I read this great blog the other day via @minethatdata that talked about the differences between catalog and online marketers. You can read the entire article here, but this is the part of the article that caught my attention when thinking of it in the context of web personalization:

“The catalog marketer cares about long-term value, and proves that catalog marketing generates customers who have the best long-term value (which is usually the case), preserving the business model.

The online marketer gets caught up in the multi-dimensional aspect of long-term value associated with multiple micro-channels, finds the problem too confusing, quits, and focuses a disproportionate amount of energy finding ways to encourage a customer to convert to a purchase today. This leads to improvements in conversion that do not translate to improvements in long-term value, causing the online marketer to constantly search for the next big thing”.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m not saying that dollars don’t matter, of course they do, but there is so much more at stake. Too many online marketers are consumed with the now, they (I’m generalizing, I know) are focused on the $ conversion rate on a campaign by campaign basis. They ignore more traditional measurements such as the lifetime value of the customer, brand awareness, and other positive micro conversions that don’t translate into immediate ROI.

It’s as if online marketers are walking around carrying quotas over their heads. Every dollar out is scrutinized and measured against every dollar in. I realize that life time value and brand awareness are difficult things to measure (follow this guy if you need help @jimnovo, or check out @avinashkaushik who wrote a blog recently on this subject). I also realize that explaining and proving out the results of those measurements to those in charge of the marketing budget is even more difficult. Yep, the weight of the quota is squarely on the marketers shoulders. But that’s no excuse. Rather than giving in to the quota and solely focusing on the now, marketers should extend their efforts by embracing measurement methods, technologies and tactics that bring greater value to the lifetime of the customer.

Let’s take web personalization for instance. Vendors who have found some success in this space are typically focused on one of or both of these:

Testing: Whether it is A/B or MVT, the notion that testing out pages to optimize the funneling of users through your site is generally accepted as a benefit. This evolved out of the web analytics industry which emphasized a continuous improvement framework.

Conversion Optimization: Personalization vendors in this space are focused in optimizing the tail end of the purchasing cycle (the now). Product recommendations, shopping cart abandonment, product discounting, these are all forms of personalization where the goal is to persuade users to add more items to the cart, increase the average order value and ultimately to hit that checkout button now.

I have no problem with these forms of personalization. If done well, they do work. The first helps site owners build the best possible pages; and the second helps increasing that conversion dial within the context of the now.

Should marketers be doing these things? Absolutely.

Should marketers limit their use of personalization to these things? Absolutely not.

In addition to the types of personalization mentioned above, it should also be used in the context of providing the most relevant message to the visitor that is on my site right now. If that visitor is in the early stages of a purchasing cycle, then offer them messaging that makes them feel comfortable about the brand, offer them product reviews, newsletter signups, any type of messaging that makes them feel comfortable with you and your product. This will increase brand awareness, loyalty, and eventually will translate in a purchase and hopefully subsequent purchases in their lifetime.

By simply focusing on the end of the purchasing cycle you are focusing on the now and you are ignoring a number of other conversations you could be having with your prospects and customers simply because of the fact that you have a quota over your head.

It’s time for marketers to look beyond the quantitative quota and bring the virtues of the qualitative to the table – session wide dialogue, brand awareness, and loyalty are all virtues that need to be brought to the forefront as the previous generation of marketers did before us. It’s time to bring personalization to your business and to convince everyone around you that the measure of success for personalization and online marketing should not solely be focused on the now but rather the lifetime value a customer brings to your business. It’s time to think beyond the quota.