57-60 SecondsA few months ago I wrote a post about Monetate’s “60 Second Integration Guide” and said that it listed all the steps needed to add “segment, target, and personalize” capabilities to your online store or other commercial web site. With those capabilities in place, you can give visitors the kind of personal, relevant, and compelling site experience that leads to higher conversion rates and average order values.

A lot of people downloaded the guide but some were skeptical that a process so simple could provide a full set of “segment, target, and personalize” capabilities. Well, today I’d like to present two audio clips, the first of which just happens to be 60 seconds long. In this clip, Monetate’s co-founder and CEO, David Brussin, describes the tag that is the key to all of Monetate’s functionality. The simplicity of the tag, and the fact that it can be inserted into any web site with very little effort, is also the key to that 60 second integration. Here’s David:

Download:

Bear in mind that this one tag takes care of all four of the functions required to display relevant content, personalized for each visitor segment that you want to target. These functions are as follows:

  1. Collecting and segmenting data about site visitors,
  2. Displaying customized marketing and merchandising content,
  3. Incorporating discounts offered to certain segments, and
  4. Analysing the results.

Here’s how David describes–in 36 seconds–the four-way functionality of the Monetate tag:

Download:

So what does this means for online marketing today? It means that the goal of creating a personal, relevant, and compelling site experience for each visitor is now readily attainable. It requires no technical training, no big I.T. project, no changes to your page layouts or product shots, no installing of placeholders or containers. Just one tag and you’re done.

To put this in a wider context, last month was the tenth anniversary of the publication of “Smart Personalization” by Forrester Research. That report concluded: “typical Web personalization efforts fail to produce results that match market expectations.” Fortunately, in the decade since then, things have changed. And while it may have taken the better part of ten years for marketers and technologists to turn things around, we can now say with confidence: If you have an online store generating more than a $1 million in annual revenue and getting over 100,000 unique visits a month, delivery of the personal, relevant, and compelling site experience is not only attainable, it can pay for itself many times over, in better conversion rates and higher average order values.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download