Learn how to deliver the relevant omnichannel shopping experiences your customers crave. In this Smart Guide, we’ll explore the different product recommendation themes, how to select the right ones throughout your customer journey, and best practices to drive revenue and loyalty through product recommendations.
20 Min Read
Consumers need retailers to make shopping experiences simple, enjoyable, and fast. To win brand loyalty today retailers have to continuously present customers with products they actually want and help them discover new products they didn’t even know they needed.
That’s how Amazon has leapfrogged the competition and remained in a league of its own — by curating the shopping experience to customers’ preferences, buying habits, and real-time intentions with a sophisticated use of product recommendations. In fact, product recommendations drive 35% of its revenue.1
Fortunately, with advances in recommender systems, all marketers can create delightful, frictionless omnichannel shopping experiences — and in this guide, you’ll learn exactly how.
1McKinsey. (2013). How Retailers Can Keep Up with Consumers.
Consumers need retailers to make shopping experiences simple, enjoyable, and fast. To win brand loyalty today retailers have to continuously present customers with products they actually want and help them discover new products they didn’t even know they needed.
That’s how Amazon has leapfrogged the competition and remained in a league of its own — by curating the shopping experience to customers’ preferences, buying habits, and real-time intentions with a sophisticated use of product recommendations. In fact, product recommendations drive 35% of its revenue.1
Fortunately, with advances in recommender systems, all marketers can create delightful, frictionless omnichannel shopping experiences — and in this guide, you’ll learn exactly how.
1McKinsey. (2013). How Retailers Can Keep Up with Consumers.
Whether you’re trying to turn browsers into buyers, increase order value, or drive repeat purchases to grow lifetime value, success hinges on presenting personally-relevant product suggestions throughout the customer journey.
Luckily today we have AI-powered recommender systems to assist with surfacing relevant product recommendations that guide and inspire throughout the path-to-purchase. These systems do the heavy lifting in mining and analyzing customer and product-level data to dynamically personalize product suggestions for each customer based on browsing and purchase behaviors as well as stated and inferred preferences. Recommender systems are highly flexible and can optimize to selected recommendation themes. They also give marketers control to refine automated recommendations with merchandising rules to include or exclude products based on stock levels, margin, placement agreements with vendor brands, and other criteria.
2Business Insider. (2017). Shoppers Expect More Personalization
First impressions are critical in convincing first-time shoppers that your brand and product selection is the right fit. But at the beginning of the customer lifecycle, you don’t have any insight into customers’ category, brand, or price-point preferences. So how do you enable product discovery and continue surfacing relevant products to keep them interested and shopping your brand?
As you’re beginning to learn about new customers through their browsing behavior, showcase your most popular items across your top categories. Then, drive urgency and hype by highlighting what’s trending. Finally, add another element of product discovery and inspiration by featuring new arrivals. Social proof is a powerful tactic early on because people are swayed by peers’ opinions. There’s also a higher chance popular items will resonate. Plus, popular picks are perceived to be trusted, which is key early in the relationship with new customers.
First impressions are critical in convincing first-time shoppers that your brand and product selection is the right fit. But at the beginning of the customer lifecycle, you don’t have any insight into customers’ category, brand, or price-point preferences. So how do you enable product discovery and continue surfacing relevant products to keep them interested and shopping your brand?
As you’re beginning to learn about new customers through their browsing behavior, showcase your most popular items across your top categories. Then, drive urgency and hype by highlighting what’s trending. Finally, add another element of product discovery and inspiration by featuring new arrivals. Social proof is a powerful tactic early on because people are swayed by peers’ opinions. There’s also a higher chance popular items will resonate. Plus, popular picks are perceived to be trusted, which is key early in the relationship with new customers.
“Blueshift took our marketing to the next level. We’re able to get to a level of personalization we’ve never seen before. Their powerful, yet easy-to-use Recommendation Engine allows us to personalize every aspect of our campaigns.”
VP, Growth & Digital Marketing, CarParts.com
VP, Growth & Digital Marketing, CarParts.com
“ Any large retailer with a complex catalog who is trying to figure out personalization — Blueshift is the perfect recipe for this.”
Chief Marketing Officer, CarParts.com
Chief Marketing Officer, CarParts.com
To continue reading download the full Smart Guide.
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