Marketers are responding to consumer demand for personalization through real-time efforts. April 2015 polling by Researchscape for Evergage found that 58% of marketers worldwide used real-time personalization—defined as data-driven personalization completed in less than 1 second. Among the 42% not using it, nearly eight in 10 intended to do so within the next year.
Websites were the main channel for real-time personalization, cited by 44% of users. In comparison, just 17% used mobile websites, 13% web apps and 9% mobile apps.
In a March 2015 Wayin study, 57% of US marketers included personalizing digital content based on interactions in their real-time marketing. Evergage took a look at what content marketers personalized and found that pop-ups and inline content were the most-used types of web messages and content used for real-time personalization. Information bars on the top or bottom of a page as well as callouts pointing to various page content were each cited by more than four in 10, while inline edits and survey questions were used by around a quarter each.
How do they figure out which messages to serve to which consumers? Marketers were most likely to segment visitors and users for real-time personalization purposes based on the types of content they viewed (48%), location (45%), time on site (36%) and navigation behavior (35%). Around one-third segmented based on device, demographic data or buyer persona.
Leading Benefits Observed from Using Real-Time* Personalization According to Marketers Worldwide, April 2015 (% of respondents)
However, December 2014 research by Econsultancy suggests the large majority struggle with proper data collection from websites, with just 18% of client-side marketers worldwide saying their ability to collect data about individual website visitors was strong.
Those struggling may want to get their act together. Evergage found that real-time personalization had big payoffs across the board, and the biggest involved customers. Nearly three-quarters cited increased visitor engagement as a main benefit from real-time personalization, and 54% also said it improved the customer experience. On the dollar side, users reported increased conversion rates, lead generation and ecommerce revenues.
Improvement/Lift in Conversions from Real-Time* Personalization Efforts According to Marketers Worldwide, April 2015 (% of respondents)
Positive real-time marketing return on investment is boosting spending, and Evergage respondents using real-time personalization had indeed seen good results. Fully 37% saw a 1% to 10% improvement in conversions due to such efforts, and 39% had seen a lift between 11% and 30%. It makes sense, then, that nearly 50% of respondents intended to increase their personalization budget this year.