Whether you’ve heard the buzz or are actively customizing experiences for your site visitors, knowing what tactics and concepts to incorporate into your site designs and builds can set you up for success. In this session, we’ll cover best practices around modular design, user messaging, content structure, taxonomy, and site setup.

1. 10 IDEAS FOR
PERSONALIZATION
Jon Meck, VP of Marketing
jon.meck@bounteous.com

2. 2Proprietary & Confidential
Jon Meck
VP of Marketing, Bounteous
Twitter - @jmeck
Dad, Digital Tinkerer,
Concert-goer,
Marketing, Analytics & Data,
Google Sheets is amazing,
Breakfast is worst meal,
Tacos are overrated,
I make number puzzles.
NineFind.com

3. We create big-picture digital
solutions that help leading
organizations deliver
transformational brand experiences.
WHAT WE DO

4. Ensuring the smooth flow of data,
insights and interactions across
the digital brand experience.
This is hard to do, but is essential to drive transformative results.
HOW WE DO IT

5. PERSONALIZATION
EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

7. I’m not here to tell you that you should
start doing personalization today.
SO LET’S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE
I’m not here to tell you that you should
start doing personalization today.

8. If you design & build thoughtfully,
personalization will be easier when
you’re ready.
WHAT I AM SAYING

9. 9
01
Personalization can
start small and scale
with investments in
time and tech.

10. 10Proprietary & Confidential
Sites with a lot of traffic
Sites with a lot of content
eCommerce Sites
Sites that are using marketing channels
Sites with repeat visitors
And many more….
PERSONALIZATION IS GREAT FOR…

11. 11Proprietary & Confidential
TYPES OF PERSONALIZATION
Rule-Based Predictive
Segments
Hyper-
Personalized

12. You can start personalization with
just one segment.

13. 13
02
Design today for
personalization
tomorrow.

14. If you knew everything about an
individual, how would you change
that person’s experience?

15. 15Proprietary & Confidential
Hide the wrong
information
Show better, relevant
information
Make the right
recommendation
Simplify the
experience
Incorporate
preferences
Send the best right-
now message
IF YOU HAD PERFECT INFORMATION…

16. We can design and build
aspirational for more items than
we’ll have at launch.

17. 17
03
Modular design
allows flexibility and
reuse.

18. 18Proprietary & Confidential
Your designs need to look great, yes, but also be able to adapt as the
experience changes.
• Will the page still look great without this component?
• Can this component move to another page? Place on page?
• What’s another way to show the same content?
• Do I have flexibility with imagery or text?
EMBRACE FLEXIBLE DESIGN PRINCIPLES

19. 19Proprietary & Confidential
ATOMIC DESIGN BY BRAD FROST

20. 20Proprietary & Confidential
Build on the atomic design principles. Your modules should:
•Be Reusable
•Self-Contained
•Customizable
MODULAR DESIGN ALLOWS FOR REUSE

21. 21
04
Make it dumb first,
then make it better.

22. 22Proprietary & Confidential
Personalization can
begin at the very
earliest stages of
web development.
Welcome, human.
Welcome, desktop user.
Welcome, Chicago visitor.
Welcome, customer.
Welcome, email subscriber.
Welcome, “Drupal” fan.
Welcome, Jon Meck.
PERSONALIZATION CAN SCALE

23. 23Proprietary & Confidential
You can set the groundwork for future personalization by including elements
that could be made smarter, at some point in the indeterminate future.
• Greetings, Updates, & Message Boxes
• Recommended or Related Modules
• Current Promotions
MAKE IT MANUAL AND DUMB…. THEN MAKE IT BETTER

24. 24Proprietary & Confidential
EXAMPLES OF ADDING CONTENT
Breaking News Strip
Overlay / Modal / Flyout
Embedded
Content

25. 25Proprietary & Confidential
Flyouts
How can I add information to the site
EXAMPLES OF ADDING CONTENT

26. 26
05
Build it better the
first time

27. Let’s assume that, while we don’t know
everything about everyone, we can learn
some things about some people.

28. 28Proprietary & Confidential
Build a site that gives control to the
content creators and the marketing team
without letting them break everything.
• Customizing existing modules = No Dev
• Tweaks to site layout = No Dev
• Colors/text/hide and show = No Dev
• New components/modules/layouts = Dev
DEV TEAMS EMPOWER THE MARKETING TEAMS

29. 29Proprietary & Confidential
WHEN THE SITE IS DEVELOPED

30. 30Proprietary & Confidential
AFTER MARKETING GETS CONTROL

31. 31
06
Hand over control
of what, when,
where, and why.

33. For personalization to be successful,
the stakeholders need to develop a fast
and flexible cadence.
*THAT MEANS, WE CAN’T ALWAYS CALL THE DEV TEAM

34. 34
07
Follow best practice
to help the next
person down the
road.

35. 35Proprietary & Confidential
Whether it’s the client, a marketing team, a new agency – creating or following best
practices for naming conventions goes a long way.
• IDs should be unique
• Class Names should be human-readable
BUILD FOR THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

36. 36Proprietary & Confidential
There are standards for data
layers depending on which
“family” of products you’re in.
• Add relevant information to the
page
• Consider User, Session, Page
information
• Expose more information than you
think you need to
BE FRIENDLY WITH OTHER TOOLS

37. 37Proprietary & Confidential
There are number of unique challenges when it comes to
setting up personalization.
•Flicker and asset loading
•QA and Process questions
•Team makeup
BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT PERSONALIZATION CHALLENGES

38. 38
08
Tag content as you
create it.

39. What do I know about the pages
and content on my site?

40. 40Proprietary & Confidential
Taxonomy is used to classify website content.
Overuse tagging structure to help create stronger
content and communicate substance and intent to
future personalization efforts.
MAKE USE OF TAXONOMY

41. 41Proprietary & Confidential
Use Tags or Keywords.
Consider the difference between themes vs products or specific mentions. Make sure
your taxonomy supports both, or separate.
Themes: “Personalization”, “Design”, “Development”
Products: “Acquia Lift”, “Drupal”
WHAT IS THIS CONTENT ABOUT?

42. 42Proprietary & Confidential
Persona or Audience.
As your content authors to tag their content with appropriate tags. Was it written for
the C-Suite? Practitioners? Men or women? Customers or Guests?
Audience: “Marketing”, “Developers”, “C-Suite”
Persona: “Soccer Mom”, “Decision Maker”
WHO IS THIS CONTENT FOR?

43. 43Proprietary & Confidential
Section of site or content type.
Understanding what type of content or where it’s located can help with scoring and
classification. This is often already listed, need to make available to other tools.
Content Type: “Service Page”, “Blog Post”
Site Section: “Services”, “Case Studies”
WHERE TYPE OF CONTENT IS?

44. 44Proprietary & Confidential
• Force tough conversations about
what is important
• Track into various tools
• Understand the “most valuable
users” by looking at engagement
score
• Quantify people “moving up” or
“moving down”
CONTENT SCORING
Quantify the value of a page by assigning relative scores or point values.

45. 45
09
Confirm your gut
with measurement.

46. “What should I personalize?”

47. “How big is my target audience?”

48. “Did it work?”

49. 49Proprietary & Confidential
GOOGLE ANALYTICS IS YOUR FRIEND!

50. 50Proprietary & Confidential
Personalization requires extra knowledge about a visitor.
That can come from:
• Technical observations
• Behavior from repeat visits
• Campaign targeting
Qualify the opportunity for easier executive buy-in and prioritization.
QUANTIFY EVERYTHING YOU CAN

51. 51
10
Start small, but start
soon.

52. 52Proprietary & Confidential
Sites with a lot of traffic
Sites with a lot of content
eCommerce Sites
Sites that are using marketing channels
Sites with repeat visitors
And many more….
PERSONALIZATION IS GREAT FOR…

53. 53Proprietary & Confidential
When considering what to personalize, or what to test, consider the following:
• Fix Problems First - Identify painpoints using analytics, qualitative research, user testing, or
more.
• Follow the Money - Where are you spending marketing dollars? How can the onsite
experience improve conversions?
• Improve Experiences - Where can user experience be enhanced? How can you be more
relevant? What can you anticipate?
TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED

54. 54Proprietary & Confidential
If you’re not talking about personalization, why not?
CONSIDER PERSONALIZATION

55. Design, Build, Architect
Thoughtfully.