E-commerce Conversion Optimization: Drive Exceptional Growth with Segmentation

E-commerce Conversion Optimization: Drive Exceptional Growth with Segmentation

Not everyone who buys from you fits into your perfect target market. While the idea that any customer is an excellent opportunity might look good in theory, but as if you have eCommerce conversion optimization as your goal, you must understand and identify your ideal customers.

A clear understanding of who your ideal audience is can help you allocate your marketing spend better and optimize for higher conversions – very important for competing in a rising eCommerce industry.

A simple example:

If 70% of your fashion jewelry sales are coming in from women in the age group 20-30, you should focus your market spend on this specific segment. Result – You will be able to run highly personalized messaging, engage better, and get more sales from an audience with stronger purchase intent.

Let us see what Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is and how effective segmentation can help you achieve it.

What is Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO?

To understand CRO, we must first define conversion in general and the e-commerce context. First, the broad context – Whenever a user takes a desired action on the website, it is considered a ‘conversion.’ It can be as simple as downloading a free book filling up, or filling up a form on the said website.

Now, the e-commerce context. The primary goal (or macro-goal) of every e-commerce website is to get customers to buy from it. Whenever a user makes that intended purchase, it is called an ‘e-commerce conversion.’ Mostly, a user would never directly buy from a website. They convert via many ‘micro-goals that precede the macro-goal. This can, for instance, include clicking on the ad, subscribing to emails/brand notifications, and browsing/engaging for a longer than set threshold time.    

For e-commerce conversions, Targeting, User Journey, and User Optimization are decisive core factors. The better you can grasp a hold on these factors, the better your CRO will be.

Segmentation Behind The Scenes – The Procedure

We all know how important segmentation is when it comes to personalizing marketing efforts. So let’s walk through how you can effectively segment your target market.

1.Understand Your Audience

Website analytics and social reports can fetch you all the data you need about your audience and how they engage with your content. Analyzing historical data will give you a clear picture of user behavioral patterns – products browsed through, elements engaged with, purchases made, purchase triggers, and more.

2.Cluster Your Audience Into Segments

Grouping your audience based on different attributes is the essence of segmentation. And, there are several ways in which you can segment your users. However, the best way is to identify user pain points, motivations, interests, intent, etc., and then group them based on similarity on these attributes.

3.Attribute Your Goals To Segments

Once you have clustered and segregated your audience into different segments, the next step is to set your marketing goals for each segment. Perhaps it is time for you to stop targeting a segment showing low engagement on your website. Maybe, you need to incentivize your first-time visitors to purchase or re-engage your inactive users with a special offer.  Once you have your segments defined, you can constantly personalize your campaigns and set specific goals for each one of them.

Segmentation In Action – Campaigns That Convert

Running campaigns based on behavioral segmentation is the key to engaging your audience with the right message, at the right time, through the right channel. This ensures a high engagement rate from the target audience set and promises higher sales from your ideal audience set.

Based on your goals, create campaign strategies that adhere to the needs and behaviors of each segment:

  1. Identify marketing channels that drive the most engagement for each of these segments.
  2. Craft personalized messages that fit the needs of these unique segments.
  3. Run your campaigns at the right time, based on specific behavioral triggers such as add-to-carts, add-to-wishlist, product viewed more than ‘X times, etc., and peak traffic timing.

Use Case 1: Converting The Conservative Buyers

Let’s consider that the following are the attributes of one of your audience segments – “The Conservative Women”:

  • Women in their late 40s
  • Make most of the household purchase decisions
  • Wants quality products that don’t compromise on style
  • Don’t buy on impulse
  • Shop during discount/sale season
  • Want social proof on product’s quality
  • Show high engagement on email and low on push-notifications

Your campaign strategy should consider all the above attributes and use them to trigger highly personalized campaigns to optimize conversions for eCommerce from this set. Here’s how:

The Right Channel – Email! Personalized and behaviorally automated.

The Right Message – A conservative buyer will want every proof of your product’s quality before purchasing. Suppose you can also assure them that you are giving the best deal available, great! Show them numbers. Give them proof. Recommendations and reviews will get you their attention.  

Your email could say – “Hey Jane, Your favorite Lamp Shade by Furni Fab is on 20%. It comes with a one-year guarantee. Others who bought this recommend it as the best buy!”

eCommerce conversion optimization with email

The Right Time and Trigger: Remember that the user is not an impulse buyer. She will make a few visits to your website or check out the product at least 3 to 4 times before taking the final call. Maybe she adds it to her wish list if genuinely interested. Please wait for the user to take any such action that guarantees her interest in the purchase. Send in your email post a day or two of the user showing any such purchase behavior.

Example of Segmentation in Email Marketing – Finish Line Case Study

finish-line-email

Finish Line was able to increase revenue from emails by 50% by running targeted segmentation. They ran cart abandonment email campaigns and email campaigns for loyalty program users based on triggers. Finish Lines segregated its users into 300 different segments for email marketing.

Also read: How To Effectively Measure The Success Of An Email Marketing Campaign.

Use Case 2: Driving Sales From The Impulse Buyer

As a marketer working on eCommerce conversion optimization, have you ever thought about cashing in on impulse buyers?

With mobile and social commerce coming into the picture, eCommerce players have many opportunities to win more sales from those who shop at impulse. This post on Telegraph UK talks about some industry data that suggest how technology is finally catching up with the impulse-buying urge.

Let’s consider the following attributes of an impulse buyer segment – “The 20-something Fashionistas”:

  • I Will visit your website often
  • Browse through multiple product categories
  • Makes at least one or two purchases in a month
  • Scouts for products on discounts
  • Do not spend more than Rs. 2000 at once
  • Favors fashion over comfort
  • Will buy from fresh stock if available in her budget
  • Makes both mobile and desktop purchases

These are the typical attributes of an impulse buyer and can help you craft a smart campaign strategy for this segment.

The Right Channel – Push Notifications! Work on all devices – mobile, tablet, laptops, desktops, and across all browsers. So, you can catch your user’s attention immediately and nudge them to act right away.

The Right Message – How you personalize your message, and the tactic you use to get more conversions from impulse buyers is essential. Pay attention here! Fear of Missing Out works wonders with impulse buyers. So if you want to get them buying instantly, use the scarcity principle for driving impulse buying from your messaging.

Your Push Notification Could Say 24 HOURS left for you to get your Reebok Sneakers at 20% off. Hurry! Buy now.

eCommerce conversion optimization - push notifications

The Right Time and Trigger: The best time for triggering push notifications to increase impulse buys is as soon as a user is on-site. Have a visitor randomly browsing your website for fashion accessories? Has the user spent more than 10 mins browsing through the fashion accessories section? Notify him with an on-site message showing discounts and offers on select fashion earrings and further increase his time on-site. You might even get him buying if something of interest is available within the user’s budget.

Example of Segmentation Based Push Notifications – Mr. Button Case Study

Mr. Button is an India-based men’s wardrobe essentials online store. They use Wigzo to implement their web push notifications. Using Wigzo, they can create smart segments based on consumer interactions with Mr. Buttons’ website.

These smart segments fulfill a particular need or preference of each consumer. Using Wigzo’s segmentation-based personalized push notification campaigns, Mr. Button has increased customer engagement and sales.

Also Read: How Top eCommerce Sites Are Using Push Notifications For More Sales.

Over To You

Segmenting your users based on their purchase behavior is one of the smartest moves that can help you optimize for conversions. If you are an eCommerce business using segmentation wisely, talk to us about your success stories.

Saad Mohammad

Saad Mohammad

Full-time marketer, part-time guitar player, and a football fanatic. Saad is a Digital Marketer with 6+ years of experience in the industry.

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