” abandonment, which refers to when a customer has placed an item in their cart, but did not reach the checkout page. For this, we have a whole different series of triggers and email followup campaigns. And, it turns out, these types of engagements perform even better than standard shopping cart abandonment campaigns.

Free Bonus: Click here to get access to a free PDF field guide that shows you 19 tactics to increase email opt-ins – the most essential step in shopping cart abandonment.

Next Steps…

Understanding the facts is the first step in creating an effective marketing campaign to recover abandoned carts.The next step is understanding why your customers are not deciding to purchase.

We’ve created a number of free resources for you as you begin to combat cart abandonment.

• Definitive Guide to Cart Abandonment – A comprehensive guide that covers all aspects of cart abandonment.
• Abandoned Email Subject Lines: Definitive Guide (Updated 2018) – A deep dive on Cart Abandonment Subject lines, including multiple examples from the most successful eCommerce brands of 2018.
• Abandoned Email Templates: Definitive Guide (Updated 2018)– Complete abandoned cart campaigns from some of the best in the business. 
• Request a Free Cart Abandonment Audit – Complete audit with annotated screenshots of your current checkout process and specific action steps to recover sales.

Lastly, if you are looking for a complete solution to cart abandonment, schedule a quick talk with one of our cart abandonment experts. We will be able to share how Barilliance has helped hundreds of retailers maximize their traffic.

Good luck!

The post Complete List of Cart Abandonment Statistics: 2006-2023 appeared first on Barilliance.

What is RFM Analysis? A definition and context.

RFM analysis is a data driven customer behavior segmentation technique. RFM stands for recency, frequency, and monetary value. The  idea is to segment customers based on when their last purchase was, how often they’ve purchased in the past, and how much they’ve spent overall. All three of these measures have proven to be effective predictors of a customer’s willingness to engage in marketing messages and offers.While RFM analysis was born in direct-mail, it is a powerful tool for eCommerce stores to use today. 

Above is a great illustration of how customer segmentation empowers businesses to speak to customers specific values. Image source: Intercom 

History of RFM analysis

The first known applications of RFM analysis was in the catalogue industry. Pioneers include Land’s End, JC Penny’s and others. Since it’s inception, many varients of RFM have come been developed, including

• Recency, Frequency, Duration – Adopted for viewer based business models
• Recency, Frequency, Engagement- Which softens the purchase requirement. This is also useful in business models where key customers are monetized indirectly.
• Many more- And a number of others. You can see the RFM analysis article on Wikipedia for a fuller list.

Benefits of RFM Analysis

Conducting an RFM analysis on your customer base and sending personalized campaigns to high value targets has massive benefits for your eCommerce store.

• Personalization:  By creating effective customer segments, you can create relevant, personalized offers.
• Improve Conversion Rates: Personalized offers will yield higher conversion rates because your customers are engaging with products they care about. 
• Improve unit economics
• Increase revenue and profits

How to calculate RFM metrics

How should you calculate recency? Or score frequency? What is a good monetization threshold? Defining thresholds is the first step in segmentation. Below we discuss common metrics eCommerce companies can use for recency, frequency, and monetization.

How to calculate recency for RFM Analysis

Recency measures the time since last purchase. There are two challenges for eCommerce stores when calculating recency.First, in an omnichannel world, it can be difficult to tie together purchase data from each channel. Second, each business will have different interpretations of what a good recency score is. For example, consumables have an inherent need for frequent orders, making the required time since last purchase shorter to qualify for a higher score.

Above, Starbucks’ products are typically consumed within a day.  Their product mix requires a different interpterion of recency data compared to slower moving products with much higher product lifecycles.

How to calculate frequency for RFM Analysis

The same concerns in recency present themselves in frequency analysis as well. Again, product lifecycle

Common solutions to calculating RFM metrics

Calculating recency, frequency, and monetization scores present similar challenges. The reality is, each business is unique. It is incredibly difficult to create accurate benchmarks. Luckily, there are a few common approaches to properly assign RFM metrics.

1. Relative scores with quartile analysis

Perhaps the easiest way to create RFM scores, quartile analysis allows you to quickly and fairly assign scores based on relative performance.Each quartile will give a score, 1 through 4. The final RFM segmentation will use these scores together.Here is a great, simple overview for using quartiles to define your RFM segments using Python.

Image Credit

How to Create a RFM Model in Excel?

RFM segmentation doesn’t have to be complicated.Below we will show how you can create a RFM model in Excel. We go step by step, and include screenshots so you can easily replicate the model. Keep in mind that your eCommerce brand is unique.This isn’t going to be the best way for your particular business, but it will be a great template for you to iterate on.Let’s begin.

Automate Your RFM Analysis:

Barilliance connects your offline and online customer data. You can define as many segments as you like, automatically enroll customers based on their actions, and trigger any number of marketing campaigns. Learn more here.

Step 1: Set yourself up right

Before you can begin, you need to define the one KPI that matters most to your business for each segmentation vector: recency, frequency, and monetization.

To do this, you will have to connect your purchase history to each customer, and select a timeframe that you want to work with.

For our example, we are going to use the following KPI’s and timeframe.

Recency: Date of Last of PurchaseFrequency: Total Number of OrdersMonetization: Average Order ValueTimeframe: 2 years

As you will see, RFM analysis is a straight forward process. The goal is to systematically score each customer according to recency, frequency, and monetization. We do that by first rank ordering all customers across our chosen metric, and then scoring them based on how well they perform relative to the other customers in your database.

Step 2: Increase Response with Recency

There are a number of KPI’s you can use for Recency. Example KPIs include 

• Date of last purchase
• Date of last engagement (such as site visit, conversation with team, click through, etc.)
• Date of last activity (such as in-app usage, login, comment, etc.)

For this walk through, we are going to use days from last purchase as the primary metric. 

You should intuitively know which metric makes the most sense for your business. Chances are if you are a traditional eCommerce store, date of last purchase will be your metric of choice also.

Step 2.a : Import your data

First, we want to download your client information with your specified KPI’s. Here, we simply downloaded this information directly from Barilliance, and uploaded it into a Google Sheet.

Next, we want to clean up the sheet a bit. 

I delete some unwanted columns I forgot to close out: Sessions, Last Seen, First Seen, First Ordered, and AOV.

Next, you are going to add three columns for your RFM scores. Title them across the top “Recency”, “Frequency”, and “Monetization”. 

Finally, I apply a filter on the data to make it very easy to sort across. If you don’t know how to apply a filter the process is easy. Select all of your data including your headings (you can do this quickly by holding down shift+command+arrows). 

Once all of your data is selected, click data->filter. 

After you are done, your sheet should look something like this. 

Step 2.b : Sort your customers according to Recency KPI

Navigate over to your Recency KPI, and sort the list in the appropriate order. In our case, we go to “Days from last purchase” and sort in descending.

Step 2.c : Score each customer according to position

Finally, score each customer according to their position. 

While there a few methodologies for doing this, I’ve found the easiest and most helpful to be with quartiles.

Take your total number of customers divided by four. Next, give each quartile a score reflective of the position.

First Quartile: 1

Second Quartile: 2

Third Quartile: 3

Fourth Quartile: 4

Don’t worry too much about getting everything “perfect”.  For example, here we have two customers who have both ordered in the last three days. I simply assigned them both a recency score of 1, even though that puts 5 customers with a score of 1 and three with the score of 2.

At this point, your sheet should look similar to the one below.

Step 3: Increase Conversions with Frequency

The process is very similar for both Frequency and Monetization. 

While we are using the total number of orders over the past two years as our Frequency KPI, there are a number of competing metrics you can select. Some of them include:

• Sessions/Visits – Especially useful for news or ad supported business models.
• # of Click Throughs – If you are in pre-launch.
• # of Conversions– Any other conversions that are important to your business.

As mentioned before, we are going to be using # of orders as our Frequency KPI. Repeat steps 2.b and 2.c, expect use your Frequency KPI as your guiding metric. After scoring, your sheet should look similar to the one below.

Step 3: Increase AOV with Monetization

Finally, you are ready to knock out the Monetization scores. 

Monetization KPI’s include

• Total Revenue – This is the KPI that we are going to use
• AOV – Helpful to identify those who purchase high tier items.
• Engagement Metrics– Useful for two sided business models that don’t directly sell products.

As before, repeat steps 2.b and 2.c, expect use your Monetization KPI as your guiding metric. After scoring, your sheet should look similar to the one below. 

RFM Segmentation Examples: Segments That Make Sales

Awesome! 

At this point you have the analysis done. Next comes the fun part – actually using these newfound insights to identify profitable segments. 

There are many ways marketers have used this segmentation to help guide their marketing. Here are a few ideas to cherry pick from.

1. Core – Your Best Customers

RFM Score: 111

Who They Are: Highly engaged customers who have bought the most recent, the most often, and generated the most revenue.

Marketing Strategies: Focus on loyalty programs and new product introductions. These customers have proven to have a higher willingness to pay, so don’t use discount pricing to generate incremental sales. Instead, focus on value added offers through product recommendations based on previous purchases.

Above, Uber targets their “core” RFM customer segment, introducing their new Uber Eats offering.

2. Loyal – Your Most Loyal Customers

RFM Score: X1X

Who They Are: Customers who buy the most often from your store.

Marketing Strategies: Loyalty programs are effective for these repeat visitors. Advocacy programs and reviews are also common X1X strategies. Lastly, consider rewarding these customers with Free Shipping or other like benefits.

Here, Costco compliments their membership business model with a custom credit card to further increase repeat purchase rates and expand wallet share.

3. Whales – Your Highest Paying Customers

RFM Score: XX1

Who They Are: Customers who have generated the most revenue for your store.

Marketing Strategies: These customers have demonstrated a high willingness to pay. Consider premium offers, subscription tiers, luxury products, or value add cross/up-sells to increase AOV. Don’t waste margin on discounts. 

4. Promising – Faithful customers

RFM Score: X13, X14

Who They Are: Customers who return often, but do not spend a lot.

Marketing Strategies: You’ve already succeeded in creating loyalty. Focus on increasing monetization through product recommendations based on past purchases and incentives tied to spending thresholds (pegged to your store AOV). 

Above is an example of Target using lifecycle marketing on specific RFM segments. Notice how they pair financial discounts with spending thresholds to drive repeat purchase and increase customer profitability.

Another example comes from AirBnb. Here, they send triggered messages based on customer’s viewing activity to prompt a booking.

5. Rookies – Your Newest Customers

RFM Score: 14X

Who They Are: First time buyers on your site.

Marketing Strategies: Most customers never graduate to loyal. Having clear strategies in place for first time buyers such as triggered welcome emails will pay dividends.

Starbucks is excellent at moving customers across RFM segments. Above, they use email to bring customers into their loyalty rewards program. You can see our full case study on Starbucks here. 

6. Slipping – Once Loyal, Now Gone

RFM Score: 44X

Who They Are: Great past customers who haven’t bought in awhile.

Marketing Strategies: Customers leave for a variety of reasons. Depending on your situation price deals, new product launches, or other retention strategies.

Key Takeaway

Segmenting empowers personalized, high performing campaigns and preserves profit margin. RFM Analysis provides a rubric to score each customer, and identify high ROI segments. 

How Barilliance Enables RFM Analysis

1. Automated multivariate AB test suite

Segmenting your customer base is not enough. Effective database marketing depends on testing. David Ogilvy sums it up wonderfully in this clip:

Barilliance empowers you to not only create personalized experiences for each RFM segment. It also gives you the ability to create multivariate ab tests.

You can quickly see which offers resonate most with a given segment, discover what content leads to sales, and more.

Above, a Barilliance customer found that improving their popup to a specific segment increased revenue by 20% compared to the control group.  

2. Connecting your data: a full 360 view of your customers

One of the significant challenges with RFM Analysis (and segmentation in general) is creating a full, 360 degree view of a customer.  Today’s omnichannel shopper isn’t much different than the direct mail world RFM was born from. RFM is still an incredibly powerful model. But it’s effectiveness is determined by the quality of the data you have. This is where Barilliance shines. It creates a holistic customer view, across devices, shopping sessions, and channels. You can see which pages customers interact with, time since last purchase, order volume, brand engagement and more. In other words, you have the ability to create highly detailed segments, including all the ones we talked about above, through one simple interface.

See Barilliance Retention in Action: See how retention can create RFM segments here. 

Next Steps

Take action.

RFM is an established, clear way to get more out of your client list. 

But…

If you want to take RFM to the next level you need to consider Barilliance’s Retention. It improves traditional RFM analysis in two fundamental ways.

First, it connects your online and offline purchases, web behavior, and demographic data in one place – allowing you to make more accurate segmentations. 

Second, it lets you automate campaigns to defined segments. It connects to Web Personalization and individual email product recommendations to customize each interaction not at the segment level, but at the individual level.

The post [Guide]: RFM Analysis w/ predictive segmentation examples appeared first on Barilliance.

What is behavioral segmentation and how can we use it?

If you are already familiar with behavioral segmentation, feel free to skip to the next section.  If you’re not, it is helpful to define what is behavioral segmentation. Segmentation is the process of “dividing a market into groups of customers with similar needs, and developing marketing programs that meet those needs”. Behavioral segmentation focuses on dividing customers by their past behavior.Because actions demonstrate more about customers’ intent and preferences than mere demographic information, behavioral segmentation is more predictive, and therefore effective.

“…behavioral segmentation is more predictive, and therefore effective.”

Data enables behavioral segmentation. While segmentation as a marketing strategy has long existed, it hasn’t been possible to track customer behavior accurately and at scale until recently. Personalization software like Barilliance automates data gathering for you.  Now, you can define any number of segments based on behavior, and even define specific pricing strategies for each segment. The rest of this post will focus on successful behavior segmenting strategies.

How to create behavioral segments

An effective segmentation identifies a distinct group of customers. We created a variety of behavioral segmentation formulas that ensure you are creating effective segmentations.

1. The base behavioral segmentation formula: (behavior) = segment

The first behavioral segment is the “base” formula.It is the simplest type of behavioral segment you can create. It is defined as the behavior itself.

• Behavior – This can be any customer behavior you are able to record. For instance, it can customers who purchased something, or who visited the website. 

How Barilliance automates behavior segmentation

Barilliance automatically tracks user behavior on your site. To create a base behavior segmentation, simply specify which behavior you would like to create the segment on.

Options fall into three general categories.

Engagement behaviors: This includes behaviors such as distinguishing between first time visitors to returning ones, adding specific or any number of items to their cart, or viewing a product. On-site behaviors: Engagement behaviors are a subsection of more general on-site behaviors. Other on-site behaviors include visiting specific URLs, how long they spend on your site, and specific queries they make on your site.

Traffic source: The traffic source category describes previous behaviors of your visitors before they reach the site. They are excellent at providing context. Examples include what types of offer are they responding to, what mediums do they spend time on, and what if any campaigns are tied to the session. Visitor Insights: These are advanced cross sections, often including multiple behaviors and eCommerce KPI thresholds. We will describe these more in detail below.

2. Behavioral Segmentation – Adding a threshold: (behavior) + (threshold) = segment

We can greatly increase how precise our segmentation is by adding what I call a threshold. A threshold is a  tipping point in a specific metric. It can either be a lower limit or an upper limit, and the metric can be any metric of choosing. An example of a threshold is a minimum of $50 (lower limit) AOV (metric). Combining a behavior with a threshold gives you greater control on who is included in the customer segment.

• Behavior – This can be any customer behavior you are able to record. For instance, it can customers who purchased something, or who visited the website. 
• Threshold – passes tipping point of a specified metric

One common challenge with implementing thresholds is making sure your data is unified. In fact, data unification is one of the primary criteria we outline in selecting a personalization software parter. In this article, we describe the challenge of data unification more deeply, but for now, realize that you want to combine purchase history from all sources to create accurate segments.

3. Adding a where clause: (behavior) + (threshold), (where) = segment

The last formula we will explore today adds a “where” clause.

Recency matters. It is one of the main factors in RFM analysis, and can be incorporated into behavioral segmentations easily with the right technology. An often overlooked segment is one that immediately purchased or experienced your site. Another interesting implementation is to target holidays like Black Friday or seasonal shoppers. Below we provide a few examples of segments that implement a behavior, threshold, and where clause.

How Barilliance implements where clauses for behavioral segmentation

Implementing where clauses is built into Barilliance. Many behaviors have options to put in a specific timeframe. Below, you can see the option on how to create a behavioral segment based on purchase history. You can set time frames from their first order or from their last order.

With this flexibility, you can easily create segments for first time customers who naturally roll out of the segment after a certain number of days have passed.

Advanced behavioral segmentation examples

We’ve collected examples of behavioral segmentation from some of the top eCommerce companies.

1. Above the fold content personalization ft. Thrive Market

The most productive space to personalize is above the fold content. Thrive Market segments customers based on previously purchased and viewed items. Here, we see that the above the fold recipe recommendations all follow the same diet category the customer is a part of (Paleo). This data is used to keep offers relevant and increase conversions.

2. Dynamic product recommendations based on in-session actions ft. Third Love

In-session actions provide the best signal for what customers are interested in now. Using this contextual data, brands can create better offers. Below, Third Love uses dynamic product recommendations on the product page based on the currently viewed product.

3. Selectively use discount campaigns to drive non-converting leads ft. Stitch Fix

If leads do not convert on your initial offers, you should resegment them to a “non-converting” behavioral segment. These leads can be offered more aggressive discount campaigns or be given other incentives to complete their first purchase. Stitch Fix provides a great example. After a customer completes their initial fit assessment, they are gives a series of offers to complete their first purchase. However, if the lead hasn’t bought, they are placed in a non-converting behavioral segment and a new activation campaign is triggered – this time offering a $35 credit to be used.

Next Steps…

Behavioral segmentation is a powerful tool to create relevant marketing campaigns and content personalization throughout customer journeys.By understanding what specific segments are interested in, you have the ability to build offers that resonate. I highly recommend learning about RFM analysis to have a core understanding of how to create profitable segments.

Click here to see other tactics for improving customer experiences. And, if you’d like to see if Barilliance is the right personalization partner for your store, click here to request a live demo.

The post [Guide] Advanced Behavioral Segmentation to Increase Profits. Examples + more. appeared first on Barilliance.

What is customer lifetime value (CLV)?

By definition, customer lifetime value is the total revenue a customer is expected to generate for your business while they are a customer.Customer lifetime value is also known as lifetime value, and can be abbreviated as CLV or LTV.  As a key performance indicator, customer lifetime value has increasingly been adopted as business models have emphasized retention and repeat purchases over transactional exchanges. It is essential in calculating other KPIs such as return on marketing investment (ROMI).

How do you calculate lifetime value of a customer

As we will see, calculating customer lifetime value should be dialed in to your specific business.However, the traditional way to measure CLV is to take the expected average order value multiplied by the expected purchase frequency per year multiplied by the number of years you expect to a customer to remain a customer.

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More complete approaches would then subtract out the acquisition costs of acquiring the customer.

Problems with using customer lifetime value as a KPI

In practice, CLV carries a number of challenges for eCommerce stores looking to use it as a KPI.

• Lack of quality data – First, to properly calculate the inputs to CLV such as how long to expect them as a customer and how often they purchase, you need an accurate data set. This makes CLV hard for newer stores that don’t have years of behavioral data.
• Changing data – Second, your business tactics, offers, conversion optimization, and product mix all change over time. We covered why cohort analysis is so important and how to implement it here. In regards to CLV, previous cohorts become less and less useful adding to the lack of quality data problem.
• Risk – CLV assumes that your projections are accurate and underlying assumptions won’t change. However, the pace of change continues to accelerate, along with consumer behavior. The further out we project, the higher risk you carry that 
• Cash flow concerns – Additionally, the lifetime value doesn’t account for cash flow considerations. Cash flow is often a prerequesite to fuel growth, and the full CLV value cannot be realized without a sustainable business model.

Above, the best way to account for changing data in calculating CLV is through cohort analysis.

A better way to calculate customer lifetime value (CLV) and implement as eCommerce KPI

The major challenges with CLV are due to the timeframe. The solution is to shorten the timeframe. Shift away from “lifetime” and instead focus on shorter payback periods. Payback period analysis is more practical, and still allows for longer CLV calculations. Simply put, payback period refers to the amount of time it takes for a customer to generate enough profit (value) to cover the cost of acquisition (CAC). For eCommerce stores, CAC is a constant factor, and as we discussed in our post on conversion rate optimization, CAC is rising across industries. Limiting CLV to a shorter time frame makes the metric more actionable. Changes in make in personalized offers or triggered email campaigns, or any other tactics you use can be evaluated in true AB testing fashion.

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Instead of measuring customer lifetime value as one metric, break it out into various periods depending on your product and industry’s specific purchasing cycles. For many consumer products, this number will be 30, 60, or 90 day cycles.

How to increase customer lifetime value (CLV)

Simply knowing your CLV metric is not enough. You want to be able to use it as a gauge for how successful your retention and repurchase campaigns are.Below are a series of best practices we’ve helped clients implement. We also include examples and screenshots from top eCommerce companies in the world.

1. Gain permission to re-engage customers ft. amaryllis

The first step in improving customer lifetime value is getting permission to communicate with clients. We covered the concept of permission based marketing in our guide on customer relationship marketing.New customers typically aren’t excited to

2. Optimize post-purchase email sequences

Post purchase emails present an incredible opportunity to increase CLV. According to data from Unific, order confirmation emails see almost a 7x open rate as other marketing emails. Likewise, these emails have almost double the click through rate and generate nearly 6x as much revenue

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These open rates give brands a great opportunity to set expectations and add value. Best practices here include

• Set expectations for delivery and next steps
• Embed dynamic content based on first party behavior data gathered from their shopping session.
• Reinforce the buyer’s purchase decision 
• Recommend complementary products with personalized recommendation widgets

In our own study on email marketing statistics, we found that post purchase emails are able to generate significant conversions.

3. Incentivize repeat purchase with in-store rewards and currency ft. Kohl’s

Instore currency is an excellent tactic to spur repeat visits.Below, Kohl’s does an excellent job incentivizing repeat purchases through their loyalty program.Kohl’s set’s a hard expiration date on their rewards, giving a clear reason to come back to the store and manufacturing urgency for their customer base.

4. Create personalized offers based on past customer behavior ft. Amazon

Once a visitor begins interacting with your brand, you have the opportunity to create personalized customer journeys.We talk about creating relevant, personal offers a lot here. We truly believe it is the single best way to improve the customer experience and increase profits. One of the personalization pioneers is Amazon.  From the first interaction, Amazon does an incredible job of personalizing every step of the customer journey and is a master at promotional offers.

How Amazon leverages personalized offers in transactional emails

Below, Amazon uses complimentary product recommendations embedded in their post purchase email.As discussed above, these emails have much, much higher engagement than typical campaign emails. Notice the personalization, from the subject line to the embedded product data, to the personalized product recommendation widget.

How Amazon uses personalized promotional offers to drive repeat purchases

In addition to personalized product recommendations, Amazon uses personalization in their promotional offers. On site and across channels, Amazon promotes thousands of promotions including

• Holiday deals – tailored to fit specific events and holidays
• Daily deals – based on aggregate customer data 
• Membership incentives and exclusives

Above, Amazon uses dynamic content to personalize the customer experience. In this case, highlighting mother day offers.  

5. Layer in an omnichannel strategy to keep in contact with customers. ft. Nordstrom

While emails remains the default channel during the purchase and post purchase communication process, it is increasingly difficult to reengage customers via email.In response, brands should create and execute a clear omnichannel strategy to drive repeat purchases.  This includes gaining permission to communicate via SMS, Messenger, social channels, or any other modes of communication that make sense in your industry.There are many great omnichannels stragies to learn from. Below is a great example from Sephora. This offer is included as part of their loyalty program onboarding program.

Another example comes from Nordstrom. Here they use Instagram to help inspire shoppers and allow in-app purchase to increase CLV.

6. Create reward thresholds to increase per visit AOV ft. Sephora

Maximizing AOV is fundamental to improving customer lifetime value. Below, Sephora uses a threshold technique designed to increase the average order values of the average customer.In order to qualify for the free skincare trials, you must have a purchase of $75 or more.

7. Leverage content and educational material to bring repeat purchases ft. Sephora

Education based marketing has established itself as the most effective form of direct marketing.  Sephora continues the tradition with a multitude of education based marketing materials. One of my favorites are problem centric quizzes, which allow customers to interact with product catalogues in an engaging way. Sephora has built quizzes for every major product line, from complexation to foundation to hair care to lips and brows.

Next Steps…

Understanding how to improve customer lifetime value is the first step. The next is to take action.To do so requires partnering with a personalization partner who can identify customers at an individual level, and present relevant offers. If you are just starting to look at personalization, I recommend our guide titled “How to Select a Personalization Vendor”. It covers the major questions you should ask and capabilities you need to be successful.Barilliance is built to help eCommerce brands successfully segment their customers and create personalized offers for them. If you’d like to discover how Barilliance can help you increase CLV, request a live demo here.

The post Guide: How to increase customer lifetime value ft. Amazon & Sephora appeared first on Barilliance.