It was a hot summer afternoon, and I was looking for a pair of cool shades for myself at one of my favorite e-commerce sites. As I selected two, one for me, of course, and the other one, well, took some pity on my sister. As I was adding the items to cart, I noticed a pop-up notification. Another of sinful glances of mine; mint blue t-shirts to die for! Oh, how do they know what is playing on my mind? They do think a pensive me. After all, taking note of buyer behavior is the core of all personalization strategies for e-commerce apps.

According to a recent research report by Invesp, 53% of online shoppers believe that personalization is valuable and up to 57% of shoppers submit their personal information, wanting to benefit from personalization. About 56% of customers like me are more likely to shop with retailers who offer personalization and more than 74% of them are miffed over unrelated content. Around 48% of customers spend more after personalized E-commerce, as per one survey by MyBuys. Sounds pretty intriguing, huh? Well, you have miles to explore then.

Here, I dig out the top five personalization strategies for e-commerce apps.

1. Segmented audience:

Every user is unique in its own way.  While some are damn sure of what they want and exactly how much to pay for it, others might linger around and take more time to decide before they buy. Audience segmentation can help you as a marketer, to define personalized experiences for each of these customers.

You, for example, have a Facebook ad campaign where you redirect visitors to a custom landing page. Of every 100 visitors, 80 bounce off, 10 users click the checkout button, and 10 others head off to the product selection page. Marketers track visitors’ behavior for creating customized offers and messages for each of them.

You could include a coupon to push conversions, for customers who have clicked the checkout button and show a personalized message for customers who bounce off. You may, of course, lure them with a first-time user coupon.

2. In-app Product Recommendations:

When was the last time you could not recollect your boss’ favorite author and felt bombarded with irrelevant book suggestions at the bookstore? Well, that does not happen now. You may just drop in a few known keywords (like war stories or gothic novels). Immediately, you will get recommendations of Adwords Books from many different authors with attractive prices. Search history, therefore, is a perfect example of personalization. You may now browse through, read the reviews about a few of the chosen books, and finally make the purchase, minus the hurly-burly.

3. Dynamic Remarketing:

Dynamic Remarketing is one of the most used personalization strategies for e-commerce apps. It is one of the proven strategies to engage your customers and persuading them to complete the purchase. Dynamic marketing may show ads of your products to the customers on cross-platform devices as well.

One of your customers may have browsed through a product on your mobile app. The same customer may be using a desktop with an Internet connection. As a marketer, you have the opportunity to show an ad of the same product or something closest to the one which was previously browsed on the mobile app.

4. Push Notifications:

One of the top performing personalization strategies for e-commerce apps, Push notifications is very effective for retaining customers. I may have registered for a season sale at an e-commerce site, and the happy hour is about to begin. The e-commerce store sends me a push notification, 10 minutes prior before the sale goes live. As I click on the notification, it directly takes me to the page with buying options. Now, I can flip through thousands of options and pay only when the sale is over. The real power of push notifications lies in activating the inactive customers, bringing traffic on the e-commerce website or app, and urging people to take an action, here, buying a product, on offer.

5. Loyalty Marketing:

Loyalty Marketing has been around for quite some time but has come up with newer forms. The classic marketing strategy, now, one of the popular personalization strategies for e-commerce apps, has brought rich dividends to the e-commerce players. What more, the old wine tastes better with when you add mouth marketing to it.

For example, Amazon Prime is a great Loyalty Program. For just $10 a year, you get free 2 days delivery of your product; get complimentary free streaming of movies and music, exclusive sale for the program members, etc. The value derived is assured and direct.

Personalization strategies may vary widely, depending upon your geography, audience and their buying behavior. Choose your strategy based on your audience type and of course, your product offering.

Let me know your preferred personalization strategies for e-commerce apps.