Maximize the Relevance of Search Experience with Personalized Search
By Stacy
Aug 17 2021
3 min to read
Personalization is a powerful tool for ecommerce as it helps create an individual, user-oriented customer experience. If you're thinking about personalizing your customers' journey on a website but don't know where to start, think about introducing site search personalization first. Site search personalization is a simple, straightforward, and easily implemented solution that will help to improve the customer experience on your website significantly. Let's dive in and learn more about why search personalization is so essential, what particular benefits it brings, and how it works on the example of the Searchanise search app.
Why personalization in search is a must for ecommerce
Personalization in ecommerce is the process of delivering a personal experience that is adapted to customers' needs. It may include various strategies from personalized site homepage to cart-abandonment emails. Personalized search is one of the ecommerce personalization strategies that help create the most relevant search results for customers online, in real-time.
Personalization is a trending world practice in ecommerce, as customers expect the shopping experience to be custom to their taste and needs. And personalized site search is an easy and effective way to achieve these expectations.
Personalization is a trending world practice in ecommerce, as customers expect the shopping experience to be custom to their taste and needs. And personalized site search is an easy and effective way to achieve these expectations.
Flawlessly working, predictive and personalized search is a salesperson of your store who remembers your customers' preferences and helps them find the products they will like most.
Indeed, if it is personalized, the site search can perform the same function as a salesperson in an offline store that knows all the repeat customers and their tastes and give personal attention to every shopper. The drawback is that search, in contrast to real salespeople, cannot make small talk to customers, but not that they expect it.
The benefits of personalized search
The primary benefit of personalized search is that it helps deliver the most relevant search results for customers. As we already mentioned, if the customer is a repeat buyer or has been searching for products on a website for some time, they expect personalized search results. Customers' expectations, when satisfied, contribute to a better customer experience and higher customer satisfaction. But that's not all.
77 percent of consumers have chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or experience.
Forrester
Forrester
In other words, personalization helps to build customer loyalty. And, as we all know, loyal and happy customers are the converting customers. Therefore, personalized search also contributes to the increase of conversion.
How search personalization works
The main drivers of personalization are the advancements in technologies, namely artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
AI, together with machine learning, can crunch data quickly, allowing businesses to build individual, user-oriented customer experience and convert visitors into paying customers.
Now let's see how personalization works using the Serchanise search app as an example. When a customer visits certain product pages on your website, the system tracks the product type and product category. And after the customer has visited more than 5 product pages, personalization begins to affect the search results: the more relevant products will appear higher in the list.
For example, the picture below shows the search results page after searching "t-shirt" on the first visit to the website.
For example, the picture below shows the search results page after searching "t-shirt" on the first visit to the website.
The search results when searching for "t-shirt" for the first time
The second picture shows the search results for "t-shirt" after the user has viewed 5+ products for women. As you can see, now womens' t-shirts appear higher in the search results. It allows customers to find the relevant product faster, resulting in an enhanced customer experience and higher customer satisfaction.
The search results for "t-shirt" after viewing 5+ products for women
Personalization rules
When a customer views products from both women and men categories, algorithms will raise products from the most viewed category to the top. For example, if the user has viewed 6 products from the women category and 8 from the men category, products for men will appear higher in the search results.
Also, it's important to know that merchandising rules have a higher priority than personalization. So, if you've set up a certain product to be always on top of the search results using merchandising, personalized search results will appear after that product.
Also, it's important to know that merchandising rules have a higher priority than personalization. So, if you've set up a certain product to be always on top of the search results using merchandising, personalized search results will appear after that product.
How to integrate personalized site search
The good news is that ecommerce personalization software is easy to install and use. To delight customers with personalized search results and get new business opportunities, you only need to install Searchanise, and the personalized search engine will be instantly added to your website. Personalization is enabled by default, see the picture of the Searchanise admin panel below. If at any point you may want to turn it off, go to the admin panel, tab Preferences, and uncheck the box.
Search personalization is turned on by default in admin panel
Apart from search personalization, Searchanise provides other build-in tools to boost customer experience when shopping on a website, such as filters, product recommendations blocks, analytics, and more.
Stacy
Stacy is a content creator at Searchanise. Her professional areas of interest are SaaS solutions and ecommerce. Stacy believes that quality content must be valuable for readers and achieve business goals. When she is not busy writing, which does not happen often, she reads passionately, both fiction and non-fiction literature.
