The Importance of Personalization in B2B and B2C eCommerce

Your loyal customers are what differentiate you from your competitors. According to Gartner®, by 2026, 60% of large enterprises will use Total Experience (TX) to transform their business models to achieve world-class customer and employee advocacy levels. Customers will stay loyal for a multitude of reasons, but why not reward them for their loyalty by giving them a personalized experience when they shop on your eCommerce site.

So what does personalization mean for your customers?

Personalization is all about what your customers want. It’s based on their shopping habits, preferences, and of course looking at your past interactions with them and learning from that data. Personalization can mean when Customer A logs in they see their specific pricing that Customer B wouldn’t see because they have a different catalog of prices. It can mean getting recommended different kinds of products based on what they’ve searched for in the past. Overall, creating personalized experiences for your customers typically produces improved customer satisfaction, increased engagement, higher conversion rates, and so much more.

The strategies you have in place as a B2B company can sometimes look different than if you were a B2C company. In both cases, data is going to be the foundation of effective personalization. Understanding your clients’ needs and preferences will allow you to tailor their different offerings accordingly.

Personalization in B2B Commerce

In B2B personalization, focusing on delivering personalized content and pricing to key accounts is a critical strategy. When you treat each account as their own entity while using your site, you can address that specific clients’ needs through highly targeted campaigns. Using their past browsing and purchasing history to provide recommendations that tailor to what they may be looking for. Along with this, you can also ensure that when a specific account logs into your site, they’re seeing their pricing models that they discussed with your sales team. This way, there’s no confusion or need to speak with a sales representative every time they log in.

Personalization in B2C Commerce

While data is just as important to follow in B2C commerce, what you do with it is the differentiator. Typically, as a B2C company you want to focus your understanding on consumer behaviors and preferences. Looking at customer engagement such as browsing history and purchasing behavior still matters here, however you also want to look at how they engage with the marketing content shown to them. Someone shopping off your B2C website is there for a different reason than your B2B website. Keeping that in mind, grouping your customers based on their behavior is an effective strategy in B2C Personalization.

Another B2C personalization strategy is creating personalized landing pages, and email content based on the behavior groups you segmented out. This creates an overall more engaging and relevant experience for your shoppers.

Tools for Personalization

• Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM): This is essential on your front end for managing client relationships and personalizing interactions.

• Analytics tools: To measure the effectiveness of personalization efforts.

• AI in eCommerce and Machine Learning: Tools such as HawkSearch that use AI machine learning in eCommerce, to help your customers find what they’re looking for every time.

Conclusion

Overall, personalization is a strategy you should be implementing whether you’re a B2B or B2C company. When it comes to B2B Personalization, focus on the business and your decision makers, who is logging in to shop on your site so they can get their job done? Put an emphasis on ABM, customized pricing and continuing to strengthen your long-term relationships.

For the B2C Personalization, looking at the customer as an individual and put an emphasis on immediate satisfaction and quick purchasing decisions. Keep the emphasis on customer segmentation, real-time personalization and dynamic content that speaks to them in the moment. By understanding the unique needs and preferences of your target audiences, you can implement effective personalization strategies that will drive growth to your business.