Online Personas: Optimizing the e-Commerce Experience with Advanced Personalization

In a physical store, the human element makes it easier to greet new customers and build relationships with existing ones. A successful salesperson can identify the customer’s needs and motivations quickly, provide a service that meets those needs, and have a bigger influence on the customer’s purchasing decision. Online, in the absence of face to face interaction, the ability to characterize the customer and adjust as a seller to meet the customer’s needs is much more difficult.

The main reason is that social interaction activates a consistent set of areas in the brain, which are in charge of making inferences about other humans’ minds. Therefore, there is a need to implement a different methodology to be able to ‘read’ visitors’ needs and motivations. The ability to detect visitors’ needs and motivations can provide the “personal touch” that exists offline; shedding light on why visitors may not convert.

Using ClickTale to analyze the in-page behavior of thousands of website visitors, our in-house web psychologist, Dr. Liraz Margalit, applied her expertise in online user behavior and decision making processes to identify six recurring patterns of behavior.

By identifying the behavior patterns and understanding the psychological needs of each personality type, you can proactively create personalized experiences, leading to higher engagement and resulting in more sales and checked-out carts.

The psychological behavioral drivers create distinct online personas with different motivators. Let’s delve into the details.

1. The Wish Lister

This persona suffers from the constant feeling of “I want so many things but I know I can’t have them all” and is more commonly found among females and in e-commerce websites. The Wish Lister devotes a lot of time and effort in carefully picking items and placing them in the shopping cart, but most of the time ends up abandoning the cart.

What prevents the purchase?

An online cart promotes feelings of ownership because the visitor can add and remove items at any time, and those items will remain in the cart even when the visitor leaves the website. Whenever the visitor returns to the website, this personal cart, with all the virtual property, is visible and accessible. This combination helps the Wish Lister feel as if they own the products and serves as consolation to the fact that the products were not purchased.

Pro Tip

Encourage the Wish Lister to complete the purchase by offering a discount. When the Wish Lister returns to the website, you should greet them with a pop-up window, such as: “It’s your lucky day! Your selected item is on sale.” This type of unexpected personal discount helps enforce the wishful thinking bias that what one wants to be true affects what one perceives to be true; giving a sense that the Universe is sending a sign to buy the item.

2. The Brand-Oriented Visitor

The Brand-Oriented Visitor tends to be an impulse buyer whose main motivation is self-gratification that comes from purchasing a status symbol for social purposes. Since staying up to date with the latest trends is the main motivator, the brand’s reputation is the main reason for the purchase. As a result, this persona spends most of the online interaction focusing on the product’s external features, such as colors, accessories, etc.

What prevents the purchase?

The Brand-Oriented Visitor acts on emotional stimuli rather than on rational decision-making. Therefore, parameters such as price, the necessity of the purchase or the practicality of the product are less important. Furthermore, overly detailed, technical, information on the product can lead to second-guessing the purchase.

Pro Tip

The website should have colourful and captivating images to trigger an emotional arousal. Make sure to keep detailed information, such as product specifications, behind tabs and available only “on demand”.

3. The Rational Visitor

The Rational Visitor is the exact opposite and relies on logic as the basis for action. This persona feels the need to rely on objective observation and factual analysis in the decision-making process.

What prevents the purchase?

The Rational Visitor is characterized by a two-step purchasing decision process that involves (a) rejecting options that do not meet the key criterion, which is usually price, and (b) using a cost/benefit analysis to choose the best option from the remaining alternatives. If there is not enough information to follow this decision making process, the Rational Visitor is likely to feel that a calculated and informed decision is unlikely to happen and in most cases, will prefer to forgo with the purchase.

Pro Tip

Set out as much detailed information on the product as possible. Consider using charts comparing between the different products, plans or services.

4. The Maximizer

This persona is obsessed with making the absolute best choice out of all the available options. The Maximizer needs to feel that before a decision has been reached, all the options have been considered; that every listing has been read reviewed, from the top of the page to the bottom. Information, rather than price, is the key factor.

What prevents the purchase?

The Maximizer is excessively worried about making a bad purchasing decision. This is the reason the Maximizer will delve into the product information but instead of having it help with reaching a decision, it usually leads to indecisiveness and frustration. Maximizers can become so paralyzed with anxiety that they will not buy anything. Even when there is a purchase, the Maximizer can end up feeling frustrated with the decision reached. Keep in mind that the decision does not have to be based on utility maximization; it can be based on any other features or criteria.

Pro Tip

Use filters to limit the number of options that the Maximizer can see. The best practice is to limit each row to five items, and provide a default or “suggested” purchase

5. The Satisfier

The Satisfier is the complete opposite of the Maximizer. This type of personality is satisfied with the shopping choice and is confident in the ability to make a decision that is good enough. The Satisfier usually has limited patience for shopping and no time to waste looking for the best possible option. This persona is content with the option that meets the criteria set out by immediate, and often minimum, needs.

What prevents the purchase?

The Satisfier needs to be able to find the suitable product easily and quickly. The Satisfier usually starts at the top of the page and needs to be able to scroll quickly and easily to reach a match because that will lead to a purchase, regardless of how many other options are still available.

Pro Tip

Filters enable the Satisfier to find the option that is most relevant to their needs. If you are a retail website, arrange your listings according to brand, purpose or theme. This is the digital equivalent to an in-store salesperson offering: “What color and size would you like me to bring to you.”

6. The Hesitator

The Hesitator tries to avoid the risk and regret associated with making the wrong decision. This persona can fill out an online registration form or place items in a cart, only to have second thoughts upon reaching the call-to-action (CTA) button.

What prevents the purchase?

At this point the Hesitator will spend a significant amount of time clicking on different tabs and hovering over the CTA, waiting for the website to persuade clicking. If a positive reinforcing motivator doesn’t appear, there will be no purchase. Additionally, since the Hesitator is indecisive, too many steps or opportunities in the purchasing process or forms will cause this persona to doubt the entire purchasing decision.

Pro Tip

Use positive-oriented wording, instead of neutral language, to frame the experience in an optimistic light, making the Hesitator feel good about the purchasing process. Feedbacks and rewards, such as “you’ve made a great decision choosing X” or “you are one step from becoming an exclusive member of Y”, will encourage the Hesitator that the right decision is being made and promote continuing with the purchasing process. Also, reduce the number of checkout pages or remove the ability to return to the previous page once the process has begun.

Conclusion

Successful businesses grasp the necessity of reading and responding to the “digital body language” of their website visitors. This new body language is revealed through online behavior activities, such as browsing patterns, hovering over elements, clicking, scrolling and more. By upgrading your personalization strategy according to these six online personas, you can optimize the user experience, pick up on visitors’ strongest buying signals and achieve more conversions.