Personalization Glossary
If personalization is new to you, you may be wondering what some of these terms mean exactly. That’s why we’ve compiled this personalization glossary, so that you can get your personalization terminology honed in.
Basic Personalization Terms
This is the category of personalization that is applied to apps, usually in the form of adding recommendations to apps using an embed code, or other targeted content. This can be accomplished via embed codes, the Personyze SDK kit, and API integrations between the app and Personyze.
This is targeting which is based on the behaviors which visitors have exhibited on the site, which could be any specific behavior, or set or sequence of behaviors, used to identify someone as a particular segment.
For instance, visitors who arrived from a particular ad campaign for product X, or spent a certain amount of time looking at pages about product X, can be segmented based on these behaviors as someone interested in product X, and therefore shown targeted content related to that product, such as a particular exit popup offering them a discount on product X.
This is the category of algorithmic recommendations which applies specifically to content, rather than products. This is often utilized for blog posts, magazine articles, case studies, or other similar types of website content. Generally, the goal for content recommendations is to increase metrics like engagement, time on site, and return readers, since the element of sales usually isn’t involved. Personyze has its own set of algorithms and step-by-step wizards specifically for content recommendations.
This is a term which just refers to using personalization on more than one marketing “channel,” usually emails, applications, or push notifications, especially when the visitor’s interactions with the content on those channels also affects how the software interacts with them on the website (through their unified user profile).
Dynamic landing pages are a method of using personalization technology to change your landing pages for different segments, or based on multiple targeting parameters. The objective of dynamic landing pages is to have a single landing page that can be highly relevant to whomever is looking at it, rather than the typical strategy of creating many landing pages for different segments.
Beyond simply having many landing pages in one, so-to-speak, Personyze also makes it possible to have various landing page elements change based on multiple segments. For instance, on a lead generation landing page, the header could be based on the visitor’s industry, the calls to action could be segmented for their role in the company, and the pricing could be adjusted to match their company size.
This is the strategy and technology involved in making your emails personalized, which is done in a few ways. Including the visitor’s name and other key variables such as company name is an obvious method which is almost always included in standard ESPs. What is more unique to Personyze is the ability to include AI-generated recommendations in the emails, just like the kinds you might include on the site, as well as to send emails to visitors based on their very specific behaviors on the site, using targeting.
This is the strategy and technology involved in making your emails personalized, which is done in a few ways. Including the visitor’s name and other key variables such as company name is an obvious method which is almost always included in standard ESPs. What is more unique to Personyze is the ability to include AI-generated recommendations in the emails, just like the kinds you might include on the site, as well as to send emails to visitors based on their behaviors on the site, using targeting.
The replacement of manual marketing methods with automated ones, using tools like targeting, recommendations, and email drip functions. In a sense, personalization is a type of marketing automation. This term is also used more heavily for the automation of email marketing, although it technically applies to all automated marketing tools.
This is a personalization strategy which involves applying personalization tools to all channels with which your company has contacts with visitors, which often includes website, emails, and apps. Synonymous with cross-channel personalization, but perhaps indicating that no channels are unpersonalized.
This is a general term for marketing automation technologies which create a more personally relevant experience on digital channels. This can range from behavioral targeting to AI-generated recommendations, email tools, and more. Essentially, anything that changes your digital experience per visitor, or per segment, is personalization.
This is the category of recommendations which presents users with products they’re most likely to be interested in, usually for eCommerce sites. Taking various factors into consideration, such as interest tags associated with products and product interaction behavior from both individuals and the crowd data as a whole, the algorithm will show each customer at each particular step in the funnel whatever is most likely to contribute to their sale. Personyze has a wizard and set of algorithms specifically designed for product recommendations, which may include cross-sales, up-sales, recurring sales, and many others.
This is a technology which utilizes various algorithmic data analysis methods to display content that customers or audiences are most likely to find engaging or appealing, whether various types of content or products. It involves an automated system that monitors visitors’ interaction behaviors, both at the level of individuals and crowd data, and takes into consideration the interest tags that are associated with each product or piece of content that is being recommended.
Using this monitoring and powerful algorithms, it’s possible for the software to “learn” about what visitors are actually interested in, and show them more of it, to increase sales or engagement, along with other metrics.
Closely related to targeting, this is the act of dividing your visitors into segments who are differentiated according to their data profiles which represent their interests, needs, and other factors.
Targeting involves creating content which will be “targeted” or limited to only certain customers or website visitors, usually based on some type of segmentation. In other words, a visitor will only see content X if they match Y and Z rules, such as being a new user, being from a particular industry, or having displayed a particular product category interest, for example.
This is the category of personalization that is applied specifically to websites, and includes all of the targeting and recommendations you might do on a website. This makes up the majority of Personyze’s functionality, and the ways in which you can theoretically change your website to be more relevant to visitors is practically limitless with the tools we offer.
A/B testing is a marketing method of showing multiple types of content or strategies to see which actually works best, in order to engage in evidence-based marketing. Typically, two or more strategies are shown randomly to different visitors on the site, and their performance is reviewed to see which is most effective.
Personyze provides A/B testing as an option on any given campaign, and allows you to A/B test within your targeted segment, rather than randomly on all site visitors.
Ecommerce Personalization
These are tools and strategies which are ideal solutions for reducing the number of abandoned carts on an ecommerce site, or in other words, reducing the number of people who leave before completing their purchase (conversion). These include personalized abandoned cart emails, which may show not only the abandoned items but also similar suggested items, personalized exit popups to catch them before they leave, and overall personalization to increase engagement.
Ecommerce personalization encompasses all of the tools and strategy for personalization that are applied to ecommerce. Some of the most important personalization elements in ecommerce typically are:
- Product Recommendations
- Targeted Promotions (coupons, flash sales, etc.)
- Cart abandonment measures
- Email remarketing
- Social proof and sense of urgency messaging
Exit popups are a particularly significant type of popup in ecommerce, because they offer an opportunity to grab a customer’s attention and/or make them a uniquely relevant offer (thanks to targeting), or show them highly appealing product recommendations, before they leave the site. Exit popups can be used to prevent site bounce and abandoned carts in a variety of ways, such as offering to collect the customer’s email to send them their cart so they don’t lose the items they’ve collected, or showing a countdown with a temporary discount if they check out soon.
Product algorithms are the algorithms for product recommendations that are specifically designed to be applicable to products rather than content. They are based on factors such as what visitors viewed, added to cart, or purchased, and consider variables like price or items in stock.
The product feed is the raw data for your product inventory that is used by Personyze to track visitor product interests and to feed content into the recommendations themselves. Integrating your product feed is a key part of ecommerce onboarding, and we offer assistance with this step for all accounts, regardless of package. You can read more about product feed integration here.
Product remarketing emails are a type of remarketing email specifically related to a customer’s recent shopping patterns, typically based on products they showed interest in but ultimately didn’t purchase. They could also be accessories to a product that was recently purchased.
Product interactions monitoring is the tracking which is used to generate the data which informs your recommendations. Typical events that are monitored as part of product interactions monitoring are:
- Viewed
- Added to Cart
- Added to Wishlist
- Purchased
This is another key part of ecommerce onboarding, and help with setting up this tracking is offered for all of our client accounts, regardless of package. You can read more about setting product interaction monitoring here.
Sense of urgency marketing involves creating a sense of urgency in the customer to increase the likelihood of their completing their purchase, or converting. An easy example would be to notify them that an item they seem to be interested in is low in stock, while they’re browsing or in a remarketing email, with messaging like, “Get it before it’s gone! Only 3 left in stock!”
Social proof marketing involves using messaging about what a shopper’s peers are doing in order to validate their shopping choices, and encourage them to increase their cart value and proceed to checkout. This can be based on real-time data, such as “54 visitors from your city are currently viewing this product,” or can be entirely fictional.
Targeted promotions are promotional offers displayed to specific visitor segments, so as to be highly relevant and more effective. This is a more personalized strategy, as compared to showing a single promotion to all visitors. For instance, using geotargeting, you can offer visitors within a certain range of your distribution centers free shipping, or show new visitors trying to leave the site (bounce) a coupon to encourage them to complete their checkout. These can be displayed in any way that Personyze can display content, typically as a smart popup or banner.
B2B Personalization Terminology
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a marketing strategy that involves focusing on a relatively smaller number of high-value leads, and expending more effort per lead to create a highly tailored experience for them.
Personalization technology is especially useful for ABM, because it allows you to create automated processes that serve the same purpose as previously manual processes.
For instance, instead of building a landing page for each of 60 or so companies you want to market to, you can create a single dynamic landing page that has various elements which change per company.
ABM personalization often includes use cases such as website content based on ABM/B2B data acquired from a third-party vendor, such as a given lead’s industry, company size, role in their company, etc. It can also include things like embedding the company name into the content of your pages.
B2B personalization encompasses all the personalization strategies that would typically be practiced in a B2B context, as opposed to a more traditional B2C context such as retail ecommerce.
Often, B2B personalization involves ABM, or a strategy of focusing on a relatively smaller number of high-value B2B leads and/or customers.
CRM targeting relates to creating segmented experiences on your website based on data that is in your CRM. This requires a data synchronization or transfer between your CRM and Personyze, and also requires Personyze to match any given visitor to their CRM profile.
CRM targeting allows you to provide highly optimized experiences in a B2B context. For instance, you can show a promotion to upgrade to a mid-range account only to visitors with a basic account, when Personyze knows from CRM data which visitors have which account type.
You can also insert content from your CRM into the site, such as their company name, role, and show custom messaging based on something like their stage in the funnel. Basically, any data you have in your CRM can be used either to create segmented content, or to add to embed variables into your content.
A common use case in B2B is to show content that is highly relevant based on B2B lead variables, whether using a content recommendation algorithm or through manual targeting.
Types of content that are typically optimized this way on B2B sites are things like case studies, white papers, testimonials, company logos, and, of course, blog content.
For instance, on a single homepage, you could have testimonials based on the visitor’s industry, customer logos based on their country, and show a popup form requesting their email to send them a white paper targeted at their company role.
A personalization use case that is more often used in a B2B context, dynamic landing pages are landing pages that change dynamically depending on who is looking at them. This is an alternative to the more typical strategy of creating numerous landing pages for different companies, industries, etc.
Instead, you create a sort of modular landing page for all of them that changes dynamically depending on who is looking at it. Various page elements can also change depending on different lead variables.
For instance, a single lead could see a landing page header based on their industry, calls to action based on their role in company, and pricing based on their company size.
Personyze has the ability to present your leads with dynamic forms, which have individual content elements that change depending on lead variables.
For instance, a singular form can change per lead with a call-to-action that includes their company name, an image geared toward their industry, and paragraph text based on their individual interest derived from behavior on the site.
This is lead data provided by third-party vendors such as LeadFeeder, Albacross, or Clearbit, so that you can have detailed knowledge about otherwise anonymous leads. Personyze has turnkey integrations for some third-party data providers, but can use raw data from any provider.
The purpose of using this type of data is to immediately market to otherwise anonymous visitors. As much as Personyze can and does know about your website’s visitors, there are certain things it can’t know without being fed the data. These include things like their company size, industry, and role in company, all relevant ABM/B2B variables.
Email Personalization Terms
This is where you create a sequence of emails to send in a given time frame, often with the ability to stop sending if the recipient takes a given action, such as stop sending if they open, or stop sending if they click through.
This term encompasses all of the ways that personalization can be applied to emails. This is primarily in the domain of personalizing the content of the emails, using targeting and recommendations.
Personyze is able to add recommendations to emails, as well as send targeted and dynamic content based on site behavior and other data.
This is the reputation you as a sender have with the ISP of recipients. If your score falls too low, then recipients’ inboxes will automatically send your messages to spam or even block them. Many different factors influence email sender reputation, but ultimately what gets you put on the naughty list is sending out too many mass, spammy emails.
Using personalization to send fewer emails with higher relevance will increase and maintain your good sender reputation.
Get-code recommendations are recommendations that are added or embedded in email content (or in apps) using a code. This code is provided by the Personyze get-code wizard, and then copy/pasted into the email’s HTML content.
This is used to add recommendations to an email without actually broadcasting the email from Personyze. You can add recommendations to any existing emails in any third-party ESP like MailChimp or Constant Contact, using this method.
The reason it’s called a get-code is because it’s a code that gets the recommendations, and presents them in the form of images. When a user clicks these images, they will be taken to the product or content piece they clicked.
It’s important to note that the get-code is also open-time, so it will call the recommendations at the moment they open the email, even though it’s added to a third party email not broadcasted from Personyze.
These are recommendations much like those you may have on your website, but in emails. Some algorithms are more commonly used in emails, but technically you can use any design and any algorithm in any email, with Personyze.
What makes these recommendations “open-time” is the fact that Personyze calls the recommendations at the moment the person opens the email, ensuring they are always as relevant as they can possibly be.
Used most often for emails, but also sometimes in other contexts, webhooks are a bit like a third-party API connection using a “middle-man,” typically Zapier.
In simplest terms, it’s a way for one piece of software on the internet to talk to another, and in this case it’s most often used to allow Personyze to tell a third-party email provider to send a given email to a given user, usually based on targeted behaviors on the site.
For instance, if someone shows interest in a particular product or service, through a targeting campaign, you can execute a webhook action which notifies your ESP to add them to an email list, or send a particular email drip campaign, or whatever marketing automation logic you have there.