BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - September 6, 2007) - Companies that actively personalize the online
experience with established business processes demonstrate an improvement
in online conversion rates, average order value, and revenue per visit. In
a recent survey conducted by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks company (
NYSE:
HHS),
88% of Best-in-Class companies agree that they will recognize a return on
their investment in personalization technologies, and 76% agree that the
economic gains from personalization will outweigh the costs of
implementation.
Increasing overall sales, both online and offline, was identified as a top
pressure by 60% of leading companies and the primary reason for
personalizing the online experience. Best-in-Class companies indicated
that they deploy personalization tactics across multiple areas of their web
site functionality, such as email (76%), cross-sell/up-sell (50%),
newsletters (40%), homepages (31%) and site search results (29%). These
efforts contributed to the 91% of Best-in-Class companies who demonstrated
improvement in online conversion rates.
"Online personalization is not a technique to deploy with expectations of
immediate big-bang impact and results. The benefits of personalization
surface with careful planning and by gradually introducing personalization
techniques in a calculated manner," explains Andrew Boyd, Chief Research
Officer at Aberdeen. "Sites that reveal the depths of their knowledge
about a customer's behavior will invoke privacy concerns and potentially
undermine the benefits of revenue and loyalty they seek to gain. Effective
personalization requires subtle use of implicit information and
opportunities for site visitors to offer explicit information to guide
their online experience."
The report highlights the essential ingredients of a well-designed
personalization strategy. By utilizing segmentation and unique user
profiles and applying key technologies to them, such as predictive analysis
and personalized recommendations, companies can create an online experience
that is unobtrusive to the consumer yet ultimately moves them towards
checkout more efficiently.
The research educates readers on how to gain an advantage in the
competitive world of online retail by utilizing different personalization
strategies. The report also provides the results that Best-in-Class
companies achieve across key metrics after employing online personalization
processes and compares these companies to the Industry Average and Laggards
who have not yet pursued a similar strategy.
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the
following underwriters: Criteo, Offermatica, and Optimost. To obtain a
complimentary copy of the report, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4129
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Andrew Boyd
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(617) 854-5320
Andrew.boyd@aberdeen.com