If you're involved in email marketing, you've probably heard about the importance of personalization. But while adding a recipient's name to an email might grab attention, there's a more powerful way to make your emails truly resonate with your audience: behavioral personalization.
By tailoring your email marketing based on each user's behavior, you can create relevant, timely, and impactful messages that feel as if they were crafted specifically for each individual. This approach helps improve open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, while building stronger relationships with your customers.
In this article, we’ll explore what behavioral personalization is, why it works so well, and how you can use tools like OKZest to deliver personalized email content based on user behavior.
What Is Behavioral Personalization?
Behavioral personalization is the process of tailoring email content based on a user's actions and behaviors. Unlike generic emails, which treat every subscriber the same way, behaviorally personalized emails adapt to what each person has done or shown interest in.
Here are some common examples of user behaviors that can be used to trigger personalized emails:
- Browsing History: Sending product recommendations or reminders based on what the user has recently viewed on your website.
- Purchase History: Suggesting complementary products or upsell opportunities based on the customer's past purchases.
- Cart Abandonment: Sending follow-up emails to users who added items to their cart but didn't complete the purchase.
- Email Engagement: Segmenting your audience based on email opens, clicks, or even the lack of engagement, allowing you to send different messages to highly engaged vs. disengaged users.
- App Activity: For companies with mobile apps, emails can be personalized based on app usage and in-app behaviors.
- Time Since Last Visit: Engaging inactive users with re-engagement campaigns to bring them back to your website or app.
Behavioral personalization allows you to send relevant content when it matters most, making your email marketing more effective and increasing the likelihood of conversions.
Why Should You Use Behavioral Personalization in Email Marketing?
Personalizing emails based on user behavior has proven to be one of the most effective ways to boost engagement. Here’s why it works:
Increased Relevance: Behavior-based emails are inherently more relevant to the recipient since they respond to specific actions taken by the user. This level of relevance captures attention and drives engagement.
Improved Customer Experience: Behavioral personalization demonstrates that you understand and cater to each customer’s unique journey. This creates a more pleasant and valuable experience for the recipient.
Higher Open and Click-Through Rates: Emails that are tailored based on user behavior tend to outperform generic emails. A study by Experian shows that behaviorally targeted emails have a 70.5% higher open rate and a 152% higher click-through rate.
Better Conversions and Revenue: By sending targeted content, offers, or product recommendations based on past behaviors, you’re able to guide customers toward actions that they’re more likely to complete, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.
Enhanced Customer Retention: Behavioral personalization keeps customers engaged and makes them feel valued, which can lead to increased loyalty and retention over time.
How to Use Behavioral Data for Email Personalization
Now that we understand why behavioral personalization is so effective, let’s go over some ways you can implement it in your email marketing strategy:
1. Abandoned Cart Emails
Abandoned cart emails are one of the most widely used types of behavioral personalization. When a user adds items to their cart but leaves before checking out, you can send a follow-up email to remind them about the products they left behind. These emails can include a personalized message and even offer a discount to encourage the user to complete the purchase.
2. Product Recommendation Emails
Using browsing or purchase history, you can create emails with product recommendations that are tailored to the user's preferences. For example, if a user recently viewed a specific category of products, you can send them an email featuring similar items.
3. Re-Engagement Campaigns
Re-engagement campaigns are designed to win back inactive users who haven't interacted with your brand in a while. By segmenting users based on engagement, you can send personalized messages to encourage them to re-engage, whether it’s with an exclusive offer or a gentle reminder of what they’re missing.
4. Thank You and Follow-Up Emails
After a user completes a purchase or action, send a personalized thank-you email or follow-up message. For example, if they recently downloaded an eBook or signed up for a free trial, you could follow up with additional resources that help them get the most value out of their experience.
5. Event-Based Emails
Behavioral personalization also includes event-based triggers, like birthdays or anniversaries. You can surprise users with special offers on their special day or send an email marking their one-year anniversary with your brand.
6. Location-Based Personalization
Emails can also be personalized based on the user’s location, particularly for event invitations or local promotions. This allows you to target users who are most likely to benefit from specific regional offers.
How OKZest Can Help You Personalize Email Content Based on User Behavior
Personalizing emails based on user behavior might sound complicated, but that’s where OKZest comes in to make it easy. OKZest is an email personalization tool that lets you create customized, data-driven images and content for your campaigns. Here’s how OKZest can support your behavioral personalization strategy:
Dynamic Image Personalization: With OKZest, you can easily create dynamic, personalized images that adapt to user data, such as their name, last purchase, or even time-sensitive offers. This makes it simple to deliver visuals that align with each recipient’s journey.
Behavior-Based Image Customization: OKZest allows you to tailor images and content based on behavioral triggers, so you can create targeted visuals for users who abandoned their cart, completed a purchase, or browsed specific products. This enhances the relevance of your emails.
API Integration for Automation: OKZest’s API allows you to automatically generate personalized images in real-time, based on behavioral data from your CRM or other systems. This means that each recipient can get an image that reflects their recent activity or preferences, without manual intervention.
Merge Tags for Easy Data Integration: OKZest uses merge tags, making it easy to pull in personalized information from your database, ESP, or CRM. This is especially helpful for high-volume email campaigns that need to be customized at scale.
ESP Compatibility: OKZest integrates with popular email service providers (ESPs), so you can easily add personalized images to your email campaigns without any compatibility issues.
Examples of Behavioral Personalization with OKZest
Wondering what behavioral personalization with OKZest might look like? Here are some examples:
Abandoned Cart Reminder Image: Use OKZest to create an image that features the recipient’s cart items along with a personalized “Come back and complete your order, [Name]!” message.
Product Recommendations: Automatically populate an email banner with product recommendations based on the recipient’s recent browsing or purchase history.
Exclusive Event Invitation: Personalize an invitation banner with the recipient’s location or past event attendance, showing them that you know what matters to them.
Thank You Message: After a purchase or sign-up, send a follow-up email with a personalized thank-you image that acknowledges their recent action and provides additional resources or upsell opportunities.
Re-Engagement Offer: Use OKZest to add a custom discount code image for users who haven’t engaged with your emails in a while, encouraging them to return.
Final Thoughts
Behavioral personalization is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement in email marketing. By tailoring content based on each user’s actions and preferences, you can create relevant, timely, and memorable experiences that make recipients feel valued.
With OKZest, implementing behavioral personalization in your emails is straightforward and powerful. From dynamic images to automated, data-driven customization, OKZest makes it easy to deliver personalized content that resonates with your audience and drives results.
Ready to boost engagement and conversions with behaviorally personalized email marketing? Try OKZest today and discover how easy it is to connect with your customers on a deeper level.