Retail Alchemy: Turning Browsers Into Buyers

Thanks to the advancements in technology, B2C marketers can now use the strategies of their B2B colleagues and focus on re-engaging customers during the browsing stage.

British retail saw modest growth over the summer, with recent IMRG and ONS figures reporting a sales increase in August by a 6.2% compared with August 2015. The real revenue driver, however, remains ecommerce, with sales up an impressive 18.5% over the previous year.

A number of brands are already successfully engaging customers who abandoned their online shopping baskets. But there are still huge gains to be made one step earlier in the sales funnel, when shoppers browse your website and leave without adding items to their basket. Retailers are much less au fait when it comes to converting sales at this stage, with just 7% of brands having a remarketing strategy for browse abandonment in place.

Browse recovery is a powerful example of how B2C marketers can successfully adopt strategies that have traditionally been associated with B2B marketing. To date, B2C marketers mainly focused on generating new leads and re-engaging straying customers towards the end of the sales funnel. But new technologies now allow them to nurture customers throughout the entire customer journey, offering an exciting opportunity to re-engage customers not just at the checkout, but already during the browsing stage.

So how can retailers ensure they have the most effective strategy to turn a browser into a buyer?

Leverage Browse Data Effectively

Consumers today visit webstores for a whole host of reasons—some with the intention of purchasing a specific item, others comparing competing brands or simply browsing. The automated intelligence of a commerce marketing platform offers the ability to analyse browse data at scale, enabling you to better understand the consumer and deliver relevant browse recovery messages that are targeted and personal. Simply sending reminders for the products a consumer has been looking at will not have the same effect as building a dialogue around their browsing behaviour.

For example, by tracking the category and brand the shopper was browsing, you can send a message such as: “We saw you were browsing chopping boards. Here are other kitchen items in the same range,” highlight related items or offer advice, and potentially encourage the consumer back to the site.

Enriching specific browsing behaviour with the customer history helps ensure the retargeting message is relevant to the consumer at that particular time. Matching previous purchasing and present browsing behaviour provides an even more accurate message. This is particularly important when it comes to sending browse reminders around sales events, such as Valentine’s Day or Christmas, as consumers may have been looking for gifts for others.

Use Multiple Touch Points

Depending on the shopper’s behaviour, you may want to focus a series of messages on one particular event. For example, the customer views a single product six times within a 14-day period. Trigger an initial message within 24 hours that focuses on that product and its benefits, and then follow up with additional content two days later, and perhaps another message at the five-to-seven day mark.

You might also take a combined approach that includes a few different messages with different triggers. Perhaps the initial message focuses on the most viewed product, while the second and third focus on other products within the same category, possibly paired with an offer. Whatever the case, make sure to get the right products in front of them multiple times. You can typically do this dynamically, with only minor changes in creative.

Learn More About The Individual

Using multiple cookies enables you to identify individuals in several ways and gather data on shoppers even if they do not yet have a customer account on your website. For example, one cookie might help you identify that the person came to the site through an email, while another might track that the individual left the website without purchasing.

Most shoppers own more than one device, so it can be challenging to understand your customer’s behaviour as they browse on their smartphone, tablet, and laptop. This reinforces the importance of cross-device tracking that allows you to track a user session that starts on one device but continues on another. One way of doing this is to get the user to create an account and drop a cookie that doesn’t expire. This provides you with a holistic understanding of the user’s behaviour and journey.

By storing this historical data over time, you will gain a richer understanding of the shopper. This history can be applied to future messaging as soon as the shopper signs up for your newsletter and also allows you to leverage additional customer information in your emails. For example, you can send a personalised birthday email or an invitation for a store event at the nearest local shop.

Put Personalisation At The Core

To be successful with browse recovery, your messages must be relevant and add value. Consumers have high expectations when it comes to personalisation, so prove you understand, value them, and ensure your emails are unique for each customer. Find the right balance between encouraging the customer to revisit the site through targeted communications, while avoiding spamming them with repetitive messages.

Last, ensuring your data is joined up is key, so customers don’t receive emails after every website visit or for items they have already purchased. Failure to do so is likely to reduce the effectiveness of your recovery messages and can even influence a consumer to go to a competitor.

To succeed in this crowded online marketplace, you must prove that you recognise and understand your customer. If browse recovery isn’t already part of your commerce strategy, you should consider taking action now. Browse abandonment messages are easy to implement. They also offer a valuable opportunity to not only learn more about your customers but also secure additional revenue.