A detailed look at creating website user personas, site personalization and real world implementation considerations.

1. Delivering on the Potential
of Personalization
Randy Woods | Amanda Shiga
non~linear creations
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Las Vegas
Melbourne

2. What We’ll Say
•
•
•
•
•
Personalization capabilities in context
Knowing your visitor
Building your rules
Real world implementation considerations
Questions and answers
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Melbourne

3. Amanda Shiga
Director, Websites and
Digital Marketing
Sitecore MVP
@amandashiga
ashiga@nonlinearcreations
.com
+16477762658
Amsterdam
Las Vegas
Melbourne

4. Randy Woods
President of NLC
@randywoods
rwoods@nonlinecreations.
com
+16136910978
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Melbourne

5. And You?
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6. Section one
PERSONALIZATION IS EVIL
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7. Amsterdam
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8. Much of the Web’s future will come from
delivering individualized experiences
Josh Bernhoff, Forrester Analyst
May, 1996
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9. Amsterdam
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10. Amsterdam
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11. At its best, personalization is motivated by
a desire to make human connections on a
non-human scale
Randy Woods
Just now
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12. •
•
•
•
•
KPIs should be viewed as
positive byproducts of this
intent
Increased conversion rate
Increased subscriptions
Improved click-throughs
Higher average revenue per basket
Shortened sales cycle
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13. Why Should We Care?
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14. Here’s Why: A Cautionary
Tale
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15. Six lawsuits; state
investigations
In 3 days DoubleClick's
stock experienced a 20point loss
A $1.2 billion loss
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16. But that can’t happen now,
right?
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17. But We’re Not Facebook
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18. You need to derive personalization rules in
the same way that we interact in the real
world – from insight into the needs of your
visitor
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19. KNOWING YOUR CUSTOMERS
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20. You are NOT your visitor
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21. You are not your visitors
• Personas:
– Archetypes who
represent a group
• Useful for building
personalization
rules but have
specific limitations
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22. Amsterdam
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23. Personas and Types of
Personalization
Implicit Personalization
• The visitor has not selfidentified
• Rules are based on what
you can observe about
the visitor
Explicit Personalization
• Visitor has made contact
and provided information
• Rules are based on what
visitor has told you:
– “Digital finger print”
– “Digital body language”
– Title
– Gender
– Previous purchases
Buying Cycle
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24. For implicit personalization, personas
matter only in so far as they can be
discriminated from each other based on
the content the visitor views
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25. Developing and Validating
Personas
1
Identify Ad Hoc
Personas
2
Collect User
Data
Amsterdam
3
Analysis
4
Review and
Prioritization
Las Vegas
5
Flesh our
Personas
6
Communicate
to Organization
Melbourne
2

26. Analytic
Data
Conceived
Personas
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27. BUILDING AND EVALUATING
YOUR RULES
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28. 72 Dimensions
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29. Amsterdam
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30. The “Buying” Cycle –
Personas in Time
Basic
Information
Gathering
Narrowing
Scope
Validating
Understanding
Close
Amsterdam
Detailed
Information
Gathering
Negotiating
Selecting a
Contender
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Melbourne

31. Map the Buying Cycle
How do these software- as- aservice (Saas) products
compare to the on- premises
solutions?
Our HR management system
is down again. There must be
something better out there.
Basic
Information
Gathering
Wow. That took longer than
pected. I’m glad we’re finally
live
Detailed
Information
Gathering
Narrowing
Scope
Validating
Understanding
Close
Negotiating
Selecting a
Contender
Now I just need to get finance
involved. Oh, and IT to
decommission the old system.
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Can these three SaaS HR
solutions meet our needs?
What do they cost? How stable
are they?
Las Vegas
What do the
analysts think
of HRXonline? What
do current
users think?
The pricing the sales person
gave me seems okay. And the
special only runs until end of
quarter
Melbourne
3

32. The “Buying” Cycle:
The Implicit > Explicit
Transition
Basic
Information
Gathering
Narrowing
Scope
Validating
Understanding
Close
Amsterdam
Detailed
Information
Gathering
Negotiating
Selecting a
Contender
Las Vegas
Melbourne

33. The Handoff
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34. Personalization Paradox
Social
interactions
Etc.
Gender
Previous
purchases
Accuracy of
Content Persona match
Geography Viewed
Search Term Clickstream
Company
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35. Building Personalization
Rules
Analytics
Persona +
Buying
Cycle Stage
= Interest
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Content
you
believe will
move cycle
forward
Melbourne

36. Evaluating Success of
Personalization Rules
6.00%
5.00%
4.00%
3.00%
2.00%
1.00%
0.00%
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7 Month 8
Persona A Control
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Persona A Rule 1
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Persona A Rule 2
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37. Evaluating Success of
Personalization Rules
• Key question – does a given personalization rule
increase or decrease business outcomes for a
specific persona?
• You need to establish a baseline for each persona
• Custom queries can help you answer this
question; the upcoming release of OLAP
capabilities will make this simpler
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38. Personalization is not always the answer
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39. Three Times You Don’t Need
Personalization
You are generating lots of names for sales – but few
qualified leads:
• Engagement Plan and Lead Scoring
Conversion rates are very low and you don’t know why:
• A|B or Multivariate Testing
You don’t understand your visitors or you can’t measure
the success of the personalization rules you make:
• Engagement Analytics
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40. REAL WORLD IMPLEMENTATION
CONSIDERATIONS
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41. 2 key implementation
considerations
• Start simple, and stay tightly focused on
highest value campaigns
• Be strategic as your users evolve from
strangers to real people
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42. Keep it simple
Strategic planning
Rules management
Content variations
Content profiling
Measurement
mechanisms
Quality assurance
Impact on build
Analyze & optimize
Strategic planning Rules management Content variations
Content profiling
Strategic planning Rules management Content variations
Content profiling
Strategic planning Rules management Content variations
Content profiling
Strategic planning Rules management Content variations
Content profiling
Measurement
Quality assurance
Impact on build
Analyze & optimize
Measurement
mechanisms
Quality assurance
Impact on build
Analyze & optimize
Measurement
mechanisms
Quality assurance
Impact on build
Analyze & optimize
Measurement
mechanisms
Quality assurance
Impact on build
Analyze & optimize
mechanisms
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43. What’s manageable?
• Personalization is complex
– Needs marketing attention, time, energy and
dollars
• You have a good chance at early success
if you:
– Begin simply and target an important
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objective

44. A simple example
• Establish a baseline so you can measure
success
• Select a discrete, important goal and
segment
– Corporate priority is increased membership.
– “We would like more beginner kite-flyers in
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45. A simple example
• Identify where in the buying cycle
personalization will be most effective
– Inspect profiled content and your buying cycle
– Start with just a few components
– Document your personalization plan
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46. A simple example
• Beginner kite flyers in Nevada:
– Geo-IP lookup
– Browsing behaviour focused on content
targeted to beginners.
• “How to fly a kite”
• “Different types of kites”
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47. Best positioned to
influence…
Basic
Information
Gathering
Narrowing
Scope
Validating
Understanding
Close
Amsterdam
Detailed
Information
Gathering
Negotiating
Selecting a
Contender
Las Vegas
Melbourne

48. A couple of good ideas…
• “Interested in learning more about kiteflying?” message in the right-hand rail,
promoting membership benefits
• A personalized “Join Now” call to action
displayed in the header, promoting local
Nevada chapters
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49. Analyze and optimize
• Evaluate membership conversions against
baseline
• Use DMS goals to determine success of a
rule
• Eliminate rules that are not effective
• Examine behaviours and clickstream of
visits resulting in conversion
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50. Content architecture matters
Be strategic
• Plan for growth and multiple campaigns
• Understand how components will be re-used across the
site
• Plan for WHO will create and maintain both the rules and
variations
• Consider where and how the variations will be stored
• Multiple ways to approach this - do not underestimate.
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51. Be strategic as your users evolve
from strangers to real people
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52. We were all strangers,
once…
Anonymous
visitor
Amsterdam
Building a
profile
Conversion to
known user
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53. One view of the customer
• Implicit: beginner kite flyer from Nevada
who searched for “kite flying lessons”
• Explicit: association member
Name
Age
member
Gende
r
Amsterdam
Skill
level
Las Vegas
Groups
Interests
Melbourne

54. The opportunity
• Leverage known user characteristics (by extending the
user profile) and…
• Actions that continue to be taken on the site
– increase of engagement value or specific conversions
– pattern matching to multiple personas
Where user profile “skill level” field is equal to “intermediate”
And where the Engagement Value Points is greater than 200
And where the current visit matches the “Mike” pattern card in the “Personas” profile
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55. The challenge
• One user profile
• (Potentially) multiple browsing sessions
• Achieving “one view of the customer” can
be difficult
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56. The challenge
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57. Some suggestions
• Do your visitors spend significant time
logged in?
– Place a value on browsing behavior that
occurs anonymously vs. not
• Consider limiting your personalization
rules to what is known within one session
• Consider updating the user profile
explicitly with behavioural characteristics
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58. Don’t be creepy
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59. Don’t be “that guy”
•
•
•
•
Play it cool
Don’t move too fast
Nobody likes a stalker
A two-way conversation
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60. Be careful of assumptions
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61. •
•
•
•
•
~40 Sitecore deployments
150+ CMS deployments
2 Sitecore MVPs
Multiple Sitecore site of the year winners
80+ team members in offices across the US, Canada
and Brazil
• Our strategic services team has been helping clients
execute DMS-type campaigns since 1999
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62. QUESTIONS AND (IDEALLY)
ANSWERS
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63. Feedback Appreciated!
Please take a moment to provide
session feedback via the mobile site.
http://www.sitecore.net/SymNA
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