Web personalization: Strategies and best practices

Highlights

You’ll learn about:

• Web personalization is a strategy that creates unique experiences, including tailored recommendations, offers, and dynamic content.
• A headless CMS helps with content localization, supports innovation, and allows integration with various tools.
• Real-time personalization helps you adapt content based on user behavior during a session, increasing user engagement.
• Web retargeting connects with potential customers who have shown interest but have not purchased, increasing the chances of conversion.

Use the power of web personalization to provide a unique, engaging user experience.

Keep reading to explore more!

Did you know 71% of your customers expect you to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen?

Numbers like this mean focusing on website personalization is necessary for every forward-thinking company. 

As websites become more dynamic, customers require more than good design and content to engage with potential customers. This article focuses on various advantages, case studies, and examples of website personalization, helping you to fully grasp the potential of personalized web experiences and generate results for your brand.

What is web personalization?

Web personalization enables a website to create customized experiences for every visitor according to their needs, preferences, affinity, and behavior. Many companies today opt for headless content management systems, or CMS, that enable website personalization. This kind of CMS creates dynamic and personalized browsing and shopping experiences for your customers across multiple channels. 

A traditional CMS limits your website personalization to the CMS framework and the availability of plug-ins. In contrast, a headless CMS is much more powerful, helping you with web personalization.

The process of web personalization

The process of web personalization looks like this:

Gathering and analyzing customer data

Collect and process your customer’s data from various sources, including website interactions, CRM systems, or social media platforms. Analyze their demographic information, purchase behavior, preferences, and browsing history. 

Segmenting your audience

Next, segment your audience based on their behavior, similar attributes, and preferences. Segmentation allows you to provide content that appeals to particular user segments, increasing relevance and involvement.

Creating personalized content

Data and audience segments can be used to personalize web content, product recommendations, and marketing offers. Personalized content can range from a simple greeting to a complete landing page tailored for an individual visitor.

Testing and optimization

Next, use different personalization tactics, measure the outcomes, and adjust your technique based on the results.

Focusing on privacy and consent

Respecting user privacy and following data protection laws is also necessary. Users are entitled to refuse personalization and control the use of their data.

Web personalization strategies

Use these website personalization strategies to win customers:

Use a headless CMS

A headless CMS is beneficial because a decoupled approach is more flexible and scalable. The CMS handles and delivers content over various channels, including websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices. You can adapt your content to different formats and devices for a consistent customer experience.

Perform audience segmentation

Another useful strategy is segmenting your audience based on your customers’ location, browsing habits, purchase history, and demographics. Once you segment, create personalized web campaigns and provide customized content.

Create personalized content

Another popular web personalization strategy is creating relevant content that meets your audience's interests. These include blog posts, interactive quizzes, video tutorials, and product recommendations. Addressing the audience's needs enhances engagement, generates brand loyalty, and boosts conversions.

Create dynamic content

Many businesses create a personalized and interactive experience by using dynamic content. Dynamic content adapts in real-time based on user behavior, preferences, and past interactions. 

This can include real-time changes in product recommendations, personalized landing pages, and targeted notifications. You create an engaging and relevant experience by providing dynamic content, ensuring repeat customers.

Provide tailored recommendations

The final strategy is to enhance the user experience and boost conversions by offering tailored recommendations. You can provide personalized product recommendations, content suggestions, and offers by analyzing user preferences, purchase patterns, and demographic information. 

How does a headless CMS enhance web personalization?

Whether an online art gallery offering personalized art recommendations or an e-learning platform suggesting video-rich learning paths, a headless CMS enhances the user experience and makes customers feel valued. Here’s how a headless approach enhances personalization:

Separates your content from the backend

A headless CMS separates the website's front-end presentation layer from its back-end. It delivers content through an application programming interface or API. As a result, you publish content to any framework or front-end. A content-first approach lets you personalize your website’s visitors' experience based on their devices.

Supports innovation

A headless CMS opens many possibilities for content presentation because the content resides in the back-end. This decoupled approach lets you choose any technology for your website's front-end. You can select the tech stack based on your unique requirements.

For example, a headless CMS allows you to integrate wearable technology data. The data provides personalized workout suggestions for users. These suggestions depend on their health information, including heart rate, calories burned, and sleep patterns.

If you have an online travel agency, CRM data helps you know what kind of travel your customers like. If customers often make reservations for beach vacations, highlight beautiful beaches when they next visit your website.

Streamlines content localization

A headless CMS provides comprehensive content localization support, including translation services. This feature enables you to customize your website content to serve customers worldwide. It ensures international customers do not receive an inferior digital experience.

It also helps you connect with different tools, such as content translation and localization of digital assets. These assets can include rich text, URLs, SEO metadata, and responsive images.

Your website visitors will see content in their language, prices in their currency, and shipping costs based on location. Additionally, website personalization improves user experience, making your site more appealing to an international audience.

Case Study: How did Contentstack help with localization in the flight industry?

Icelandair had been using VYRE Unify and dotCMS for years. However, they required a modern CMS to accommodate an increasing focus on personalization and content delivery across multiple channels. They assessed 15 CMS platforms and selected Contentstack’s headless CMS. Contentstack’s headless CMS made it easy for content editors and developers to collaborate and manage multiple languages. 

Now, they produce localized content that appeals to target markets and deliver translated content 70% faster. Contentstack ensures that translated content resonates with local customs and dialects, enhancing brand perception and cultural significance.

After using Contentstack, Hallur fiór Halldórsson, UX Writer and Content Designer at Icelandair, said, “DotCMS was not natively headless, and the system did not allow you to save your work and preview the results. Anytime you posted a blog or a page, you couldn't work on one locale and then push that up; you'd have to wait until you were sure that no one was working on the item in other languages. It pulled everything — all locales, all relationships. It took forever.”

Read why Icelandair opted for Contentstack by reading the case study.

Integration with numerous tools

A headless CMS integrates with numerous other tools, such as your customer relationship management (CRM) system. The integration capabilities connect your CMS to other tools in your technology stack. You can monitor user behavior and utilize customer data by integrating your headless CMS with a CRM system.

Consider a situation where a customer engages with a social media post highlighting your new organic skincare products. You can present them with a personalized page featuring these organic items and share content about the benefits of organic skincare and its process the next time they visit your website. This tailored experience enhances user engagement and makes customers feel recognized and appreciated.

Besides enhancing personalization, integrating a headless CMS helps you with better data management and analytics. You can understand your customer's behavior and preferences by gathering and collecting data from various sources. The insights you receive assist in guiding your marketing strategy, help you optimize content delivery, improve customer engagement, and drive business growth.

Best practices for web personalization

Implementing web personalization effectively requires a thorough understanding of best practices, including:

Collecting relevant data

Collect as much data as possible to understand your customers’ preferences, behavior, and needs. To create a custom website experience, it’s essential to understand your customers’ demographics, browsing habits, and past purchases.

Creating custom landing pages

Custom landing pages provide a unique opportunity to personalize the customer experience depending on user segments. Creating tailored landing pages for different demographics, interests, or customer journey stages provides a highly customized and engaging experience that increases conversion. 

You can optimize these landing pages by adding persuasive content, personalized offers, and appropriate calls to action or CTAs.

Implementing real-time personalization

Real-time personalization tailors the content or design of a webpage depending on how customers operate during a session. Using live data like browsing history or past interactions, you provide relevant and time-sensitive content to every customer. Personalization at this level enhances user engagement, improves user satisfaction, and increases the chances of successful results or outcomes.

Using web retargeting

Another good practice is using a web retargeting strategy, which connects potential customers who have previously shown interest in your products but are yet to purchase them. 

As the click-through rate (CTR) of a retargeted ad is 10 times higher than the CTR of a typical display ad, offering personalized ads on different online platforms encourages customers to return.

With web retargeting, you deliver personalized messages, offers, and recommendations based on past interactions to ensure a more persuasive experience. 

The future of web personalization

Artificial intelligence and account-based web marketing (ABWM) will play a part in determining the future of web personalization.

Account-based web marketing creates personalized and unique experiences for high-value accounts so that you establish personal connections and improve customer contentment.

AI will help you use data analytics to understand user behavior better and develop targeted web campaigns. The possibilities to generate personalized content and increase user engagement are unlimited with AI. AI also helps you process large datasets and make predictions based on the patterns of human behavior.

In the future, as new technologies grow, web personalization will drive business growth and customer loyalty.

FAQs

How does audience segmentation help in web personalization?

Segmenting audiences helps companies divide their users according to various factors and offers them content and recommendations for each segment, improving the user experience.

How can one use customer data to offer a personalized web experience?

Customer information helps you understand the users’ behavior, preferences, and needs. Businesses can use this data to customize content, recommendations, and user experience.

How does AI impact web personalization?

Artificial intelligence is important in web personalization as it helps businesses analyze vast data and forecast customer behavior to provide highly personalized experiences.

How does real-time personalization improve customer experience?

With real-time personalization, companies can modify their content during a session according to customer behavior. This boosts customer experience by delivering appropriate content and recommendations.

Learn more

Web personalization is an effective strategy for companies to deliver a unique online customer experience. Businesses stimulate engagement by identifying the target audience, customizing content, leveraging strategies such as headless CMS, and boosting conversions in a competitive digital field.

Are you ready to elevate your web personalization strategy? Schedule a free demo with Contentstack to understand how we can help you create personalized web content while delivering a unique online experience to your users.