Baking Sitecore Personalization

“Hi Sophia, planning a birthday party? Check out our new birthday dress collection for your little one.”

As a Digital Marketer, I understand a message like this has a higher propensity for conversion compared to a random promotion email we are so used to receiving.

This is the beauty of personalization.

Be it personalization on a website, an email, an SMS, or advertisements across platforms, as a Digital Marketer, I have been blessed to ideate and design personalization opportunities for my customers.

Personalization starts by focusing on the specific needs and preferences of your customers and the blue sky is the limit. The goal is to create a wow factor by creating the right customer journey using personalization.

What is Personalization in a Sitecore Website?

If you own a Sitecore website, you are already half-way through to offer personalization to your clients.

In Sitecore, personalization can help change the content served per visitor in real-time, based on the data you get from the visitor. It helps understand the visitor's intent and then serving them the right content that meets the organization’s objectives.

The idea is to create different tests as per your marketing objectives and your customers' actions on the website. These tests play an important role in achieving your goals and get an understanding of what works best for you.

Example: Your company aims to collect 7 different attributes in a contact form on your website. As a Digital Marketer, you analyze Sitecore analytics and different goals that you have set up and you came to a judgment that people are reaching the form page but are not submitting it. At this point, you can create A/B Split testing where you show half of your visitors a form with a reduced number of fields.

Test Types in Sitecore

Sitecore gives you the capability to perform various kinds of tests. These include:

A/B Testing in Sitecore

It is relevant when an organization wants to present two versions of a content item to a different visitor. Example: You want to change the color of the ‘Register Now’ button on your webpage to understand which color is clicked more. 

A/B/N or Multivariant Tests in Sitecore

You can use A/B/N testing when you would like to compare more than two versions of a content item. Example:

Personalization Tests

In Sitecore, you can set personalization rules to compare entire pages that contain personalized variants of a component on a page. The personalization rules can be set as per the characteristics and behavior of the visitor, such as location, gender, or previous visits.

Example: A clothing website can display two different pages based upon the gender of the visitor.

Women's Store Front

Men's Store Front

When to Start Personalization in Sitecore?

Personalization should start as soon as you start creating a website. As I call it, it should be an early ingredient while making your cake dough. If your ingredients are right, you are definitely going to bake a lovely and the most delicious cake which you and your customers are going to enjoy!