3 Key Personalization Insights From Leaders at Bloomreach, Google Cloud, and BigCommerce

Personalization is top of mind for many commerce-driving teams, and for good reason — according to McKinsey’s Next in Personalization 2021 Report, 71% of consumers expect personalization from brands, and 76% are frustrated when this doesn’t happen. 

Digital Commerce 360 explored this topic in detail in its “Personalization: The Foundation for Great Commerce Experiences” roundtable, featuring commerce experts from Bloomreach, Google Cloud, and BigCommerce. 

Watch the on-demand webinar here, or read on for three insights you can apply to your commerce strategy. 

Unify Your Data  

Personalization makes it so that customers are more likely to purchase, repurchase, and recommend products, especially when it’s baked into how the company operates. The McKinsey report found that digitally native brands see up to 25% of their revenue driven by personalization. 

But good personalization is also difficult to achieve: “It really comes down to data silos that were built up over many years to power different channels and different applications, many of which have distinct data sets that are not well coordinated and not well linked,” said Brian Walker, the Chief Strategy Officer at Bloomreach.  

He pointed to unified data as a way to remove this friction — by bringing together targeted marketing, personalized web experiences, and intelligent search, companies can create a much more impactful customer experience. 

“Successful companies in this space are really beginning to identify how they can bring the data together to get that unified view of the consumer and be able to drive the predictive marketing that’s so critical and necessary,” added Sonia Fife, the Managing Director, Global CPG Industry Solutions for Google Cloud. 

Use First-Party Data to Predict vs. React

The most successful businesses are now anticipating what their customers need and want instead of blindly guessing. 

“We’re moving from a situation where we’re chasing intent to an opportunity to really be able to predict that intent for consumers, and that enables us to personalize in a far more powerful way,” said Fife. 

The good news? You likely already have everything you need to do the same. In particular, she highlighted that CPGs already have access to key first-party data that customers have provided directly to the business. It’s just a matter of translating that data into an ecommerce experience that feels uniquely personalized to each customer.  

“The data aggregation is now at a level that gives you an interesting set to operate from and actually execute,” said Marc Ostryniec, the Chief Sales Officer for BigCommerce. “It really changes the way that people are looking at both their data and analytics teams and their traditional merchandising and customer-facing teams — they’re much closer together now than they’ve ever been.” 

Don’t Forget About B2B Personalization

Too often, merchandisers and marketers view personalization solely through the lens of the B2C experience, but the roundtable speakers all stressed the importance of extending that personalization to the B2B audience as well. 

“A lot of times we think about personalization when we’re thinking about the experiences we have as consumers. The reality is that the same human beings who have those experiences in their own consumer life are also in the functions of buying B2B products,” said Ostryniec. 

Walker seconded this: “When it comes to B2B, time is money. These are people trying to accomplish tasks around research and fulfillment and purchase, and personalization can be a very important and effective tool.” 

And, once you’ve honed your B2C personalization through first-party data, you can easily apply those learnings and innovations to your B2B marketing. 

Learn More

Be sure to watch the full on-demand webinar for a deeper dive on each insight, as well as an informative Q&A. 

If you want even more tips on creating powerful personalization, then check out our comprehensive ecommerce personalization guide.