Responsive design brings a variety of benefits – both for brand marketers and the consumers interacting with content across multiple devices. According to data from a December 2012 study conducted by eConsultancy, nearly 70 percent of client-side marketers described their experience level with responsive design as “average” or better, and more than half of that group described their companies as “ahead of the curve” or “state of the art” when it came to the design technique.

As advanced as some brands and in-house digital marketers may believe they are in responsive design, there are still quite a few challenges that optimization experts and digital marketers must heed. Here are some lessons CMOs can use to get strategic in their approach while driving real, impact-filled growth to the bottom line.

Rule #1: Don’t Become Complacent

Since the mobile marketplace is extremely dynamic and the mobile consumer is ever changing, don’t become complacent just because you launched a responsive-design site.  At the beginning of 2013, tablet users were already showing a higher conversion rate than desktop shoppers. Moreover, 20 percent of mobile users use it as their primary device. This means consumers are evolving more quickly than you may think, so closely monitor your analytics. In fact, companies like Gilt have seen a 100 percent increase in mobile users in a single year.

Rule #2: Always Be Refining

Continually develop and refine new design iterations that work seamlessly across multiple screen sizes and functionalities (e.g., touch, swipe). Being immersive is just as important as being intuitive. Pinch, swipe and zoom are features that smartphone and tablet users know and love. In the early days of responsive design, it was said that these were features that couldn’t be tapped into. With today’s more common blend of adaptive and responsive design, we know that this is not the case. Developers have touch-screen-specific controls at their disposal, and customization can be achieved through injection of JavaScript, for example. It’s important to strike the right balance between optimal performance (page-load time) and customization, as the two are interrelated.

Rule #3: Never Stop Testing and Learning

Always be testing and learning with your responsive-design site so that key information and functions are visible, prioritized and accessible to people regardless of what device they are using. Getting shoppers to move through the entire funnel – starting on the home page and moving to key product and landing pages all the way through the checkout process – is no easy feat. Each consumer, be it a first-time visitor or a longtime brand advocate, wants something different and unique from the checkout process. For a big-box apparel retailer, for example, free shipping can prove effective in rewarding high-value customers and cultivating loyalty among a brand’s average customers. This is where testing and learning play an integral role in pinpointing the optimal threshold for free shipping to boost online sales and grow the brand’s market share amid competitors. The data and insights delivered from a test-and-learn strategy could very well disprove brand assumptions and, in turn, generate the type of ROI brands seek such as higher average order value, as well as an increase in purchase conversions and overall revenue. 

Rule #4: Leverage All Data

Even the most basic site analytics can reveal huge potential opportunities.  Incorporating analytics early in the development of a responsive-design site is important. Set your responsive breakpoints you seek to track within your analytics solution and run a report for traffic to specific pages by device type. You’ll be able to glean a wealth of information about which areas of your site are seeing the heaviest tablet traffic, compared to areas with significant upticks in smartphone-only traffic.  You’ll also be able to see which areas produce low traffic or poor conversions. This tactic can help you optimize the customer experience to drive customer engagement, loyalty, conversions and revenue consistently for the long haul.

Back in 2001, when Google AdWords was just launched, I remember the day that my first pay-per-click (PPC) campaign yielded the first batch of leads for the company I was working for. In all, this tactic generated 42 leads, and a significant portion was even qualified. Better yet, the price was just right, ranging between 15 to 25 cents per click. It seemed like a great tool to grow our website traffic, as well as an effective means for generating unique leads. There was no doubt in my mind we were going to scale this campaign.

Since then, a lot has changed in the PPC world. Now there is a great deal more available in terms of competitive products from other search engines like Bing. You don’t just have an array of search ads; now there are native ads on Google that replicate the search experience, remarketing display ads, mobile ads, Facebook-sponsored ads, sponsored tweets via Twitter and LinkedIn ads. The CMO has fallen in love with performance-based ads like these PPC ad vehicles, mainly because they work (to some extent) and it’s easy to justify a budget for it when a return can be clearly shown to the CFO.

But like any ad, the efficacy of a single ad deteriorates over time because people become numb to repeated exposure to the ad. So the typical reaction is to change the ad around and run it again. But what happens when the efficacy of the ad network declines? The usual approach from marketers is to simply run more ads and spread them out in different places — all in the hopes that they will stick somewhere. But hope and guesswork do not make an effective strategy.

It’s amazing to me that so many enterprise-level CMOs focus on increasing their digital advertising budgets as the first option to increase online engagement. That’s only going to lead to a flawed strategy and less-than-stellar results. Why would you spend a lot of money, resources and staff hours on mobile ads if the online or mobile experience itself frustrates, irks and turns away customers?

What CMOs need to do is focus on creating seamless, easy-to-use-and-navigate, relevant and meaningful experiences for customers, regardless of their device or channel. And that doesn’t mean launching a full redesign of your website with fancy UX architecture, nor does it mean you should put all your mobile eggs into the responsive design basket. It means taking the slow and steady approach to test and tweak every single experience across the entire engagement funnel and using real-time data to power more personalized experiences that meet the individual needs, habits and behaviors of customers.

But before CMOs raise their hands in the air in praise of online testing and personalization, they need to make sure that they’re measuring the right metrics (that really matter for their business). For instance, analyze bounce rates and your average number of page views. These types of insights can tell you a story about your visitors — who they are, what they’re doing, where they’re going within your website or mobile site and what types of actions they’re taking. What if you have a high double-digit bounce rate of 30%, 40% or even 50%? This is what’s commonly known as the “show up and throw up” approach in the Web business. Most likely, you have a low single-digit page view of 1.xx or 2.xx, which is not uncommon. This is where the money is literally falling out of your budget. And that’s not something CMOs can or should take lightly.

Consider taking a piece of your PPC ad budget and instead, put it to good use by testing and optimizing your online experience. I’m not talking about search engine optimization (SEO). What I’m talking about is making every single page a funnel within a website or mobile site optimized and personalized for the actual traffic you are driving to it. For example, if Facebook is driving a certain portion of traffic to your website, are you using all of the data you have about those visitors and combining it with Facebook data to create the most intuitive, relevant and engaging on-site experience to convert “lookers” into purchasers? If a mobile ad is directing smartphone users to your mobile site, have you tested the specific page they’re landing on and optimizing it to drive higher engagement, conversions and cross-channel revenue? If your answer is no, then you have a serious problem.

The reality is that in a world where the consumer reigns supreme, there is an abundance of opportunities for brands to connect, interact with, speak to, engage and convert casual browsers into loyal brand advocates. So it’s high time brands stop running themselves ragged with PPC ads and start putting their attention toward creating a unified customer experience across every single device and channel.

The phenomenon of big data certainly comes with big promise. After all, having terabytes of data on customer history and behavior is certainly better than trying to extrapolate from just a few data points.

For sure, online marketers who make sense of big data are going to be better able to build customer experiences around hard data and evidence rather than on hunches and guesswork. Instead of working on intuition, or crude analytics, you could use definitive evidence to design product pages that lure your best customers directly toward the shopping cart. You’d know exactly when to introduce your promotions and offers, and you’d know which promotion would work best with each particular customer. You could optimize your online interface, so that everything from search to registration to “Place Order” was virtually friction-free.

Getting to that point, however, requires first harnessing the data. It is no small feat to integrate huge amounts of data from a variety of sources. It is even trickier to figure out exactly how to translate that information into more visits and fuller shopping carts—in real time, customer by customer.

The good news is, there are technologies and tools that make it much easier to find the gold hidden in the data—and use it to refine your online marketing with laser precision. But there’s a mind-set at work here, too—a way of thinking about data that may involve some shifts in culture, depending on where your organization is right now.

Having worked with a number of online marketers who needed to tame big data, here are six steps to help you get there:

1) Think continuous evolution and iteration, not instantaneous.

Yes, big data can fundamentally shift the way you do business. But don’t try to change everything at once. It’s far more productive to adopt a “test and learn” philosophy. Two dozen incremental improvements in site design or wording or personalization can get you much further than trying to “innovate” in one fell swoop. We see this every day.

The most successful marketers are optimizing and refining all the time. They steadily move ahead, with a thousand baby steps, finding something to improve almost every day.

Note: This tactic may call for some adjustments to Web development processes. The most agile marketers can typically go “live” with tweaks, adjustments or tests in a matter of hours. (Slow marketers wait for the next release. Don’t do that.)

2) Align big data goals with your individual business goals.

Create separate initiatives or projects for each of your business goals, such as acquiring new customers, boosting conversion rates, improving customer loyalty or increasing lifetime customer value. This approach makes it much easier to determine what type of data to reel in, and exactly how to use it. Focus a team or a project on one objective at a time.

3) Sell the concept internally.

In some organizations, moving toward data-driven, evidence-based marketing may call for some extra communication to get everyone on board:

• Encourage knowledge sharing, continual learning. Let everyone know what you found out.
• Simplify everything. Present data and outcomes in easy-to-understand terms that managers can use to make decisions. Use pictures and graphs.
• Communicate plans and achievements across the organization. Don’t hide results.

 4) Create one team for big data.

You will need to include marketing strategists, analytics gurus and Web developers. And especially creatives, who may sometimes feel threatened or hampered by having to work with hard evidence.

Then integrate with those responsible for e-commerce and site optimization. No silos allowed.

Find a committed, obsessed, dedicated executive to drive the process and act as a focus for future customer experience innovations.

5) Your own data is best. By far.

The real-time data that your website and CRM systems are gathering is far more valuable than anything you can obtain from an outside vendor. Because it’s about your own living, breathing customers, it is data that your competitors don’t have. Advantage, you.

Examples of the typical aggregate data you can capitalize on in a big data strategy:

For most marketers, the goal should be to make in-session decisions as to what customers should see, what offers you recommend and what you say to them.

Craft a custom experience for each visitor, and they’ll buy more.

Do all of this, and they’ll be back.

This article was originally published on iMedia Connection

What does personalization really mean? You’ll be forgiven if you have absolutely no idea. As trendy catchwords go, “personalization” has become a go-to term for websites and online marketers, laden with all the possibilities of connecting with individual consumers and a departure from the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Nearly every online marketing vendor touts some form of personalization as the secret sauce for helping to target customers.

It makes sense. The potential of personalized online marketing, when done well, is enormous—and for that reason, it’s a compelling sell. The problem is, it hasn’t been done successfully thus far. And thanks to vendor hype and overpromise, just mention the word “personalization,” and most have learned to greet it with a healthy dose of skepticism.

But personalization isn’t just marketing hype. It’s a complex concept that really can live up to its billing. However, retailers, in tandem with their marketing vendors, must first identify what personalization really means—and what it means to their business and target customers.

Furthermore, when it comes to their websites, mobile sites, apps and CRM platforms, major e-commerce players need to realize that only through a customized combination of multivariate testing, optimization and personalization best practices can they truly begin to reach consumers with personalization that is effective and full of impact. There are no easy answers or instant solutions for creating personalization that works. It’s about evolution rather than revolution.

Defining Personalization

A truly personalized customer experience—what amounts to a custom website for every consumer—has been the Holy Grail of marketing for over a decade. Yet the very concept is conflicted, fragmented and confusing. Ask 10 marketers to define personalization and you’ll get 10 answers. You’ll also find that despite all the hype, the bar has been set low; most of these same marketers are hoping for nothing more than a few product recommendations or more effective targeting.

Even the experts don’t give us a whole lot of direction on personalization. According to Forrester, Web personalization is “creating experiences on websites or through interactive media that are unique to individuals or segments of consumers.” Just about as vague as every other definition.

In reality, every specific piece of information you can gain about your customer—from search information to online behavior and purchases—can be used to create a personalized experience. That means that your approach to personalization can be as simple (using one or two collected insights) or complex (a detailed formula based on multiple insights) as you want it to be.

With the right combination of technology, research and testing, e-commerce businesses can now deliver a personalized online experience that far exceeds anything that can be delivered in store—short of hiring a dedicated personal shopper. With the right personalization strategy and tools, companies can create an online equivalent of a brick-and-mortar store, where anything a consumer might want is located in a single aisle.

Technology Is So Personal

It goes without saying that your marketing team is comprised of geniuses, but a lack of imagination—and technology—may be limiting their vision when it comes to personalization.

Yes, they’ve thought about segmentation, recommendations and retargeting, but these techniques are only a fraction of what technology now allows. New sophisticated real-time automated SaaS solutions empower marketers to create personalized experiences that far exceed what was previously possible. With SaaS solutions working in tandem with strategy and implementation, companies can begin to move toward complex forms of personalization—and achieve online what is already being done offline with propensity modeling and other business analytics.

Really, knowing about low-cost SaaS solutions—and how to use them to take advantage of opportunity—might just be the most significant indicator of marketing genius.

Getting Started with Personalization

Once the right technology is in place, one of the best ways to employ personalization is with a set of “rules” that define parameters. These rules establish conditions for a specific visitor experience; for every insight gleaned, you create a more and more personalized experience.

Of course, rules don’t exist in a vacuum. When defining them, you must take into account known consumer behaviors, including the various stages that shoppers go through when making any kind of purchase and the fact that they may visit your site several times before actually pulling the “buy now” trigger. While this knowledge might seem to complicate your rules in the immediate term, it can be used to your advantage.

Sure, go ahead and create rules for first-time visitors, but you can and should also devise more complicated formulas that incorporate insights and data from previous visits and apply them to future visits. So, for example, retarget repeat visitors based on the last product they searched for during their last visit. This rule path can then be enhanced with complementary content or offerings, whether for discount on the searched product or an up-sell on similar items. It’s personalization that gives customers what they want and shows them that you value them—a must for creating relationships and loyalty online.

Keep in mind, however, that while targeting with rules is effective and often a great place to start, it does have its limitations.

Marketers will find it nearly impossible to manually define rules for expansive websites that have vast and diverse daily traffic. In this case, technology needs to be partnered with sophisticated behavioral targeting through mathematical models that enable you to predict the most compelling content and offers based on known insights and data points about each visitor. This type of model learns and adjusts dynamically over time to optimize visitor experiences with content that yields the highest conversion rate. This approach is also better for the broader range of content (product types, specific brands or destinations) that each individual receives based on unique predictive attributes.

Using Product Recommendations the Right Way

Want to see great personalization in action? Amazon continues to set the gold standard for best practices in personalization. The site has an unparalleled ability to recognize and deftly exploit consumers’ online browsing and buying habits. (Of course, it also has the advantage of customer interactions living entirely online, while most retailers have offline presences that dilute their ability to gather insights.)

Because of Amazon’s clear success, almost every major e-commerce site has taken steps to mimic Amazon’s highly successful interactions with returning customers. (“You were interested in XYZ, so you may enjoy ABC,” etc.)

But that doesn’t mean they’re getting it right. Everything from competing recommendations (you want shoppers to buy more, not different) or recommendations for products that are out of stock to a lack of testing and product reviews means that many recommendation programs are falling flat or, even worse, are counterproductive.

To offer successful personalization through recommendation, focus on the essential elements.  Product recommendations should be placed on category pages, product pages and the shopping cart or basket page, with each page type getting its own recommendation formula and approach. This approach allows for more targeted recommendations and for segmented testing and optimization of recommendations. Recommendation content, placement on the page and the design of a promotion all play a role in the success of recommendations. Segmenting and measuring the conversion impact of every detail (e.g., images, fonts, colors, the number of recommended products, the placement on pages, and the recommendation model used) can help you identify the approach that yields the highest conversion rates for your visitors.

With a program for monitoring and improving recommendations, you improve the shopping experience for each customer—and potentially increase revenue and cart sizes.

Maximizing the Opportunity  

Companies that have already successfully leveraged new SaaS solutions along with optimization and personalization strategies have achieved, on average, a double-digit increase in conversions. And with these programs becoming more common, consumers are going to be expecting a sophisticated level of personalization.

The good news is that with the SaaS-based model, companies can have personalization programs up and running immediately. Add in multichannel data from call centers and stores or branches, and they can create an organization-wide, cross-channel approach to personalization within a quarter.

There is no doubt that, after years of hype and hyperbole, we’ve finally found the holy grail of online marketing: Personalization.