How Hyper Personalization Is Transforming Automotive Sales: The Ultimate Guide
If you’re an automotive marketing, sales, or service professional looking to improve onsite user experience and drive digital sales, hyper personalization may be the solution you’re looking for.
Hyper personalization is a set of technologies and methods that allow websites and online shops to be tailored to individual users, creating a relevant experience for each visitor.
Utilizing hyper personalization can help you improve onsite conversion rates, increase leads and sales, and provide a better overall experience for your website visitors.
If you’re interested in learning more about how this can benefit your business, read on for a complete guide.
The world of automotive sales is changing
The world of automotive sales is changing. A decade ago, a car buyer would visit a dealer and walk into the showroom. The salesperson would say, “I’ve got just the car for you,” and take them outside to show off their latest models.
But that’s not how things work anymore. In fact, it hasn’t been for some time now — especially as more customers go online to research and purchase vehicles.
Nowadays, brands have access to detailed information about their customers before they even walk through the door: where they live (down to the street address), what kind of commute they have (eternal traffic jam or freeway?), whether they own pets, are married or have any children (and how many), if they prefer hatchbacks or SUVs… the list goes on!
Welcome to the world of hyper personalization
You’ve probably heard the term “hyper personalization” before, but might not be clear on what it means. So let’s break it down:
- Hyper personalization refers to delivering a highly customized experience that is tailored specifically to each user based on their unique preferences and behaviors.
- This goes beyond traditional customer segmentation (classifying customers into categories such as geographical, demographic or psychographic) and utilizes advanced data science to identify individual preferences using machine learning algorithms. These algorithms can learn from historic customer behavior and use this information to predict new purchase behaviors in real time.
- As a result, marketers are able to provide personalized recommendations that cater directly toward each person’s specific needs rather than relying on generalized marketing messages directed at all customers within a particular segment or market niche.
How automotive OEMs can benefit from hyper personalization
As an automotive marketer, you’re always looking for ways to increase digital-driven sales. One way to do this is by utilizing hyper personalization.
The goal of hyper personalization is to create a more personalized user experience that will ultimately lead to increased conversions. By delivering relevant and targeted content, you can build trust and credibility with potential customers, which can then lead to more sales.
Automotive OEMs can benefit from hyper personalization in many ways:
- Increased sales: Hyper personalized content will make customers more likely to make a purchase. And because of their increased loyalty, they’ll be more likely to recommend your brand to others.
- Improved user experience: By delivering relevant, personalized content and experiences to each customer segment, you can improve on-site user experience and keep visitors engaged.
- Increased digital marketing ROI: With improved on-site user experience comes increased digital marketing ROI. By personalizing content and experiences for each customer segment, you can see an increase in conversion rates and other key performance indicators.
- Increased customer loyalty: Delivering personalized content and experiences can help build customer loyalty and brand advocacy. Customers are more likely to remain loyal to a brand that provides them with relevant, personalized content and experiences.
- Improved customer lifetime value: Personalized content and experiences can also lead to improved customer lifetime value. A hyper personalized experience can help increase customer lifetime value by reducing churn rates while also boosting average sale prices because customers are happier when they have access to exactly what they need when they need it most — and which is tailored specifically towards their needs too!
- Competitive advantage: Finally, by delivering personalized content and experiences, you can create a better competitive advantage. Customers are more likely to choose a brand that provides them with relevant, personalized content and experiences.
Choosing the right technology to get started
In order to deliver personalized content and experiences, you need to have the right technology in place. When it comes to choosing the right technology, it depends on your current tech stack, e.g. which CRM, CMS (Content Management System) or eCommerce platform you are using.
Many automotive OEMs are using Adobe Target or Salesforce Marketing Cloud because of their strong personalization capabilities and integrations with other marketing channels (eCommerce platform, advertising networks etc.).
- Adobe Target: Adobe Target is a powerful platform that enables you to personalize content and experiences for your customers: You can create custom audiences, deliver personalized content and experiences, and track results.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a platform that enables you to create and manage customer journeys: you can create personalized content and experiences, track results, and optimize your campaigns.
Hyper Personalization utilizes customer data to create segments. For each customer segment, individual content and offers are provided. The user interaction with the personalized elements is used to improve future personalization measures.
The business case for automarkers: hyper personalization can increase conversion rates and sales
Hyper personalization can increase conversion rates on a website or online store, meaning more cars and services are sold with the same traffic.
There are three levels of maturity when it comes to applying hyper personalization:
- Stage 1: Basic personalization tactics, such as using a person’s name or location, can increase response rates by up to 10%.
- Stage 2: More sophisticated tactics, such as understanding a customer’s journey and providing relevant content at each stage, can increase conversion rates by up to 50%.
- Stage 3: The most advanced hyper personalization tactics, which use machine learning to constantly optimize the customer experience in real-time, can increase customer lifetime value by up to 20%.
Source of figures: Yieldify
As an automotive marketer, it’s important to keep in mind that customers expect personalized experiences by default, it’s not something which is nice-to-have anymore.
A few key statistics to keep in mind:
- 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them (Source: Accenture)
- 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences (Source: Epsilon)
- 74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized (Source: Instapage)
Learn more about hyper personalization use cases in automotive sales
Our latest whitepaper examines how carmakers are using hyper personalization on their websites and online shops.
Here are the key points of the whitepaper:
- What is Hyper Personalization?
- How can it improve the customer experience and increase sales?
- Best practices from Netflix, Spotify and Zalando
- How do carmakers like Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and VW use Hyper Personalization?
- How can brands use and optimize Hyper Personalization on their websites and online shops?
You can download the whitepaper for free by following this link.
About me
I’m a consultant specializing in automotive sales and mobility. At horyzn.io I help companies shape the future of digital and data-driven commerce.
In the past decade, I have advised some of the world’s leading automotive OEMs — always focused on future retail and digital transformation. Particularly, I’m curious about how new target groups, like Gen Z, consume mobility.
If you have any questions about the subject, or would like to discuss it with me, please feel free to reach out or leave a message in the comments section below.
