Personalised web content marketing makes money. You only have to visit the Amazon website to see this in action for yourself. Almost all the content you see will be unique because it is personalised for you. Amazon has a detailed record of your purchases, browsing history and your wish list. It uses this data to display personalised content.

Amazon suggests

that you ‘buy a little something’ and displays items from your wish list. It has a section called ‘Inspired by your trends.’ Amazon wants to be your personal shopper and take away all the hard work in choosing what to buy. This results in increased Amazon sales.

Many websites do not have access to as much data as Amazon, but there are several pieces of information that a website can find out about visitors, including:

• Location
• Device – whether viewing a site from a computer of a mobile device
• Referring URL – If the user did not enter the web address in their browser, then the URL that they came from can be collected
• Customer history – if a visitor has bought something from a business, then the site should have a record of their buying habits
• Browsing habits – a site can record page views and navigation clicks

The information that is gathered can form the source for personalised web pages.

Personalised web content is particularly useful to online retailers. If the visitor is a customer, then, like Amazon, based on their previous purchases the content can recommend items to buy. Non-customers who visit a particular section of the online store can be shown recommendations based on the section they visited.

If the business has many retail locations then outlets close to the visitor’s home can be featured.

Content marketing using personalised content is difficult to get right, but many research studies have confirmed that personalised content makes money by increasing conversion rates.

Lianne Wilkinson