Website engagement with rule based personalisation

The art of rules based personalisation and how to make it work

You are charged with promoting an array of content and promotions within shifting parameters and evolving conditions.

"Rules based personalisation is an effective way to re-engage with customers through your website. It empowers marketers to get the most value from their content. Personalisation decreases bounce rates and increases conversion. Providing relevant and engaging content through personalisation rules is a powerful tool in the marketer’s arsenal, you need to know how to use it".

My first post, A practical guide to website personalisation gave you an outline of the three central types of personalisation: Digital Body Language, Digital Fingerprint and Marketing Automation.

In my last post Using a Digital Relevancy Map to create more personalised website experiences. we covered the process of researching and preparing for personas and user journeys. It is now time to put the two together. This post will show you where to make personalisation rules on your website.

I will take you through applying rules based personalisation based on the two big areas of personalisation:

• Digital Fingerprint
  • Keywords used in search
  • Referrer websites
• Digital Body Language

Digital Fingerprint is about creating the perfect first impression and these rules are based on the information you already have about the visitor, this is what brought them to your website.

Digital Body Language is more nuanced, it is an interaction based on the visitor’s behaviour on your website.

Let’s think big and start with the navigation pages and the home page, broad strokes are best in the early stages, test and refine as you go. Your Digital Relevancy Map will help you craft journeys for each persona and keep you focused on the goal of converting your visitor into a lead.

Rules for Digital Body Language

Applying and analysing Digital Body Language is a really efficient way of quickly personalising your entire website. The visitor sets their own persona up based on their behaviour on the website, each page they visit informs future contents they will see. This includes a responsive home page, adaptable promotions and applicable quotes.

In short anything and everything can be personalised to strengthen engagement with your visitors.

In my past posts, I have used a Travel Agent business to illustrate personalisation. Return with me now to that trusty Travel Agent.  Let’s say a visitor’s behaviour on the website is focused around beach retreats. Each beach related page they visit builds up their beach persona. In that visitor’s mind your travel brand is becoming associated with beach holidays, strengthening this feeling is the start of attaining a lifetime customer.

Another effective way to individualise your website is by personalising components like testimonials, images, related links, and promotions. Our sun seeker will see quotes about beautiful sand, tranquil blue waters, instead of a generic quote about comfortable beds.

This is where the rules come in, setting up the rule will vary from platform to platform so speak to your vendor about the ins and out of how to do this.

Keywords

What your visitor does before they reach your website tells you a great deal about which content is going to be relevant. Making rules based on the information we have about a visitor as soon as they reach your website can produce drastic and immediate results. This is really powerful when used with Digital Body Language.

Information to base your rules around:

• Searches on your website
• IP Address
• Company
• Date /Time

A rule for one is much like making a rule for another. I will show you the two that I feel are the most informative, keywords and referrers.

If your website is optimised for keywords then grab the keyword list from the lovely SEO guy or gal and look on your analytics tool to see the search terms which bring traffic to your website. Group these keywords into categories which reflect the personas you have created, then map this onto the content, including components. If you have not optimised the content in line with the personas yet go back to my Digital Relevancy Map post to find tips on how to do this.

Once you have mapped the keywords onto your content, go to your home page and navigation pages and personalise each component as before. It is a good idea to leave one part of the homepage, like a teaser, unrelated so that the visitor doesn’t get stuck in a personalisation bubble.

Referrers

This is pretty much the same thing as Keywords except this time you are basing your rules on the referring URLs. The SEO team will be really useful in this process too because they will have a list of backlinks and the kind of content or audience each referral domain caters to.

Have a go at putting rules on every top level navigation page as well as on the homepage. Swap around images and promotional content to best suit the interests of the visitor.

Making rules on some platforms is like using a simple option interface a bit like making rules for your Outlook inboxes. This can be more complex on other platforms so speak to your vendor to find out more.

And the rest...

There is basic content which is on pretty much every website like 'About Us' and contact information which can be personalised so that the visitor does not have to find the correct area codes or offices to call themselves.

Remember that the main perks of personalisation for your visitor are ease and relevancy.

Whatever it is you want them to do on your website it needs to be as simple as possible for the visitor.

Take this opportunity to make over the internal links in your website. Your internal links, particularly those on the personalised pages will all aid in the continuation of the visitor’s journey- basically make sure that your links are relevant to the content and interests of the visitor. Analytics will help you tweak this as you go on.

Rules based on Digital Body Language will help you give your visitors relevant content further along their journey and it is also great for converting returning visitors who are exploring your business’ different offerings. Personalisation based on Digital Body Language is great for websites with a lot of content and are visited for research purposes.

Personalisation rules which are based on the Digital Fingerprint gives your visitor the perfect first impression by immediately giving the visitor relevant content, they do not have to waste time searching for it.

Using a mix between the two makes your visitor’s journey easier and more compelling.

You have learnt to personalise these areas using rules based on both types of personalisation:

• Teasers
• Banner images
• Testimonials
• Contact information
• Promotions.

Remember that this is all about crafting a simple journey for your visitors so that they are being given the information they want that propels them along the buying cycle. Having these basic rules spread over your website will save you so much time and make lead nurturing much more efficient.

My next post will be an in depth look at marketing automation, showing you how to create engagement plans.

For more information about the process of implementing website personalisation please see:

• ClerksWell’s personalisation white paper
• Nurturing leads to earn sales
• Website personlisation tools

Thanks for Nina Anderson for sharing her advice and opinions in this post. Nina is a Sales and Marketing Executive specialising in digital marketing. She works at ClerksWell in London providing digital solutions and website design and build. They are a Sitecore partner and pride themselves in delivering their Customer Engagement Platform with enhanced design and usability. Thanks to Nina for sharing her advice and opinions in this post. You can follow her on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.