It doesn’t take a record-breaking holiday shopping season to realize that most online shoppers are vulnerable to the advances of competing online retailers. But when it comes to a decline in return customers, blaming a lack of customer loyalty on the competition is the easy way out. Now is the perfect time to commit to tracking the number of first-time shoppers who actually come back in months to come—not to mention, those who don’t. And from there, put a plan in place for increasing customer loyalty.

There are many reasons customers will only buy from a site once. It could be that you offered them something they couldn’t get anywhere else, but didn’t give them a good reason to return when they were there. It could also be the overall usability of your site, a lack of necessary information, a poor checkout process… The list goes on. The bottom line is that they didn’t find the shopping experience memorable—and you may never see them again.

But fear not, there is a proven method for visitor retention. And it’s called personalization—aka using what you know about your online visitors to create highly individualized experiences for them. Personalization can be simple, based on one or two collected insights, or a highly complex interaction of detailed formulas and algorithms. Either way, it’s better than just ignoring tailored content altogether.

Because many marketers aren’t taking advantage of personalization techniques—or they’re doing them wrong—there is a lot of opportunity for those who are. So, instead of blaming a lack of loyalty on the aggressive competition, get ahead of competing sites using testing and personalization to avoid making these three common mistakes:

Misinformed website updates

Companies often invest tons of time and money into a complete website overhaul each year (or even every few months), only to find that the new site fares no better—or even worse—than the old. Instead of being attracted to the sparkly new changes, consumers often feel alienated by the inconsistent and constantly shifting branding. After all, if they don’t recognize you, how will they know you’re, well, you?

Even more, companies often don’t fix the actual problems; instead, they focus on the superficial elements they perceive to be the problems. Solving a problem requires first knowing what it is. Let the actions of your visitors show you what works and what doesn’t using A/B and multivariate testing. Testing your website elements and pages will not only reveal your problem areas, it will reveal where on your site you’re experience positive visitor behavior. All of this information should then go to informing minor (or major) site updates, which can lead to significant lifts in conversions. But our end goal goes beyond initial conversion—we’re focused on retention.

Neglecting mobile and tablet

It’s especially sad when a brand goes all out updating their website, but doesn’t take mobile or tablet responsiveness into consideration. There’s little point in having a gorgeous website that’s impossible to navigate on a smartphone. Consumers now expect the same look and feel across web, mobile and tablet-specific apps or sites, yet each platform has its own unique capabilities—and opportunities to learn more about your customers. This additional knowledge can then be used to personalize user experiences across channels. And vice versa.

Landing page tunnel vision

Landing page optimization is a go-to tactic for many marketers looking for a quick fix, but even the best landing pages can’t sustain customer loyalty on their own. Focusing on single pages distracts from the larger picture, which should be the 360-degree customer experience. Knowing what individual customers do, what they like, and how they prefer to engage with your brand can help accomplish this. This knowledge can come from multiple data sources, online and off.

Behavioral targeting is a form of personalization that relies on using these user actions and preferences to inform custom experiences for individual visitors as they navigate each and every page of the site—including landing pages.

These days, consumers have more choices, more incentives and more reasons to comparison shop for the best deals out there. But Marketers can use online behavior and web analytics to reveal patterns and warning signs indicative of the type of customer retention issues that lead to “online cheating.” The question is, are they?

If caught early enough, these issues can be easily connected. To do so, marketers must identify which types of data patterns to pay attention to and use that data to inform their next steps.

1. Homepage Bounce Rates of 55% or More
If more than 55% of visitors are turning around as soon as they get to your site, it’s a major red flag that something is terribly wrong. It’s likely that visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for. (BTW: you should know that the average industry home page bounce rate is around 50%, and that a well-performing homepage has a bounce rate of between 0% and 25%.)

So what gives when this issue arises? It’s usually due to issues with layout, design, navigation, site elements, functionality, content, or messaging. By A/B and multivariate testing these homepage elements in various combinations, marketers can discern which elements are contributing to a higher conversion rate, and which are contributing to the high bounce rates.

2. High Average Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates
Many online shoppers initiate a purchase, only to leave the items behind in their cart. The Baymard Institute found that the average cart abandonment rate is about 65%. Luckily, there are a number of options you can test to bring this number down. These include estimating shipping costs at an earlier point in the buying process, allowing guest checkouts, highlighting in-stock versus out-of-stock status, providing auto-fill forms based on cookie tags for repeat visitors, and using shipping discounts or specials.

3. Low Search Engagement
The importance of search on visitor engagement and purchases is often overlooked. By encouraging consumers to explore the site and streamlining the shopping process, the chances you’ll turn more visitors into customers, increases. Every single component of the search feature—placement, layout, default search box text and even the color, size and design of the graphic elements—affects engagement with this important tool. Multivariate testing can help marketers discover which combinations work best for their target audience

4. Unsatisfactory Average Order Values
What about those customers that just aren’t buying as much as they could be? Chances are they have a very specific product in mind, and aren’t being persuaded to add more items to their cart.

This is where personalization can really help. By inserting and/or customizing information that’s relevant to a specific user based on implicit behaviors (items purchased, pages viewed) as well as explicit details (location, age, gender) provided by that particular user, you’ll be able to customize their recommended items. Product recommendations and behavioral targeting are two common ways to combat this problem.

5. One-Time Buyers
66% of Amazon.com’s sales are attributed to repeat buyers. Remarkably, only 7% of the entire ecommerce industry can say the same. But it’s going to be tough to match this success without employing automated personalization with behavioral targeting solutions.

Using data such as previous purchases, searches, page views, geography, demographics, type of button click, transactions, etc., is crucial to keeping customers loyal. Behavioral targeting tailors content and offers to individuals based on both their past behaviors and their unique “buyer personas”.

Placing customers at the heart of online content decisions and giving them unique, personalized experiences is an important part of faithful consumer relationships.

Thanks to smarter marketing, better technology and consumers speaking out, 2013 just might be the year we see a real shift in how close customers and companies can really get.

We know the deal—people are spending, and continuing to spend, more and more online. Every year, Cyber Monday will beat out the last. Mobile and tablet revenues will continue to increase. And bricks-and-mortar retailers will scramble to keep pace with a digitally driven world.

The truth is, consumers are demanding optimized and personalized sites to offer them a richer, more relevant online experience. It’s no longer an option for marketers—it’s a must-have. In 2013, expect to see:

1. Testing (Finally) Becomes a Must-Have – Companies big and small have dabbled in this for a decade. But now, everyone has to get serious about it. Companies that don’t test won’t get anywhere near providing the best online experiences for their audience.
2. True, Real-Time Personalization, for Everyone – Now that this complex technology is made easily available to the masses, we’re going to see major industries like finance, travel and media lead the charge—but also expect businesses in other industries, such as gaming and charity, to take advantage of personalization solutions to offer more custom experiences.
3. Consumers Get Over the Privacy Debate – Because consumers are getting on board with personalization, they should expect to see more of the general information they share online used by companies. Everything from age, geography and life stage, incorporating social profiles (e.g., married versus single) will play a part in offering a more relevant, more valuable ecommerce experience.
4. Retailers Start to Love Loyalty Programs – It’s not just for frequent fliers anymore. Now businesses across industries (retail, finance, etc.) are launching loyalty programs—and integrating data into comprehensive customer profiles—to offer the next level of personalization and service.
5. Mobile Gets Personal Too – As consumers adapt to living their lives from their mobile phones and tablets, they’ll expect platform-specific offerings that offer a better shopping experience, geo-specific content, special offers and other elements that complement and enhance life on the go.
6. Responsive Design as the Rule – A site that’s designed for optimal viewing no matter which mobile or tablet device is being used is the new norm. Gone are the days of resizing, scrolling and otherwise struggling to view a site depending on the size of your computer or device screen.
7. The Rise of Cross-Channel Experiences – Consumers don’t think in channels, they think in brands. So a completely seamless ecommerce experience no matter where they are —at their desktops, on their smartphones and tablets, or on social pages and sites—is a must-have.
8. Companies Get a Handle on Big Data – Most businesses have an abundance of useful data, however, very few are using this data to provide targeted individual experiences at the right time to respond to savvy consumers’ needs. In the coming year, expect to see more brands getting a handle on this to offer customers more targeted offers across all channels in real time.
9. Social Media Grows Up – For far too long, marketers have treated social media as an island from the rest of their strategy—and, in turn, have not reaped any benefits of it being a useful sales tool. Going forward, we’ll see more brands using social data to personalize experiences on their websites, as well as applying testing and personalization to their own Facebook pages.
10. B2B Catches Up to B2C  – When it comes to testing and personalization, consumer-facing businesses aren’t the only ones catching on. B2B companies—and their customers—crave a great online experience too.  More and more B2B sites will use testing and personalization to create well-optimized and targeted sites based on user behaviors.

As a consumer and a marketer, I’m looking forward to getting online in 2013.

Most e-commerce sites still struggle to leverage the growing wealth of customer data to which they have access. This failure to integrate customer relationship management (CRM) activities with online visitor behavior is wasting a significant opportunity to transform CRM into Customer Relationship Marketing.

During the last economic downturn, the Web was the only sales channel that grew, while brick-and-mortar businesses contracted significantly. The Web is now such a powerful, commanding route to market that in some pre-Internet sectors, more than 90% of business is now done online. Moreover, this year Cyber Monday sales alone hit $1.98 billion.

One of the best examples of this growth in e-commerce is the airline industry, which was once dominated by call center activity. Today, JetBlue now handles more than 80 percent of its reservation transactions online. Yet, while Internet businesses have made great progress in catching up with more traditional sales outlets in terms of the breadth and sophistication of their product offerings and how they are presented online, they have failed to integrate their CRM activities, which limits their impact as they try to personalize promotional offers.

Following the Leaders

Amazon.com certainly set the gold standard for best practices in personalization—with its unparalleled ability to recognize and deftly exploit consumers’ online browsing and buying habits. But, it also has the advantage that its route to market was 100% Web-based. Certainly, many ecommerce shops attempt to mimic Amazon’s highly successful interactions with returning customers (“You were interested in XYZ, so you may enjoy ABC,” etc.) — but most companies are not going far enough, allowing customers to slip through the cracks. For instance, an insurance business may not realize that the person making a call center inquiry about auto insurance was just browsing life insurance offers on the Web the day before calling.

Going for Cross Channel Optimization

However, the website is just one of several channels—and consumers don’t think in channels, they think in brands. So, as hard as some have worked to blend their operations and business data across their brick-and-mortar, call center and Web operations, many gaps still exist.

Disjointed marketing and sales practices are leading to frustrated and disgruntled customers when they are forced to rehash the same details whenever they switch between channels. This scenario is one that causes many customers to abandon their inquiries and take their business elsewhere.

Consider financial services as an example. A bank, which might use its CRM system and propensity modeling to address gaps in a customer’s portfolio of products, may suggest a new account upgrade, an improved insurance policy, or a more favorable home equity line through the customer’s local branch or a direct mail offer. But what if that same bank knew that a customer had visited its mortgage calculator facility when last visiting its website? This would present an ideal opportunity to make a timely, customized offer. Even more compelling would be to have the offer serve as the primary landing page content presented the next time the customer goes online to transfer money or pay a bill.

The ability to adapt online content for customers and prospects based on their known preferences is a powerful way to build and strengthen relationships, particularly if dovetailed with offline activities.

The Path to CRM Nirvana

he potential impact of personalized marketing over the Web is undisputedly enormous. E-business owners have about seven seconds to capture the attention of an online visitor and engage their interest. If this opportunity is lost, the customer will move to a competitor. And if that competitive experience provides more relevant, personalized content and a pertinent offer, the customer may never come back — despite previous loyalty to the brand.

Imagine if it were possible provide real-time targeting your visitors while they were still browsing your site, therefore able to influence their final purchase— no hoping for the next visit, no lost opportunities. Instead, you seize the moment, right when it matters. Imagine the possibilities and the revenue potential it could bring.

It is imperative that companies integrate customer data across all channels. Understanding what customers have been doing across channels can make every interaction an extension of what they may have begun elsewhere — creating a more personal, relevant and rewarding experience for both the customer and the business.

While the majority of organizations appreciate the value of personalization (Forrester Research notes that organizations have wanted to personalize their Web marketing for the past 15 years), only a small minority have actually followed through.

The building blocks exist to get e-businesses started — organizations can model what customers do as they navigate a site’s Web pages, and they can segment this data so it can be used for tailored promotions both on the Web, during a current or future session, or across other channels. Nirvana is a fully integrated CRM solution that feeds into specific online offers.

By waiting to see what the competition does first, companies risk losing the advantage — and customers. Use the personalization capabilities available today to move swiftly, offer a killer deal, and potentially gain a lifelong customer.

The thick of the 2012 holiday season is here. And if you’re a retailer, hopefully you haven’t just primed your in-store and online offers, but your mobile presence as well. According to comScore, consumers spent approximately $37 billion on holiday shopping in 2011—up about 15 percent from 2010. And nearly 51% of the U.S. population are avid mobile Internet users, according to 2011 U.S. Census department figures. If we put two and two together, it’s safe to say it’s going to be a busy holiday season for eTailers, and their mobile sites will be no exception.

While mobile commerce stats have been rising for quite some time, many retailers have yet to nail its optimal experience. The quick fix of mirroring an online site for mobile applications won’t help here. The trick is figuring out what your customers need most in their on-the-go lives—and acknowledging that your mobile technology and strategy are only as good as the behind-the-scenes commerce ecosystem they support. Your mobile app or site connects the customer with the product, but its success can be greatly affected by several non-mobile factors—especially during the holidays (or other high-traffic buying seasons).

The gravity of factors such as product availability, shipping and delivery times, and seasonality are compounded in the holiday conversion game—online, mobile and in-store. Not only can you expect to see an influx of new visitors, but also previous customers who have switched from site to mobile shopping. And remember, they aren’t shopping for themselves.

This being said, waiting until the day before Christmas to test and optimize mobile promotions or discount offers is too late to start converting visitors into paying customers. However, there are a few checks and balances you can plan for now to ensure that the next few months bring those revenue goals that have been dancing in your head. In particular, make sure you aren’t making any of the following five common commerce mistakes (and if you have, fix them quickly!).

Forgetting to Highlight Holiday Sales and Specials

Nearly every retailer has an abundance of sales and products planned for the holidays to both entice your current customers and bring in new ones. Hopefully you’re planning to deck your site out in a fun, festive style. Are you planning the same for your mobile site?

Many holiday retail consumers use their handheld devices to compare prices and promotional offers. Make sure you are clearly displaying buttons and items within your mobile-friendly site and navigation bar that will lead customers to seasonal hot-ticket items, so you steal their attention before a competitor does.

Concealing Shipping and Stock Status

During the last-minute holiday rush, shoppers who are reassured their precious presents will arrive in time are more likely to buy—regardless of pricing wars. Take a look at your mobile site and consider how this very important holiday shopping information is displayed on both product pages and the purchase funnel.

Specifically in a mobile environment, the impact that font size, location, showing/not showing, color of stock and shipping status has on website conversion rates might surprise you. While no single stock/shipping status strategy is correct for all brands, don’t be afraid to test it thoroughly and make sure your consumers are fully informed to make quick on-the-go purchases.

Forgetting to Integrate Product Reviews

Shopping for others isn’t always easy…and the stress of a holiday gift doesn’t make it any easier. While not all of us are the perfect present pickers, we do prefer gifts that our friends and loved ones (hopefully!) won’t return. So when it comes to holiday shopping, product reviews can have one of the biggest impacts on customer buying decisions.

As we know, with mobile real estate there’s a much smaller surface to play with. But not giving the option of reading product reviews on the mobile site can actually lead to higher bounce rates than desired. Remember that mobile shopping is a fast, on-the-go decision—the more information you can give a consumer, the better. Look at your product pages and determine where a mobile-friendly drop-down menu or selection for reviews can go. Even just having an aggregated “rating” or “star” system placed near the product is a green-light indicator of a great product.

One caveat, though: leave the product reviews for the pre-shopping cart phase. Once customers have clicked “Add to Cart,” don’t distract them with information that isn’t focused on entering credit card details and hitting “Place Order.”

Recommending Products Based on Past Purchases

Behavioral targeting and product recommendations—especially in a very personalized mobile environment—are great ways to increase your average order values and your upsell/cross-sell opportunities, as well as keep your consumers loyal. You’re already expecting an increase in traffic and purchases with the holiday rush, which makes targeting, recommendations and segmentation both easier to achieve and a must-have.

But as holiday shopping ramps up, don’t forget: people are buying gifts, not shopping for themselves. If your targeting engine is set up to promote products based on past purchases made in the off-season, you’re wasting your time. Instead, target based on items they have browsed, clicked or added to their cart or favorites in the past few weeks. If your application or site allows for push messaging or email integration, follow up with messages around those products and/or promotions. And once again, make price comparisons and your sale items easy to find and navigate to on the small screen.

Poorly Designed Error Messaging at the POS

Imagine your prospective buyer with his smartphone in one hand and credit card in the other, precariously typing his card number, expiration date and security code with his thumbs. He hits the submit button and BOOM—no dice. An error has occurred; was it a wrong number? Wrong zip code? Invalid code? The real question is, does your mobile shopper even know what happened? Or is he just giving up, leaving you with yet another abandoned mobile cart to add to your analytics report?

Testing error messaging options is an important component for any site, but it’s especially crucial for small mobile screens. Most user-input errors occur during checkout, registration or form process. Careful attention should be paid to the location, design, display and wording of your error messages. If a mobile visitor can’t see or understand it, repeated frustrations will only lead that customer away from your site before the most important conversion of all—the sale.