Chapter 5: Inspiration for testing and personalization activities.

These testing and personalization ideas, inspired by real activities run by our customers that have lifted conversion rates and revenue, are worth giving a try or using as inspiration for your own Target activities. Even if the idea isn’t an exact fit for your organization, with a little creativity and brainstorming, consider developing an activity based on the spirit of the test or personalization idea.

Idea 1: Test customer journey personalization.

Increase conversion rate and revenue by creating a tailored creative journey and branding experience that resonates with website visitors while meeting business goals. Then test that personalized journey by comparing it against static experiences or randomly delivered experiences. Take personalization a level deeper by discovering and creating the audiences you personalize to using second- and third-party data in Adobe Audience Manager.

After identifying those audiences, conduct user experience testing and market research to learn what convinces them to respond, and develop the experiences you target them within their journey accordingly.

For example, when a visitor who falls into a “serious gamer” audience for a telecommunications company visits the company’s website, deliver an experience that includes copy and imagery that resonates with gamers and an offer for high- speed internet.

Idea 2: Target first-time visitors and repeat customers differently.

Digital marketers intuitively recognize that existing customers are more valuable than new ones, but they too often fail to prioritize marketing programs designed to keep customers coming back. To avoid this common pitfall, analyze your repeat customer metrics to determine how loyal customers behave on your site. Use these insights to create targeted campaigns for visitors with one or two purchases, offering incentives that encourage them to make additional site visits.

Idea 3: Test website design.

Run several tests of your website design to increase user conversion and engagement. First look at the key actions visitors are trying to perform and test things like different placement of Call to Actions (CTAs) and different CTA button colors that might make it easier for them to complete those actions.

Consider simplifying your design by removing certain elements completely from your website. For example, test removing the traditional left or right hand product category list on your homepage (and other pages) and let customers rely on search to find products. If that change makes no measurable impact on conversions, remove the navigation and free up real estate for design elements that might prompt even higher engagement and conversions.

Idea 4: Improve conversion from search with targeted content.

Prospects engaged in searching your site provide some of your most qualified site traffic. The more targeted and relevant the content is on the search results page, the more likely that prospects will convert.

Consider providing additional contextual information directly on search thumbnails. Using targeted sticker bursts, such as discounts, inventory availability, sizes, or colors, you can help consumers quickly find the information they need to make purchase decisions and take action.

Idea 5: Reduce the number of touches required to convert.

Understand the business goals and KPIs you’re trying to drive toward with your mobile efforts. Then design the mobile experience to offer customers the path of least resistance to achieving those goals. Conversion should occur within three touches, but aim for reducing that to two touches if at all possible.

Idea 6: Don’t lead visitors to a dead end.

If visitors who are referred to you from Google get sent to content that is expired or out of stock, re-engage them by using recommendations to offer them another opportunity to make a purchase.

For example, include recommendations on a product detail page to show visitors who saw an out-of-stock product similar, personalized recommendations or recently viewed items based on their in-session visitor behavior and category affinity. Users can view these in a single click, which gives you another opportunity to engage them on your website or for them to make a purchase.

Idea 7: Incorporate behavior economic tactics in your tests.

Think about the paradox of choice when running A/B tests and run a few experiences with different numbers of options. For example, reduce the number of subscription options and see if that increases overall subscriptions.

Maybe just change the order of options to choose from when customers want to take action. For example, if you have different pricing models listed next to each other, list product price options from lower value rates to higher value or vice versa, and measure the effect of each option.

Idea 8: Promote your mobile app on your website.

If your company is spending resources to develop a mobile app for iOS, Android, or other devices, don’t just sit back and hope users will stumble on your app within the app store. Instead, have a sound strategy in place for how to promote it. Test different approaches to drive app downloads and usage. If your non-mobile site has a link to download your app, try testing the effectiveness of an interstitial landing page that explicitly promotes your app when visitors arrive on your home page. Set up a redirect test that filters half your mobile traffic to your current site page and the other half to the interstitial landing page.

Idea 9: Use mobile app innovations.

Explore aspects of the smartphone beyond geolocation, such as the accelerometer or gyroscope. For example, test an experience that uses the accelerometer to add a displayed item to a shopping cart by shaking the phone. Even test it to users of different brands of devices, like iOS versus Android to see if their response differs. Such tests let you uncover new visitor behavior to consider using in future tests.

Keep in mind

Consider the following ideas before we move on to the next chapter: “Easily avoidable pitfalls.”

Test duration best practices