Real-Time Website Content Personalization Is About To Take Over The Internet

When it comes to offering personalized experiences on the web, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a website that welcomes you with a greeting like “Hi Steve…not Steve? Click here” in small type in the top corner of the page. Or perhaps you think of a commerce site providing product recommendations based on your past purchases or browse behavior. There are plenty of ways to create a more personalized experience, but web personalization has evolved beyond content relevant to a user’s specific geography or using search data to create a more customized experience.

The new world of real-time website content personalization provides a customized experience in real-time. It allows for specific messaging to be served up to site visitors based on their actions and behaviors. This type of highly-relevant user experience is quite effective at driving visitors to spend more time on your website, take action, and convert.

The Magic Behind Web Personalization

Well, it’s not really magic. But it is pretty cool. Making real-time website content personalization happen starts with defining segments using criteria based on certain pieces of information. These can include:

• Demographic data

• Geographic data

• Browse behavior on your website

• Click behavior on your website

• Keyword source

• Referring website

Once segmentation criteria have been defined, appropriate messaging for each segment must be mapped out. The number of unique experiences you can offer to site visitors using real-time personalization is seemingly limitless. Some ways you may want to interact:

• Present an offer or content based on web or keyword source

• Call out similar relevant content

• Serve up an offer as the visitor is leaving the site

• Present different calls-to-action based on form completion

• Encourage social sharing

Implementing real-time website content personalization isn't nearly as complex an undertaking as it may seem. The platforms available make it easy by requiring a small amount of code be added to each page that has messaging.

Increasing Conversions

As with any marketing tactic on your website, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got a testing plan in place and are able to measure your efforts. Creating variations on your personalized messaging will allow you to figure out what type of communication works best for each segment, and ultimately, what results in the highest number of conversions.

Marketers are still figuring the best way to leverage the power of real-time website content personalization, but it is a rapid growth web marketing tool and is proving to be incredibly valuable for helping businesses meet and exceed their online key performance indicators.