Decreasing user engagement levels, decreasing ad rates and decreasing conversion rates. Enterprise websites are trying to increase engagement and revenues by trying to offer something for everyone with expectations of increasing revenue and engagement levels. Experience is showing that this strategy is doing just the opposite. For example, total ad revenues are declining for newspaper sites. In fact, print publications are losing $10 in print revenue for every dollar in on line revenue that they are gaining, reflecting a decline from the previous year of $7 lost for every dollar gained, according to the Pew Research Center’s “State of the Media Report.”
The solution is to give people what they want, when they want it – personalize their experience by delivering content that is tailored to the individual user. Quarterly Digital Intelligence, in association with Adobe, released a paper in June of this year stating that personalization of content is becoming a fundamental requirement. Personalization encourages people to spend more time on a site, improves the reputation of a site, reduces bounce rate, increases the number of visitors and improves the absolute bottom line.
It’s a simple concept: deliver what people want instead of throwing it up and seeing what sticks.
