Adaptive marketing: It’s the future of the web

Norm Johnston, global digital leader at Mindshare, suggests how to use ‘big data’ to identify and adapt to a customer’s online behaviour

BIO: Norm Johnston is global digital leader at Mindshare, a media agency network with 113 offices in 82 countries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, to Asia Pacific, dedicated to competitive marketing advantages for businesses

The term big data has  become overused in recent months, in the same way cloud computing and green IT have been referenced in every other sentence of newspapers and trade titles over the past few years. But what does big data actually mean for marketers?

But, more importantly, how can big data be used in web development to enhance the visitor experience and deliver on digital objectives such as driving up conversion rates and increasing average basket values?

On a simple level it is about marketers using any data at their disposal – sales, loyalty, media, social or third-party – to identify how best to reach a target audience, whether offering sophisticated promotions or other calls to action that take advantage of predicted behaviours. There are many examples of where this is working already – such as seasonal trends like brands responding to very hot or cold weather with tailored pricing or promotions.

At Mindshare we call this adaptive marketing, and I firmly believe that it will soon be commonplace, providing consumers with more ways to benefit based on big data. This growing opportunity will also allow web designers further chances to prove their worth when creating personalised online experiences. Imagine a world in which a website is different based on who is viewing it – you may already argue that this is the case with personalised feeds on Facebook and other social networks, but imagine if that personalised relevance was transferred to every site you visit – offering you a completely tailored shopping experience on an online supermarket site or a one-to-one online clothes shopping experience. Exciting, isn’t it?

Cynics may claim that adaption for brands just creates the excuse to sell more products, and that priced based adaptation such as the hot and cold weather example I gave above means charging customers more for a product when demand is high, but that is not always the case. For instance, in June 2012, temperature-sensitive vending machines with integrated thermometers for Coca-Cola’s Limon & Nada lemonade drinks brand were installed across Spain. The temperature was shown on a large display and cans were priced at €2 when the temperature was below 25°C; at €1.40 for temperatures of 26-29°C and €1 when it was over 30°C. Proof that being ‘adaptive’ benefits everyone in the chain – the consumer gets cheaper drinks, the brand sells more product.

I expect more and more companies to use dynamic pricing to sell their products and not be out-done by their competitors as the use of consumer data becomes an essential element of marketing.

So what impact does this have on web design? Simple; Online is where all the data is coming from, so online is the place that stands to benefit the most. On average we input 3,254 pieces of personal information into databases every week! This is a great opportunity for web designers to begin taking the personalised experience to the next level with websites that use adaptive marketing techniques. This can range from changing the products or prices displayed for individual visitors based on a range of data points to developing an entirely different journey for a consumer based on their digital profiles. Different consumers react to different pricing, positions and creative messages and in the future, web designers will be able to provide them with experiences as individual as the consumers themselves. The era of the one-size-fits-all website is over and adaptive marketing is the future.

Source: WebdesignerMag (http://goo.gl/BJfrR)