GDPR Archives - SoloSegment

Personalization — It’s Not Just for B2C

Posted on May 7, 2019 by Madeline Moran

This past year, the demand for personalization is at an all-time high.

According to a Lytics white paper, two-thirds of customers want brands to adjust content based on their real-time context. Over 40% are annoyed if you don’t. And another two-thirds of those said they skip making a purchase out of annoyance.

That’s not just a problem for retail.

The Future of Personalization

Marketing’s future is not just about knowing about your customer’s identity. That dream is slowly being killed off by companies like Facebook abusing their power, getting marketers slapped with legal restraints.

But you have far more data than that. You have the potential for behavior based personalization. Track what buyers come to your site and their buyer’s journey — what content they click through to reach a conversion — and you’ll get a guide for content suggestions.

The B2B World is Lagging Behind

B2C took the lead on personalization. Meanwhile too many B2B marketers are either early on in the process, or so behind that getting started feels daunting. According to the Seismic report, of the B2B marketers who responded, 55% have been personalizing content for two years or less. For a little over half of marketers, the main stumbling blocks are a lack of technology, bandwidth, and data.

Marketers make it harder for themselves than it needs to be. 67% are using entirely or mostly manual processes for content personalization. With a little automation plus the data on your website, you could be leading the pack.

B2B Buyers Expect Better

All signs point to B2B buyers being let down. In a SalesForce report, 65% of B2B buyers switch brands if a brand doesn’t personalize communications. 75% expect companies to “anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions” by 2020. This means the future we are headed in is one of content recommendation, of curated and responsive personalization.

You can get started in B2B personalization. You already have more data than you think — all of your website analytics. Behavior based personalization is waiting. It’s just a matter of taking the dive.

About Madeline Moran

Madeline is the Marketing Assistant for SoloSegment, an AI fueled software company that makes website conversions easier through personalized content recommendation.

Are You Considering Behavior-Based Personalization?

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Mike Moran

If you are like most marketers, you’ve probably been salivating over personalizing your website for years. It has always seemed like a good idea, but it’s never seemed possible.

At first, you thought, “If Amazon can do it, we can do it!” But then your IT folks told you the way Amazon does it. Amazon has so many products and so many purchases in its history–and so many repeat visitors–that it is relatively simple to guess what people want. But your site isn’t like Amazon.

Then you thought, “Well, if we know something about our visitors, we can use that to personalize.” But no one wanted to register on your site, so you didn’t know who they were. And privacy regulations came along, and you weren’t sure you wanted to know anything.

Does that mean that you have to give up the dream? No!

You actually can personalize using your visitors’ behavior. With the right technology, you can watch what visitors do on your site. With a bit more technology, you can find the patterns that lead them to success. And with one last dollop of tech, you can use that data to suggest successful paths to others on that same journey.

That’s the beauty of behavior-based personalization. It doesn’t require registrations. It’s GDPR-compliant, because it doesn’t require any personally-identifiable information. It doesn’t require a a slew of products or return visitors. Or heavy traffic.

If you’ve been waiting for the easy way to add personalization to your site, it’s time to check out behavior-based personalization.

Originally posted on Biznology

About Mike Moran

Mike Moran is an expert in internet marketing, search technology, social media, text analytics, web personalization, and web metrics. Mike serves as a senior strategist for Converseon, a leading digital media marketing consultancy based in New York City. He is also a senior strategist for SoloSegment, a marketing automation software solutions and services firm.

SearchChat Podcast: Is AI Bigger than the Internet?

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Tim Peter

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In a recent study, 63% of CEOs agreed that AI will have more impact on their business than the internet. Think about that for a minute. The internet. And yet, 23% said they had no plans to do anything about it. Why? Partially, people tend to overestimate how much data they need to get to a reliable result for utilizing AI.

Steve and I think it’s possible for most businesses to start implementing machine learning. The new exciting thing is behavioral personalization. Among privacy concerns and the world of GDPR, behavioral personalization is a way to use data that isn’t identifying. Instead, we can match patterns with other user’s patterns. You have more data than you think. You need less data than you think. And adequate new data is more accessible than you think.

What ways can you implement AI using the data you have now, to totally change the visitor journey? It’s about creating patterns and solving problems. Take a listen! And if you’re interested in learning what SoloSegment is about, feel free to connect with us.

0:00 Intro

1:50 Behavioral personalization changes customer experience

9:30 Are you planning for the AI future, now?

21:35 AI and behavioral personalization combine to create a new visitor journey

27:50 Outro

SearchChat is available on

Search Chat is SoloSegment’s podcast dedicated to all things search AI and content marketing related. Who is SoloSegment? We’re a technology company focused on site search analytics and AI driven content discovery to improve search results, increase customer satisfaction and unlock revenue for your company.

About Tim Peter

Tim Peter is the President of SoloSegment. An expert in e-commerce and digital marketing strategy, web development, search marketing, and analytics, Tim focuses on the growth of the social, local, mobile web and its impact on both consumer behavior and business results. SoloSegment provides analytics that improve site search conversion and machine learning technologies that improve content effectiveness.

SearchChat Podcast: Can You Personalize Without Creepy Data?

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Tim Peter

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Is the dream of the visitor journey dying? How do we make journeys more functional without using data people don’t want us to have?

Marketers are starting to learn they can’t just orchestrate a visitor journey from start to finish. It’s all about improving the journeys people actually make. They’re complex, not straightforward. Steve and I discuss how visitor journeys are a big data problem. Machine learning allows you not to have to manually deal with that data. It makes Big Data little.

Data can be put to work automatically to make the journey better — and it doesn’t have to be a ton of data. We often start with search data, and it works great since it connects people directly with the thing they want. “Behavioral personalization” means personalization but without all the creepy data. Instead, it’s personalization that customers are asking for. This matters in a post-GDPR world.

Google’s policy is to get right up to the creepy line without crossing it. Most people don’t know that smart TVs are cheap because they are tracking your data. How long will models built on creepy data survive?

The three laws of robotics initially were just about making sure robots don’t kill humans. Now we’re thinking much further beyond that — how to create ethical artificial intelligence for business. Interested in the podcast and behavioral personalization options? Check out SoloSegment’s technology solutions.

Tune in and discover more!

00m 00s — Intro and overview

2m 00s Visitor journeys are changing

7m 05s AI for developing visitor journeys

11m 05s Behavioral personalization

15m 25s Creepy Data

19m 30s 3 Laws of Robotics — how do we create ethical AI?

22m 45s Is it just “legal,” or is it good for customers?

29m 35s Outro

SearchChat is available on

Originally published on Biznology

About Tim Peter

How long will business models based on personal data survive?

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Steve Zakur1 Comment

I don’t use Snapchat mostly because nobody I know uses it. I’m not the target demographic, apparently. But that doesn’t keep me from talking about how much I dislike the user experience. I know that when I register such complaints I probably sound like a codger who wants his buggy whip back. But even so, I never really “got” why someone would build a platform where content is ephemeral. Isn’t the whole point of social platforms to catalog our lives? Maybe I’m missing something.

About Steve Zakur

Stephen Zakur is CEO of SoloSegment. SoloSegment provides analytics that improve site search conversion and machine learning technologies that improve content effectiveness.