Individualization at scale sounds sweet on a pitch deck. Then Black Friday hits, your push tool misses a segment, and a loyal customer named Ana gets a promo for a product she just bought. She replies with a screenshot and a skull emoji. Classic. The stack did what it was…
Tag: User Journey
Personalization foundations for large sites
The night before a big promo, a retail team flips on a new set of audience rules. The goal is simple. Show repeat buyers a fast path to checkout. Nudge new visitors with social proof. Traffic surges. Pages start to feel sticky. One region loads a full hero video. Another…
When rules beat ai in personalization
Creation date: 2023-06-24T02:31:56 Story led opening The team met to ship a new product sorter for the homepage. The deck said AI would pick the best item for each visitor. The demo was slick. A week in, conversion went down for new visitors and support got flooded by people who…
Personalization versus segmentation
Personalization gets all the buzz. Segmentation gets the job done. Today I want to put both on the same table and look at what is hype, what is useful, and where to place your next dollar. We are in a weird moment for marketing teams. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency has…
How to avoid over personalizing
How to avoid over personalizing: perspective, decisions, and practical tradeoffs. Last week a friend sent me a screenshot of an abandoned cart ad. It said Hello mate we saved your exact cart with the blue hoodie in size M. Two minutes later he got a push that said the same…
Designing for channel and journey continuity
Lina spots a sponsored post on Instagram at midnight. Limited-run sneakers. She taps. The mobile site loads, adds her size, and she is halfway through checkout when the baby monitor lights up. Thirty minutes later she is back, opens her laptop, and your site greets her like a stranger. Empty…
Your visitors want experiences give them clarity
Clarity is the experience Everyone talks about experiences. Your visitors just want clarity. People arrive from Google on their phones, with bad coffee in one hand and three other tabs waiting. Facebook is on fire for privacy. Google just started rolling out mobile first indexing. Consent prompts are about to…
Journey aware experiences that adapt
Journey aware experiences that adapt: perspective, decisions, and practical tradeoffs. We keep making pages smart and forget the person is moving. People jump from ad to site to app to email to chat. If the experience does not move with them, we lose them. From page tricks to journey sense…
Personalization strategies that scale
Personalization strategies that scale can feel like a riddle. You have data, channels, and tools. You also have pressure to make the next campaign feel human. This week Apple rolled out that new edge to edge phone and Face ID on stage, which quietly raises the bar for what people…
Signals not guesses the right kind of targeting
Signals not guesses the right kind of targeting The coffee was already cold when we realized we were aiming at shadows. A small ecommerce team, two laptops, a whiteboard covered in buyer personas that felt like we cribbed them from a brochure. We had spent real money on broad interests…