Setting Up Personalizations

Personalizing your consumers online experience has a ton of benefits. You increase your conversion rate, average order size, and the number of spontaneous purchases consumers make. Personalization can even help with turning first time consumers into repeat buyers

Personalizing the online shopping experience you provide consumers is easy on Commerce7 - but you will need your designers help to create and display the content on your website.

In this article:

How it works

Personalization Blocks allow you to display different content to your customers online based on criteria that you set. For example, if the customer hasn't purchased with you before, you can display an introduction to your winery on the homepage, but if they're a club member, you can display their upcoming shipment in its place. 

View one of our past webinars on Personalizations →

 


 

Setting up a Personalization

Before getting started, your designer will first need to create Personalization Blocks within Commerce7 and add them to your website. A Personalization Block just represents an area that you want your personalized content to display. For each area, they'll need to set up a new block (ie. "Homepage Banner" or "Footer") and then add the block to your website files so that it will appear on your website. Your designer can find instructions here.

 

Adding Content to Your Blocks

After your designer has created the Personalization Blocks, you're now ready to start adding your content.

  1. Under MarketingPersonalizations, you'll see a list of the Personalization Blocks set up by your designer
  2. Select the Personalization Block that you want to add content for
  3. Add a Title.
    This title is for internal purposes only. We recommend adding a title that describes who the content is for such as "First Time Visitor" or "Club Member".

  4. Select the Type of content you want to display.
    • General Content
      Content editor where you can add text or images
    • Product Collection
      You'll be able to select any of your Collections to display
    • Club Shipment
      Displays a member's upcoming shipment (if there is an active shipment). If there is no active shipment, then the next option in the personalization sequence will be shown instead.
    • Subscribe Form
      A basic subscribe form. When the customer fills the form out and submits, they'll "Email Marketing Status" will update to "Subscribed".
    • Set the Sort Order
      For each Personalization, only one "Option" will display at a time to your customer. The sort order determines what content to display if a customer matches the criteria for multiple "Options". (We'll add the criteria next.)
  5. Add in any general Content to display to the customer
  6. Add in name variables if you want to personalize the content even further.
    Note: First and Last Name will only display if the customer is logged in.
     {{customer.firstName}}
    {{customer.lastName}}

    The variables are case sensitive so we recommend copying and pasting the variables into your personalization block. 

  7. Set the Conditions for who the Personalization Option should display for.
    Content can be set to trigger when any specific conditions or met, or when all conditions are met. 


    • Customer is or is not a subscriber, first time customer, repeat customer, club member, anonymous, or a known contact who has never purchased
    • Lifetime Value greater than or less than a specific dollar value
    • Customer Rank that is greater than or less than a specific number
    • Last Order Date that is greater than or less than a specific date
    • Club Member or not, for any specific club
    • Customer Tag
  8. You can optionally set multiple criteria for a single Personalization Option.
    For example, you could have content that triggers if a visitor's customer rank is above a specific number OR if a visitor's lifetime value is above a specific dollar value
  9. Click Save Option
  10. Create an Option for as many variations of content you want.




Personalization example

Here is an example of how this tool can be used. The following screenshots are all from the same homepage viewed from different user accounts. 

  1. Anonymous visitor
    Likely their first time to the site - so we tell them our story.

  2. First-Time Customer
    We want them to buy again so we serve up personal recommendations right upfront to entice them. These recommendations are based off their initial purchase history



  3. Repeat Buyer
    We know they like the wines, so we want to upsell them into the club. We can show them all the benefits of the club right upfront to encourage them to join.



  4. Club Member
    We want them to customize their package as easily as possible - so we show it to them right up front.

 


 

Customer personalization definitions

  • Subscriber - A subscriber is a customer that has filled out the subscribe form widget on your website, or has an existing customer record with the "email marketing status" field set to "subscribed".
  • First time customer - A first time customer is a customer that has completed one order (on any sales channel) with your brand.
  • Repeat customer - A repeat customer is a customer that has completed two or more orders (on any sales channel) with your brand.
  • Never purchased - A customer in this category has an existing customer record, but has never made a purchase.
  • Club member - A customer in this category belongs to one or more of your clubs.
  • Anonymous - This is a website visitor who is not logged in (either because they do not have an account, or they have an account but are viewing your website from a new device).  When a visitor comes to your website, if they have ever made a purchase before or ever logged in before on the device they are visiting with, they will automatically be logged in when they return (this is a cookie based login). For this reason, it is possible that an anonymous visitor may have an existing customer record but is visiting your site from a new device. The most likely scenario is that an anonymous visitor does not have an existing customer record.
  • Everyone - All website visitors.
  • Customer birthday - This variable allows you to dynamically show content to customers who have their birthday today, or birthday within the current month.
  • Customer rank -  Customer rank is a rank out of 100 that lets you know how engaged a specific customer is with your brand (0 being the lowest level of engagement, 100 being the highest). This rank is determined by an algorithm we've setup that includes criteria related to lifetime value, last order date, last visit to your website, etc.
  • Customer LTV - Customer lifetime value based on DTC orders made through all sales channels.
  • Customer last order date - The last date the customer made a purchase.
  • Club membership - Clubs the customer belongs to.
  • Group - Groups the customer belongs to.