The document discusses the advantages of personalizing web pages to enhance conversion rates, particularly for higher education institutions. It highlights types of personalization, such as user interface customization and geographic targeting, while emphasizing the importance of foundational website management before implementing personalized experiences. Case studies show significant ROI improvements in user engagement and conversions, driven by tailored content and strategic audience segmentation.

1. Personalizing Web Pages for Instant
Higher Conversion Rates
David Miller, COO
David.miller@terminalfour.com
twitter.com/terminalfour

2. Terminal who?
• Trading since 1996, product company since 2002
• TERMINALFOUR Site Manager: our flagship Web Content
Management (WCM) Product
• 300+ clients;
– Higher Education (over 110 Universities) – 4 in Canada in last 2 months!
– Commercial / Finance / Retail
– Public Sector
• Recognised
– Top 30 in Content Management Companies (Real Story Group)
– Gartner Magic Quadrant, Butler/Ovum etc.
• Clients in UK, Ireland, Middle East, US & Canada
• Offices in Ireland, UK , USA & Australia
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3. TERMINALFOUR in a nutshell
We make it really easy for
organisations to deliver and
manage very large, highly
devolved, multilingual
Websites, Intranets and
Extranets
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4. A selection of TERMINALFOUR clients
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5. Combining CMS with Personalization
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6. Topics
• Problems you can solve with personalization
• Look at various forms of Website Personalization
• What works / what doesn’t!
• Why should you look at combining Web Content
Management & Personalization?
• What sort of return should you expect
• What works in Higher Education
• Demo!
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7. Some items to note
• Fundamentals of personalized website are the same
as any website
– Clarity of content
– Ease of Navigation / IA
– Clarity of Message
• Personalization can exaggerate any problems!
• Principles apply across all WCMS products
• Simplicity is key
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8. Problems you can solve with personalization
- Home page trying to talk to too many audiences
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9. Problems you can solve with personalization
- Messaging to broad
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10. Problems you can solve with personalization
- Cater for International Audiences
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11. Problems you can solve with personalization
- Increase Campaign Conversions
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12. Types of Personalization
• User Interface Customization
• Implicit
– Content rating
– Clickstream analysis / Navigational / Behavioral
• Explicit
– Geographic (either GeoIP or set explicitly by user)
– User selection
– Login based
– Campaign based
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13. Types of Personalisation – User driven
• Driven by the end user and allows them to explicitly
specify what they want.
• e.g. www.worthing.gov.uk (simple jquery add-ons)
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14. Types of Personalization –
behavioural / campaign based
• Tie into CRM system campaign etc.
• Lots of products to assist with this
• Key is relevant content to go with the campaign
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15. Types of Personalization –
geographic
Commercial / Open
GeoIP Databases
By:
PostCode, State,
City, Country
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16. Types of Personalization –
geographic
• Available databases:
– http://www.maxmind.com/app/geoip_country
– http://www.maxmind.com/app/postalcode
– http://www.ip2location.com/
– Need to be careful – corporate networks etc.
– Works well in the US..
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17. Content driven Personalisation
• Personalisation is at content level and is driven by the content author.
• e.g. www.aerlingus.com
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18. Content driven Personalisation
• No longer GeoIP
• First visit asks user for simple geographic
information
• Allows user to change location
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19. Content Driven Personalisation
• Aer Lingus Home
Page JSP
• Automatically selects
relevant offers to
present
• Offers authored
based on current
campaigns
• Very simple from an
author perspective–
but effective
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20. Example: Aer Lingus
• Content Fragments by Country, Language & Function
• Set by content author
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21. Mobile personalized experience
• Peron
• Single CMS driving 14
country sites in 8 languages
• Mobile site variants available
per country
• Cut down content – just
what a mobile user needs
• Personalization based on
location
• Not a specialized app
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22. When should you look at combining
Web Content Management &
Personalisation?
Don’t look at Personalisation until the following are in order:
• WCM Check list:
– Automated website management (broken links, accessibility)
– Relative brand consistency
– Be in control of your content
• Marketing Check list:
– Clearly segment your target audiences
– Identify campaign targets (before and after personalisation)
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23. When should you look at combining
Web Content Management &
Personalisation?
Remember
• If you have one “bad site” then setting up
ten personalized variants will give you
ten times the problem
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24. Paraphrasing Scott Stratten of
unmarketing fame…
If your content sucks, it will suck worse
with social media
.
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25. Paraphrasing Scott Stratten of
unmarketing fame…
If your content sucks, it will suck worse
with social media
Or
If your content sucks, it will suck 10 times
more with personalized variants.
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26. What sort of return should you
expect
• Case Study: Loughborough University
• Geographic Personalization – Out of country students
• Personalisation directing specific countries (Japan)
• Simple, cut down, landing page (separate small site)
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27. What sort of return should you
expect
• Case Study:
Loughborough University
• Geographic
Personalization – Out of
country students
• Personalisation directing
specific countries (Japan)
• Simple, cut down, landing
page (separate small site)
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28. What sort of return should you
expect
• Case Study:
Loughborough University
• Geographic
Personalization – Out of
country students
• Personalisation directing
specific countries (Japan)
• Simple, cut down, landing
page (separate small site)
TERMINALFOUR- PSEWEB 2012: Personalizing Websites for better enrolement and retention 28

29. What sort of return should you
expect
• Case Study:
Loughborough University
• Geographic
Personalization – Out of
country students
• Personalisation directing
specific countries (Japan)
• Simple, cut down, landing
page (separate small site)
TERMINALFOUR- PSEWEB 2012: Personalizing Websites for better enrolement and retention 29

30. What sort of return should you
expect
• Case Study:
Loughborough University
• Geographic
Personalization – Out of
country students
• Personalisation directing
specific countries (Japan)
• Simple, cut down, landing
page (separate small site)
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31. Return on investment
• Aer Lingus
• Significant conversion increase
• Increase in users clicking on suggested offers
• Increase in usage or related services (e.g. Aer
Lingus say increased requests for car hire via
personalized site)
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32. Return on investment
- Aer Lingus
• Our clients that have used this form of
personalization have experienced increased
click through on targeted promotions
between 18 – 22%
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33. Setting it Up…..
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34. Product Screenshots
View your site structure
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35. Product Screenshots
Edit target audiences
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36. Product Screenshots
Monitor analytics and tweak
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37. For our Higher Education
Clients….
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38. For our non Higher Education
Clients….
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39. Targeted messaging for specific
audiences
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40. For our European Clients
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41. For our US Clients
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42. And for our Canadian Clients
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43. Simple personalisation to
create “more familiar” impact
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44. Live Example .....
• DEMO......
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45. Personalization based on
behavioural tracking
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46. Personalization based on
behavioural tracking
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47. How it’s done..... Simple content template for
any user to use
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48. Simple JavaScript to make the
personalization decision.
.... Can be complex too!
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49. Personalised content based on
login information
• Can use Portal based approach – or portal-less portal
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50. Personalised content based on
login information
• Can use Portal based approach – or portal-less portal
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51. Page based personalization based on
user credentials
• ... Or any other criteria available at runtime ......
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52. Hits & tips for delivering
personalization
• Needs to be tied into just a few target audiences
– Otherwise just setup have a new site!
• Try to deliver that “familiar touch”
• Needs to be subtle, not “in your face”
• Need to keep it simple
– Any author can add personalized content
• Benefits can be intangible
• Lots of tools out there to help
• Can be implemented using any CMS
– Though we would recommend TERMINALFOUR....
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53. Conclusions
• Personalization can add value to web experience
– Drive more conversions
– Deliver a more compelling story
– Generally “more useful”
• Basics still apply
– Content / audiences / navigation / messages
– A bad homepage will be ten times as bad with ten personalization
variants
• A number of techniques exist
– Navigational
– Content driven
– Geographic
• Be sure to measure against original goals
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54. Thank You
David Miller
COO
David.miller@terminalfour.com
Twitter: @terminalfour
@jdavidmiller
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