Don’t Fear The Data

What are the reasons why some personalised URL campaigns produce very low response rates?

The reasons are the data clients are providing only contain names and mailing address. In those scenarios, a personalised URL could be created. But then the only unique part about their landing page was the “Dear [FirstName]” line.

One thing to acknowledge is that personalised URLs are not the best fit for every campaign. You need to consider the data you have, but also the demographics of the target audience, the timing, the offer, etc.

However, if you only have a list of names and mailing addresses, does this mean that you should never do personalised URLs?

The answer to this should be a resounding “No”!

For one, if you are trying to show off that you can do personalised URLs, simply sending out a simple postcard containing one may catch the attention of a customer that does have great marketing data and they may be able to see the value you can offer by combining your marketing services with their data.

Also, with a bit of creativity, you can add a “personal” twist to what seems like the most mundane data list. Here are a few examples:

* Distance – We recently saw a campaign that was for a gym. The customer used an online program to calculate the distance from each recipient’s house to the gym. They then converted the mileage into steps. The postcard and landing page all displayed the following – “[FirstName] – you are only xxx steps away from achieving your fitness goals”
* Location – This one would work best when you are doing a mailing that targets contacts across multiple counties. Maybe you put the County seal on the appropriate mailer or landing page
* Gender – This one might be a bit too sensitive – but, there have been campaigns where users displayed different images and offers based on a person’s gender (which was determined by looking at the Title field)

These are just a few examples of how you can use name and address data to add personalisation to a campaign.

Here is one more way that you could demonstrate the personalisation capabilities that you have:

* When the user gets to the landing page, let them know they are about to experience personalisation in action – Sell it as an interactive tool.
* Have them answer a few basic questions. Perhaps, “what is your favourite colour?”, “favourite food?”, or “favourite time of day”? These questions would be dropdowns – thus, there is a fixed amount of answers.
* Upon clicking Submit, present the user with a landing page that is custom, based on the answers they provided to those 3 questions.