1.3. Technical challenges of website personalization
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2024 10:58 am
A special offer popup displayed based on user behavior
The richest, most reliable data is often collected directly from visitors answering questions—this is called zero-party data.
For instance, if a visitor completes a “How to select a bike” quiz and they select the answers “from a city” and “woman,” you can communicate content related to these characteristics and be confident that the visitor will find it relevant.
Product recommendation based on collected visitor data
These are just a few examples of customer data that you probably have access to and can use for personalization.
Depending on your industry, web store, and even the marketing solutions you use, there might be a lot of other interesting data points available to use for personalization.
Now that we’ve talked switzerland customer email list about data collection, it’s time to discuss the technical challenges of putting that data to use (actually serving personalized content to your website visitors).
Here’s where the biggest differences exist between the two main types of website personalization—embedded content and overlays.
Using embedded content to personalize your native (base) content requires loading the personalized content AFTER your main base content has loaded. This is usually done through a Javascript code, either replacing existing content or inserting new content. Both take time and can have a negative side effect, called a flicker.
If your website flickers, a visitor will see your webpage loading once and then changing content to display something new. So basically, it’s a brief “flash” or ”flicker” that occurs as your content changes.
The richest, most reliable data is often collected directly from visitors answering questions—this is called zero-party data.
For instance, if a visitor completes a “How to select a bike” quiz and they select the answers “from a city” and “woman,” you can communicate content related to these characteristics and be confident that the visitor will find it relevant.
Product recommendation based on collected visitor data
These are just a few examples of customer data that you probably have access to and can use for personalization.
Depending on your industry, web store, and even the marketing solutions you use, there might be a lot of other interesting data points available to use for personalization.
Now that we’ve talked switzerland customer email list about data collection, it’s time to discuss the technical challenges of putting that data to use (actually serving personalized content to your website visitors).
Here’s where the biggest differences exist between the two main types of website personalization—embedded content and overlays.
Using embedded content to personalize your native (base) content requires loading the personalized content AFTER your main base content has loaded. This is usually done through a Javascript code, either replacing existing content or inserting new content. Both take time and can have a negative side effect, called a flicker.
If your website flickers, a visitor will see your webpage loading once and then changing content to display something new. So basically, it’s a brief “flash” or ”flicker” that occurs as your content changes.