With increasing competition for online spend, a new report has confirmed that retailers are seeing personalisation as more crucial than ever.
According to original research of 200 UK retailers, conducted by OnePoll, for Klarna and Visualsoft’s ‘GET. SET. GROW’ report, 90% of retailers have implemented some form of personalisation strategy, however many are lacking the technology to make tracking customer preferences and behaviours a truly seamless and automated process.
Out of those retailers who have implemented a personalisation strategy, almost half (44%) are already recommending products based on a customer profile, and over a third (36%) are personalising the product search functionality on their websites. This is helping to enhance the experience, not just for mainstream consumers, but also more diverse customer groups with different needs and shopping behaviours.
Meanwhile, data-driven dynamic content is being used by 37% of retailers to actively target and influence browsers as they shop online.
A key part of this is the use of AI (35%) to help identify preferences and trends, whilst marketing automation flows (31%) turn insight into effective communications and campaigns.
David Duke, Digital Director at Visualsoft, said: “It’s clear that technology is critical to enable any of these personalised experiences, especially collecting the correct data on your customers and using it at the crucial moment of the shopper journey.
“The key thing to remember about personalisation is to be as customer focused as possible. Retailers should strive to get more value out of their investment by ensuring customer-facing options are more closely aligned to audiences, their behaviours and needs.
“eCommerce platforms that offer 360-degree marketing and creative support can help plug gaps and ensure AI, marketing automation and personalisation work in harmony.”
The report goes on to suggest that almost a third (34%) of retailers are switching on to the fact that using tech to obtain a single view of the customer is central to delivering personal experiences seamlessly across channels.