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L O O K B O O K

Success strategies to optimize the onsite shopping experience

THE ECOMMERCE GUIDE FOR MARKET LEADERS

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experience for your customers. The insights in

this guide focus on the 5 most critical stages

of the customer journey:

• Awareness

• Consideration

• Decision

• Purchase

• Post-Purchase

AWARENESSCONSIDERATION

DECISIONPURCHASE

POST-PURCHASE

Introduction

The ecommerce industry continues to grow

and is expected to increase to 16% of all

sales in 2020. But the same way that online

retailers are experiencing this positive growth,

consumer expectations also continue to rise.

Your customers are no longer happy receiving

some level of personalization onsite. They

expect their experience to carry on to other

shopping channels. They demand completely

relevant interactions that save them both time

and effort. Any retailer who

delivers less than this is at risk

of losing customers to their

competitors.

In this guide, we’ve joined

forces with fellow ecommerce

experts Loop54 and Voyado to

reveal the most impactful ways

you can stay ahead of industry

expectations and completely

optimize the shopping

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AWARENESS

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Personalize the entire homepage experience

Did you know that it takes your visitors 50

milliseconds to decide whether or not they

like your website? This means that their first

impression onsite makes a critical impact

on whether they’ll make a purchase or shop

elsewhere. This is important for new customers—

but also equally important for returning visitors.

The goal of your homepage should be to get

the visitor to click onto other pages, continuing

their journey, and eventually to complete a

purchase. The key for this is a personalized

homepage that shows relevant content.

A returning visitor, whose brand and product

affinities you know, should encounter a home

page highlighting relevant products that

correspond to their known interests, especially

new product releases. Likewise, even a first

time visitor to your home page should be

receiving a personalized experience

based off the information you do

have. For example, customers can

be divided into different segments

depending on what channel

the customer used to reach the

website. By utilizing UTM tagging

online retailers can track different

campaigns and channels using

analytic tools like google analytics.

Once you understand where your

traffic is coming from, you can

personalize your store’s homepage

to reflect content that your

shoppers are most interested in

seeing based on where they came

from. Furthermore, since you don’t know much

about first-time visitors, you can also highlight

what’s popular with “bestsellers” or “trending

in your area” suggestions.

https://hoyer.no/dame/

PRO TIP: Target repeat shoppers by creating

personalized homepage banner campaigns that

speak to the categories they shop for most.

Build brand trust with social proof

Social proof is a powerful persuasion tool

that can make or break a shopper’s decision

to make a purchase. The psychological

phenomenon by which people begin to

copy the behavior and opinions of others—

especially shoppers who share their positive

experience with your brand— can be leveraged

to give reluctant shoppers the final nudge

to complete their purchase. One of the most

effective ways to provide social proof is user

generated content (UGC). UGC is viewed

as 2.4x more authentic than brand created

content.1 Integrating satisfied customers’

content into your website and social media

channels not only encourages hesitant

shoppers to buy, but also increases the loyalty

of the users who feel heard by the brand when

their content is reposted. But, a golden rule

in leveraging UGC: always remember to get

permission first!

UGC is especially useful for less well-

known brands: it allows the retailer

to showcase the positive experiences

prior customers have had to those who

are browsing for the first time. 70%

of consumers trust online reviews,

whereas only 40% trust ads found in

search engine results. One particularly

potent way of utilizing social trust is

to include ratings in your personalized

product recommendations. Also, include

reviews of your store in search engine

ads so that new visitors enter your site

with some level of confidence.

PRO TIP: It can be quite time

consuming to create new content

for your social channels. Use UGC to

expand your content library.

1 www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190220005302/en/Stackla-Survey-Reveals-Disconnect-Content-Consumers-Marketers

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Use Facebook Lookalike Audiences to attract like-minded shoppers

When it comes to attracting new customers,

there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Through behavioral and contextual data, you

already know which of your customers are

attracted to certain products; this can be used

to target and attract like-minded consumers.

For example, if your goal is to increase the

sale of tennis products for women, do some

digging to find out more about who already

buys tennis products from you. Where do they

• Article group = Tennis

• Purchase date = Last 3 months

• Product of Interest = Tennis

The returned search results are your already

profitable female tennis shoppers. So why

do you need it? You can sync the segment in

Voyado with Facebook Customer Audiences

to find “lookalikes” – contacts that have similar

traits and behavior to your current customers

but haven’t made a purchase yet.

Target your social media ads to your new

lookalike audience along with your already

profitable customers, but don’t forget to

exclude those who have already purchased

the item. Highly segmented lists get your

marketing to the right audience every time,

and thanks to the Facebook lookalike sync,

you are now able to reach more potential

customers than ever before.

live? What other products do they buy from

you? When was their last purchase? Filter

down as much as you can until you’ve found

your defined target audience.

In this example, that audience would

look like this:

• Women

• Age = Between 25-55

• CLV = Over €500

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Target your social media ads to your

new lookalike audience

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CONSIDERATION

Target customers in research with on-site personalization

Customers in the consideration phase are in

research mode. When browsing a site, mobile

or desktop, they have an exploratory behavior

and they need to be exposed to the kind of

products they are looking for - automatically.

Some customers use the on-site search

with broad and general search queries such

as product types or brands, others use the

category navigation to get an understanding

of what kind of products the current site is

offering. Today’s AI solutions can understand

the in-session product intent of the customer

and change the search results and order

of the category listings to reflect what the

customer’s current intent is. Together with

historical preferences of for instance pricing

sensitivity and brand inclination the site makes

sure to show them the best choices they have

on offer currently, for that particular customer.

For example, a customer previously bought

Nike running shoes and tights, but showed a

higher price sensitivity. When the customer

returns the next time with a different intent,

for example looking at running shirts, the site

remembers the preferences and Nike shirts

within a price range that fits the customer

preference are ranked higher in the results.

And if the customer’s preferences change

over time, so does the sorting to reflect these

changes. If a site, on the other hand, is not

personalized and shows the same general

selection of products to every customer, it’s

easy to lose the sale to a competitor that

shows more relevant products.

Site-search plays an even more vital role in

m-commerce. Navigating through thousands

of products on mobile isn‘t as easy as it is on

desktop – there‘s only so much you can fit

on a 5 inch screen – which is why users tend

to reach for the search bar when shopping

on mobile sites. It‘s crucial that your site-

search experience is smart enough to deliver

perfectly matched results, fast - regardless of

the taxonomy used or the spelling mistakes

that often result from chubby thumbs typing

on small keyboards.

Better product search goes hand-in-hand with

improved User Experience, website/app speed

and a seamless checkout. So when it comes

to m-commerce, product search may be the

opening act, but it isn‘t a one person show.

A fashion retailer that realized the importance

of m-commerce is Bubbleroom. They noticed

their customer base becoming increasingly

social and mobile, while at the same time

the gap between mobile and desktop

conversion rates was growing. Bubbleroom

invested in overhauling their mobile presence,

with Loop54’s search solution being a key

component of their success. As a result,

mobile conversion rates increased 12%,

and conversion rate from visits with search

specifically increased by 18%.

Maximize mobile to increase brand visibility

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Better product search goes hand-in-hand with improved

User Experience

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Automated personalized category merchandising

In another lifetime merchandising was only

about the placement of the product on

the shelf or the outfit on the mannequin.

Merchandisers factored in lighting, distance,

and music when considering how to create

an atmosphere that makes consumers

want to buy. As retail moved online, so did

merchandising.

Traditional online merchandising mimicked the

store environment by optimizing the display

of top sellers, current trends, as well as high

margin products and special promotions, often

through manually sorting products with drag

and drop functions. However, clever category

merchandising goes beyond the display of top

sellers and trends and can offer customers a

truly personalized experience. Why have the

same experience for everyone, when we know

that every customer is different?

Like a shop assistant in a physical store, online

merchandising needs to present the customer

with the most relevant products available

according to their preferences and current

intent, while at the same time highlighting new

arrivals, special promotions and high margin

products on behalf of the retailer.

Machine learning technology can self-optimize

your category merchandising by automatically

ranking products according to a combination

of general popularity, personal preferences,

in-session intent, as well as business logic that

ensures you can give products a boost without

compromising on relevancy for the shopper.

PRO TIP: Do you have products that are

best-sellers in-store, but don’t perform well

online? Boosting the product through business

logic can help improve visibility, but before

doing so you should also consider other

factors that might impact the performance.

Does the product have strong imagery and

a comprehensive description? Can you

highlight the product in a different way, for

example through reviews and ratings, or user-

generated content?

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DECISION

Caring through the whole customer journey

If a person has taken an interest in your brand,

it’s time to do whatever it takes to keep

them interested. When a customer becomes

a member, usually after their first purchase,

it’s time to give them the best on-boarding

process possible. The more time that passes

after becoming a member the less likely the

customer is to buy. Set up an on-boarding

marketing automation to welcome new

members in stages. Start off by talking about

your brand values, show creative content

explaining your brand, what they can expect

from your loyalty program and more. If it’s

part of your strategy, send offers to customers

who haven’t engaged with you in a while to

try to get them to come into your store or visit

your website, with reminders for those who

don’t open or use their offers.

Along the customer journey, you will get to

know more and more about your customers.

It is pivotal that you use this data to improve

the customer journey at every step. The

information provided at sign up (address,

age, relationship status, etc.) is just the

first step in many and only the beginning

of your customer relationship. After that

the information increases with

every open, click, product view,

purchase and more. This is when

segmentation becomes crucial

in succeeding with conversion.

Show product recommendations

to the right audience whom you

know have taken an interest in

similar items before. Use the filter

function when creating emails in

Voyado to only show products

relevant to each customer, without

having to spend time creating

several, similar emails. Equally as

important as showing product

recommendations your customer

finds relevant, is not showing

products to a customer that has recently

bought it, especially if it goes on sale!

Exclude them from seeing the item in your

emails and in ads on social media.

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Deploy strong on-site search with learning capabilities

When the customer has reached the decision

stage they have narrowed down the number

of alternatives to a small set and generally

don’t have an exploratory behavior anymore.

They have an idea of what they are looking

for and are already a step ahead in the

customer journey than someone browsing

for inspiration. Customers in this stage

have a much higher propensity to use the

on-site search. Hence it is no surprise that

customers using the search function are on

average twice as likely to convert than non-

searching customers. Findability is therefore

key, because shoppers cannot buy what they

cannot find, and you are really just leaving

money on the table here.

A known challenge is that customers often do

not use the exact words you use to describe

a product. Therefore the search function

needs to go beyond text matching and be

able to understand and learn misspellings,

plural forms and synonyms. However, setting

up synonyms and tagging products can be

time-consuming and hard to keep up with,

especially in fast-moving fashion, where

inventories can change up to several times

a week. Instead of relying on text matching

and manually set up

synonyms, advanced

search algorithms like

Loop54 understand the

relationship between

products instead and

continue learning new

expressions for and

connections between

products the more users

interact with them, making

manual upkeep obsolete.

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Leverage dynamic faceted filters

Filters and faceted navigation perfectly

complement the rest of your site-search and

category listing functionality.

Filters use one single criterion for visitors to

refine search results or category listings, and

are often used as a pre-set list of products, for

example, “Sale” or “New Arrivals”. Facets are

a subset of filtering and allow users to narrow

results within the list by several different

dimensions simultaneously. They help visitors

quickly refine their options without ending up

scrolling through page after page of irrelevant

products.

Faceted filters also improve the customer

experience by removing your shopper’s

keyword responsibilities. For those who

aren‘t sure what they want, it outlines some

of the attributes they might want to consider,

while for those who do, it narrows by what‘s

important, without limiting their choice to

exactly one item.

However, poor implementation of faceted filters

can lead to the opposite, creating frustration

for customers and often leading them to

abandon the purchase altogether. Imagine you

are searching for a sweater, and the first filter

to narrow your search is shoe size.

It is therefore important to use dynamic

faceting to ensure the right and logical filters

are available. Dynamic facets change in real-

time as the user interacts with search results

or category listings, automatically removing

irrelevant filter options and updating

filters to reflect the attributes of

remaining search results. When new

filters become more relevant based on

user actions, they automatically appear.

Also, by only showing facets which

have results in them, you can also

ensure your shoppers never find

themselves in a situation where there

are no products available.

PRO-TIP: Faceted

filters can create

many pages with

similar content, and

therefore influence

SEO performance. However, different solutions

are available depending on your website

setup, so make sure to talk to your SEO team

before implementing faceted navigation

to make sure you can offer a great user

experience without compromising traffic.

Increase cross-sell potential with dynamic bundling

Cross-selling is an ecommerce must-do

for retailers. It increases order values and

moves inventory. One aspect of cross-selling

retailers often neglect is the checkout page.

Getting a customer to the checkout page is

the toughest part, so don’t leave any euros

on the table. Optimize your checkout page

by increasing their impulse purchases. Use

crowd logic to make “other customers bought”

recommendations. Another grand idea is

offering budget options and accessories, such

as batteries for electronics purchases.

It must be said however that a lot of retailers

are missing out on the opportunity to optimize

their cross-selling through the means of

dynamic bundling. Dynamic bundling allows

you to create product categories (such as

tops, bottoms, shoes) and then, using machine

learning, artificial intelligence predicts which

combination of the products in each category

sells best together. Many retailers already

have manual bundle creation, but this is time

consuming and what mix of products sells best

together isn’t always intuitive, meaning that

without dynamic bundling you

could both be wasting a valuable

resource, your employees’ time in

creating manual bundles, as well

as achieving suboptimal results

through non-optimized bundles.

PRO TIP: You can customize

your product recommendation

settings so that when a customer is

looking at an item, the only similar

items that are shown are at least

of a similar price, thereby subtly

suggesting to the customer that he

is getting a good deal.

Source: https://www.brothers.se/ew-spike-oxford-shirt-qr

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PURCHASE

Reduce exit intent using enticing offers and targeted content

The worst case scenario is happening: the

customer is leaving your site without having

made a purchase. In the war against lost sales,

pop-ups are one powerful tool in your arsenal

of conversion. Retailers who use Nosto’s

pop-ups even see an average increase in the

conversion rate of 42%.

There’s a variety of ways to use pop-ups to get

website visitors back to shopping depending

on your strategy. One effective tactic is to ask

for their email to send them their abandoned

shopping cart as a wish list. Another is to ask

for their email to continue sending them great

deals. In this same direction, you can also offer

to send a time-limited discount if they provide

their email. Many retailers see a great deal of

success in converting, especially with this last

tactic.

Furthermore, you can re-target customers

on Facebook and Instagram with ads.

Customers that have already placed items

in their shopping cart or have shown a large

amount of interest in your brand provide

ample opportunity to achieve a great return

on ad spending (ROAS). One of our clients,

Stonefactory, achieved a 68X ROAS for

example. Remind them of the items in their

shopping carts.

PRO TIP: Use personalized product

recommendations in your pop-ups. Remind

them of what they were interested in or what

they’re leaving behind in their cart.

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Remove barriers to purchase at checkout

The customer is finally at the checkout page,

where the magic happens. You now only have

two goals: removing the barriers to purchase

and increasing the average order value.

To make the conversion as likely as possible,

there are a few steps to take. First of all,

make sure the order summary is as clear as

possible and has all the information (size,

color, etc.) that the customer wants to know.

Be transparent with both the shipping costs

as well as the delivery dates. Make sure the

customer feels secure in making a payment.

13% of shoppers abandon carts due to security

concerns. Also, utilize multiple CTA buttons

so that the customer doesn’t have to scroll to

the top or bottom of the page to complete the

checkout. Lastly, if you’re offering discounts or

free shipping, highlight it! Make the customer

feel like he or she is getting a great deal.

Incentivize greater spending by not only

telling shoppers about free shipping, but

telling them exactly how much they need

to spend to get it and showing them the

products that would get them there.

PRO TIP: Customers don’t spend the

majority of their time online on your

site, so extending your personalized

experiences into third-party environments

can help ensure they think about you even

when they aren’t doing so all on their own.

By using onsite behavior to segment

shoppers and reach out to them via

their email inbox, Facebook feed, or

even through Google’s ad network,

retailers can ensure the content

they’re using for campaigns across

multiple channels is relevant as

well as easily available.

Make the customer feel like he or she is

getting a great deal.

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POST PURCHASE

Encourage additional purchases using marketing automation

Marketing automation is helpful in every

step of the customer journey, and perhaps

especially around the purchase stage. An

average of 75% of all items are left in the

carts without a completed purchase. Sending

abandoned cart emails is an effective way to

convert them into a sale.

Automation is equally as important after a

purchase and can lead to additional purchases

and a stronger relationship with your

customer. Transactional emails are historically

boring but necessary emails sent to everyone

after a purchase. Transaction emails are

usually the emails with the highest open rates

so don’t miss an up-sell opportunity by adding

some accessories or matching products here.

Including product recommendations in your

transactional emails get eight times more

clicks and increases conversion by 20%.

If you have “soft login” set up, a customer

that clicks on a transactional email would

automatically get logged in to the website.

That way the personal experience continues

on the website.

Follow up on your sales with an automation

to build loyalty. Guides on how to use the

product to make it last, when it’s time for

a repair or an upgrade. Did your customer

just buy a tennis racket? Start the follow up

automation with a guide on how to use it to

make it last. After three months, send an email

asking if it’s time to buy some new tennis

balls or shoes. When it’s time for a re-string

or repair after a year

or two you can send a

reminder for this along

with some accessory

recommendations.

This way you keep the

customer lifecycle going

with very little effort

required from your

marketing team. All they

need to do is to set up

the initial automation.

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The ecommerce industry is constantly evolving, presenting new and

innovative strategies that improve customer experience and positively

impact your business growth. At the same time, success in ecommerce is

not a “one size fits all” approach. As you dive deeper into optimizing the

performance of your ecommerce site, you will find that there are a number

of advanced strategies you can execute that cater to your specific business

setup and goals -- which equals unique opportunities that can put you

ahead of your competitors.

Interested in learning more about how you can dissect and optimize the performance of your ecommerce site even further?

The experts featured in this lookbook would be happy to discuss additional strategies that can elevate your business above and beyond.

Conclusion

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About Nosto

Nosto enables retailers to deliver personalized

digital shopping experiences at every touch

point, across every device. An AI-Powered

Personalization Platform designed for ease

of use, Nosto empowers retailers to build,

launch and optimize 1:1 omnichannel marketing

campaigns and digital experiences without the

need for dedicated IT resources or a lengthy

implementation process. Leading commerce

brands in over 100 countries use Nosto to grow

their business and delight their customers.

Nosto supports its clients from its offices in

Helsinki, Berlin, Stockholm, London, New York,

Los Angeles and Paris.

About Loop 54

Loop54 is a leading tech company that

improves on-site customer experience.

Through a unique machine learning (AI)

algorithm they offer online retailers

true 1:1 personalisation, automation and

flexibility in search and navigation. Their

personalisation engine is today used by

hundreds of leading and innovative online

retailers all over the world. Loop54‘s

head offices are in Stockholm.

About Voyado

Voyado is Northern Europe’s market leading

CRM platform in retail that lets you connect

with your customers like never before.

The AI-powered platform learns behaviors

with pinpoint precision and improves

the customer experience at every single

touchpoint. Reaching over 68 000 000

customers in over 100 countries, Voyado

transforms traditional marcom into

something new, helpful and inspiring,

making brands easy to love.

WWW.NOSTO.COM WWW.LOOP54.COM WWW.VOYADO.COM

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L O O K B O O K THE ECOMMERCE GUIDE FOR MARKET LEADERS