Three Must See Personalization Trends

Susan Aldrich, a leading authority on personalizing the customer experience, has released her analysis of her latest study. For the study she interviewed six thought lead-ers who work on commercial personalization solutions, as part of her information and consulting service (susanealdrich.com) on personalization technologies and practices. The survey documents three predictions in personalization with notable impact on digital marketing in 2013: mainstream adoption of personalized recommendations, multi-channel and -touchpoint solutions, and wider application of the fundamental enablers.

Interviews were conducted with leaders from Adobe Systems, Avail, Baynote, emailvision, Locayta, RichRelevance, and SilverEgg. These companies all offer services used by online marketers to present personalized items to visitors, such as presenting product recommendations to shoppers. The details of each interview are published at susanealdrich.com]

First, three quarters observed that 2012 saw recommendations move into the mainstream for retailers and that usage will increase in the year to come.

Pontus Kristiansson, co-founder and CEO of Avail, said it this way: "Virtually all the early adopters have now installed some form of [recommendation] solution." Pontus blogs at http://avail.com/knowledge/

A second important trend is the expansion of recommendation systems into personalization tools applied to not just product recommendations on a Web site or in an email, but any element of a visitor experience. I asserts that managing broader capability will be challenging if {current|available{ solutions remain siloed, addressing narrow channels, devices, and touchpoints.

Kimen Field, Senior Product Manager at Adobe Systems Incorporated said, "[Clients are moving] toward including recommendations in a broader optimization and personalization strategy, rather than just offering (and implementing) recommendations." Kimen blogs on digital marketing at http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/

Jake Bailey, VP of Product Marketing and Solutions at RichRelevance noted: "Personalization technologies are still in their infancy. There are so many other channels where this technology has not been used effectively." The RichRelevance blog is http://www.richrelevance.com/blog/

The third prediction, and the most significant for the future of digital marketing, is the infiltration of the technology to additional applications.

Junko Nishimura at Silveregg observed: "We have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Today we have islands of optimization. Recommendations are not well coordinated with advertising campaigns and landing pages, and powerful signals from consumers are being ignored." Junko blogs in Japanese at http://silveregg.typepad.jp/blog/

Dan Darnell, VP of Marketing and Product for Baynote, observedthat "The fundamental technology supporting recommender systems, such as machine learning, will support the next generation of customer experience solutions." Dan blogs for Baynote at http://www.baynote.com/blog/

Susan Aldrich is a leading authority on optimizing the methods that help customers find what they need to make buying decisions and/or to solve problems. Her research and consulting addres the technologies and practices that help marketers get the most useful content in front of customers at the right moment: personalization, recommendations, search, discovery, targeted marketing, and web content management. Her blog, at susanealdrich.com, aims to fill the need for Personalization for Dummies and Experts.

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