In today’s world, a personalized shopping experience is expected by consumers. In a 2021 study, Merkle found that 64% of US internet users want to receive personalized offers based on their past purchases1. Similarly, in a 2020 Formation study, US adults reported feeling more loyal to a brand the more it used personalized tactics2.
One area of personalization that is growing rapidly is leveraging customer data to provide more personalized promotions and offers to shoppers. On Slickdeals, personalized deals are served to a shopper using an algorithm that takes into account a variety of factors such as shopping interests and affinities, advertiser and brand preferences, deal quality, and more.
Being that Slickdeals is a community-driven, forum-based platform, the algorithm also takes into consideration how much community engagement a deal has received. In certain cases, deals with exceptionally high engagement will still receive exposure even if they are not aligned with a shopper’s personalized profile.
This personalized shopping experience has positively impacted ad performance metrics such as outclicks and sales, with personalized offers driving more meaningful shopper engagement. On Slickdeals, such is the case with our most coveted paid media option, Featured Deals.
After extensive user testing, Slickdeals found that even though Featured Deals were prominently showcased at the top of the Frontpage, which sees an average of 1.2M pageviews per day, shoppers were associating them with sponsorship and were more likely to scroll past those deals.
The team began implementing a new homepage design paired with the personalization algorithm. The new design included a For You page that showcased deals based on a shopper’s personalized profile while prioritizing deals that surpassed certain engagement thresholds on-site.
The new design interspersed Featured Deals throughout the personalized deal feed on the For You page, providing a more organic look and feel for these sponsored deals. Already dubbed one of the highest performing paid media placements on Slickdeals, Featured Deals saw a 215% increase in outclicks and a 283% increase in sales as a direct result of the new personalization efforts and design.
Incorporating elements of personalization can help lengthen and deepen a brand’s relationship with a consumer and can directly impact sales by inspiring meaningful transactions.
To find out how personalization has positively affected other opportunities across Slickdeals, get in touch with our team.
1 Merkle, “2021 Loyalty Barometer Report,” March 2, 2021
2eMarketer, “Ecommerce and Retail Customer Experience 2021,” May 24, 2021