Episode 4: Personalization Best Practices

FFWagency.com @FFWglobal

Personalization Best PracticesEpisode 4 in a 5-part series

September 19, 2017

Dave Sawyer

Senior Solutions Consultant

FFW

[email protected]

About the presenters:

@cmsdave

cmsdave

Waqas Hussain

Manager, Customer Success Team

Acquia

[email protected]

http://www.acquia.com

About the presenters:

• One of Acquia’s leading partners worldwide

• More than 250 Drupal specialists and 120 Acquia Certified Developers on staff

• In 2016, FFW was the recipient of the Acquia Partner Site of The Year award in the non-

profit category for our work with the YMCA of Twin Cities.

We create engaging digital experiences

and the platforms that power them.

FFWagency.com @FFWglobal

Who this webinar is for:

Anyone involved in:

• optimizing digital experiences

• managing personalization solutions

• developing a personalization strategy

Ideal for digital marketers, marketing practitioners, and web

team members.

New to personalization?

Check out our recorded Acquia Webinar which

outlines the key concepts and prerequisites:

Real-time Personalization: How to Get Started

https://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/real-time-

personalization-drupal-how-get-started

Other episodes in this webinar series

Personalization Begins with Contenthttps://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/episode-1-personalization-begins-content

Define Customer Segments Using a Data-driven Approachhttps://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/episode-2-define-customer-segments-using-data-

driven-approach

How to Execute a Persona-based Content Strategy at Scalehttps://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/episode-3-how-execute-persona-based-content-

strategy-scale

Personalization Best Practiceshttps://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/episode-4-personalization-best-practices

Using Technology to Accelerate Your Personalization Initiativehttps://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/episode-5-using-technology-accelerate-your-

personalization-initiative

EPISODE 1

EPISODE 2

EPISODE 3

EPISODE 4

EPISODE 5

Agenda

• Introduction

• 10 Best Practices for Personalization

• Q&A

Industry leaders agree that personalized content

is vital for increasing customer engagement and

driving conversions.

In order to remain competitive and to meet the

expectations of today's users, many companies

have begun to experiment with the enablement of

real-time personalization solutions.

BACKGROUND

FFWagency.com @FFWglobal

FFWagency.com @FFWglobal

FFWagency.com @FFWglobal

Devising a personalization strategy comes with a

range of challenges, and best practices for deploying

personalization successfully are still emerging.

In this webinar, we’ll walk through ten best practices for a successful

real-time personalization solution in your organization.

Collect Data First

BEST PRACTICE #1

Start to collect data first – before you establish your

personalization strategy.

Use previously-collected visitor data to:

● Understand how your audience can be segmented

● Preview the size of an audience segment that will be reached with a

specific set of compound criteria

● Establish baseline metrics to put optimization goals in context

● Identify gaps in user data and determine what additional tracking is

needed to make new targeting possible

BEST PRACTICE #1: COLLECT DATA FIRST

Connect Customer Data

BEST PRACTICE #2

Customer data typically exists in multiple places.

Connect data silos for a more complete profile.

● Take steps towards developing a more complete view of your customer/user

● Perform an audit of all the places customer data exists – e.g. CMS, CRM, Email

Marketing Platform, Customer Support System, etc.

● Integrate general web analytics with personalization analytics to correlate visitor

session data

● Make data “joinable” by using globally unique identifiers

● Only connect customer data to your personalization platform if you can foresee using

that data

BEST PRACTICE #2: CONNECT CUSTOMER DATA

Segment Visitors Automatically

BEST PRACTICE #3

Identify important segments of your audience with

criteria that can be automatically detected.

● Put users into “buckets” based on what you can detect about them

● Start with the “who”, then consider the “what”

i.e. who you are trying to target and what is the detectable criteria that distinguishes

those users from others

● Leverage both explicit data and implicit data

● Combine quantitative data and qualitative data

Further Reading: Blog post with examples of explicit and implicit data for segmentation:

https://ffwagency.com/digital-strategies-blog/web-personalization-prerequisites-identifying-audience-segments

BEST PRACTICE #3: SEGMENT VISITORS AUTOMATICALLY

Enrich Content with Structure

BEST PRACTICE #4

Source: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives

Enrich content with structure to make it machine

understandable. Tag content to make it targetable.

● Enrich web content with metadata in order to expose that data to your

personalization platform as well as search engines (Examples: Meta tags,

Schema.org)

● Traditionally, tagging has been used to classify the content’s categories, topics,

or subject matter.

● In a personalization strategy, we can also use tagging to describe the who (the

persona the content is intended for) and the when (the stage of the customer

journey the content is relevant to).

BEST PRACTICE #4: ENRICH CONTENT WITH STRUCTURE

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Taxonomy is the glue that

connects content to users.

Recognize Returning Visitors

BEST PRACTICE #5

“When you ask buyers what they want

from their shopping experiences, they tell

you they want to be recognized; they want

to be valued; and they want to be known.”

– Penny Gillespie, Research Director, Gartner Inc.

Source: EContent Magazine

Personalization begins with recognition.

● Let users know they are recognized. They’ll appreciate it.

● Recognition builds trust and loyalty.

● Welcome back repeat visitors.

● Consider a real-world example, like going to your local coffee shop.

● Allow users to pick up where they left off.

For digital experiences that involve moving through long-form content or a series of

steps, store the user’s progress along with their profile attributes.

BEST PRACTICE #5: RECOGNIZE RETURNING USERS

Tailor Messaging

Across Channels

BEST PRACTICE #6

Although you may have separate channels or platforms,

your customer only sees interactions with a single brand.

● Be consistent with your messaging across channels

● Integrate web personalization with email marketing

● Set up triggers to automate the delivery of personalized emails based

on specific website interactions

BEST PRACTICE #6: TAILOR MESSAGING ACROSS CHANNELS

Recommend Content

BEST PRACTICE #7

Use contextual information about the user’s current

session to recommend relevant content

● Many approaches such as by simple tag similarity (e.g. Drupal modules and

views) or via content recommendation engine (e.g. Solr)

● Ideal for use cases that involve a lot of content

● Commerce use case: Recommend products based on products viewed or

previously purchased

● Content use case: Recommended articles based on articles previously

viewed or shared

BEST PRACTICE #7: RECOMMEND CONTENT

Conduct Experiments

and Learn As You Go

BEST PRACTICE #8

Use real data as your compass. Conduct experiments and

learn from your results.

● Personalization strategies need to evolve over time to accommodate shifts in

user behaviors, needs, and expectations.

● Find out what works for your audience.

● Develop a data-driven culture and a practice of conducting content

personalization experiments.

● Use A/B tests to evaluate the effectiveness of targeted messaging and calls-to-

action.

● Use a platform that provides a framework for running content experiments such

as Acquia Lift, Google Optimize 360, or Optimizely.

BEST PRACTICE #8: CONDUCT EXPERIMENTS AND LEARN AS YOU GO

Measure Consistently and

Analyze Regularly

BEST PRACTICE #9

Ensure that data is collected in consistent way over time.

Establish a regular review of your web analytics and

visitor profile data.

● Reduce the signal-to-noise ratio: Focus on clear KPIs that are actionable for

your organization

● Use business intelligence layer or marketing dashboard to easily interpret the

data that matters (e.g. Domo or Tableau)

● Hold a regular review meeting (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly)

BEST PRACTICE #9: MEASURE CONSISTENTLY AND ANALYZE REGULARLY

Establish Security Guidelines

and Respect User Privacy

BEST PRACTICE #10

Ensure you have identified any personally identifiable

information (PII) and how/where that data is stored and used.

● Don’t collect data that you can’t use or won’t need.

● Get consent to use data and be transparent about how it is used.

● Consider all market regulations as well as applicable laws in all countries that you do

business.

● Be aware of the policies of third-party systems that are also part of your digital

ecosystem.For example, Google’s policy states that you can’t store any PII in custom variables/dimensions in Google Analytics.

Recommended blog post: Understanding the EU's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

https://ffwagency.com/digital-strategies-blog/understanding-eus-new-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr

BEST PRACTICE #10: ESTABLISH SECURITY GUIDELINES AND RESPECT USER PRIVACY

Dave Sawyer

[email protected]

@cmsdave

FFWagency.com @FFWglobal