International marketing

Personalization based on geographic data (no fluff)

Personalization based on geographic data (no fluff)
Martha Kendall
Written by
Martha Kendall
Martha Kendall
Written by
Martha Kendall
Reviewed
Martha Kendall
Reviewed by
Updated on
June 19, 2023

Not every website visitor is the same. While it would be nice to get to know every specific customer’s interests, nobody has the time for that. But we do have the time for geographic personalization. 

This personalization strategy groups website visitors by their location and tailors website content to their location-specific interests and behavior.

90% of leading marketers report personalization significantly boosts business profitability. Personalization is best achieved by breaking your target audience down into groups through market segmentation. In this post, we’re going over one of the four main types of market segmentation– geographic segmentation– and how to use geographic personalization to increase conversions. 

What is geographic personalization?

Geographic personalization is the process of changing your website content based on a user’s geographic location. You can provide content, offers, and even products tailored to a specific location.

Delivering content based on a user’s geographic location is the easiest way to reap the benefits of personalization. All you have to know about a specific customer is where they are, and they’ll be directed to a shopping experience customized to their preferences.

Personalizations can be as simple as displaying climate-specific products, or as complex as adjusting the messaging on your homepage to include location-specific language nuances. 

How do you create a personalization strategy?

To create a personalization strategy, you’ll first need to make goals. 

  • What pages do you want to personalize? 
  • What elements do you want to personalize? 
  • What software will you be using? 

Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to collect data. 

Visitor data collection

Visitor data collection is a vital step toward successful geographic personalization. Here’s what you’ll need to know:

Visitor profiling

Visitor profiling is the process of assessing who visits your website. If a user clicks on your website, they’re a potential customer. The more you understand about that user, the better you can sell to your target audience. 

You can use visitor profiling to figure out what geographic location your users are coming from. You can then study the demographics, behavior, and interests of a specific location. This data informs your personalization strategy by segmenting your target audience by location, giving you a glimpse into a specific location’s wants, needs, and preferences. 

Audience segmentation 

Audience segmentation is a marketing strategy that separates your target audience into subgroups based on demographics. Use geographic location as a profile attribute to segment your audience based on location. 

Once you’ve segmented your audience by location, you can find out what’s working in one location, why it’s working, and how you can apply that personalization strategy to get the same results in locations that aren’t performing well.

How do you use personalization?

Get creative with your personalization efforts. Different tactics will work for different industries. Below are some ideas to get you started:

Homepage

Using google trends, assess what’s working well in a certain location. You can adjust the messaging, design, and pop-ups according to what’s working well for competitors in the area. 

Location-based offers

When users from a certain location click through to your site, you can direct them to a location-specific homepage with special offers only available to customers in their area. You can tailor the special offers to location-specific events like back-to-school discounts, or throw up a discount for a location that could use the extra sales push. 

Personalized welcome messages

Personalized welcome messages set the stage for a customer’s experience on your site. First impressions are everything, and your first impression is your welcome message. 

You can personalize your welcome message by adjusting the language to fit the culture of a certain area, directly addressing your customers according to their location, or adjusting the messaging to let your customers know you know where they’re visiting from in a subtler way. 

Location-specific landing pages

Combine geo-targeted ads with geo-customized landing pages. Together, they’re a powerhouse. When customers click on geo-targeted ads, they’ll be taken directly to a geo-targeted landing page. This landing page should display content relevant to their location-specific interests. You can tailor the landing page to fit the audience you used to target the ad. That way, you know your landing page is designed to sell to the customers who are clicking.

Category recommendations

The purchasing process should be as frictionless as possible for your customers. Category pages group like products together on one page, making it easier for customers to browse through what they’re looking for. You can create custom category pages based on the interests of a specific geographic customer group. You can also use the purchase behavior of those customers to select which products appear at the top of the category pages. 

Product page

Customizing your product page can lead to increased conversions. There are many ways to do this, but here are a few of our favorites:

Customer testimonials 

Customer testimonials are known to boost conversions when displayed on product pages, and geographic personalization magnifies this effect. Customers are automatically more likely to trust people who feel similar to them. If you display testimonials from other local customers, you can harness this added trust to make more conversions. 

Shipping info 

The convenience of personalized shipping information is something your customers will remember. You can display how long products will take to ship while customers are browsing, then auto populate their home address and shipping info once they reach the checkout page. 

Products based on climate 

Personalizing products based on climate ensures your customers are presented with products relevant to their current needs. If a customer’s weather is currently cold and you’re displaying products best suited for a warm climate, they’re probably not going to make a purchase. Present your customers with the products that will be most useful to them based on their current location. 

Product recs based on zip code– college towns, high income, etc. 

You can also make product recommendations based on location. Different geographic locations have different common interests. For example, college towns filled with students won’t be interested in the same products as high-income families. Zip-code specific product recommendations narrow down the interests of potential customers and cater to these specific interests. You can also show your customers exactly what items others in their area are buying to spark their interest. 

Email landing page

Similar to location-specific homepages, email landing pages are pages customers land on when they click through from your email. If your email is promoting a location-specific offer or event, you can create a dedicated landing page and link it to your geographically segmented emails.

How does geographic personalization impact conversion rates?

Personalization is known to positively impact conversion rates. According to a Monetate report, customers who viewed three pages of personalized content had a conversion rate double that of those who viewed two pages with personalized content. Customers who viewed 10 personalized pages had a conversion rate of 31.6%. Even a slight increase in on-page conversions leads to a revenue increase. 

Wrapping up

Geographic personalization is one of the most straightforward ways to personalize website content and boost conversions. Software can easily pick up on a visitor’s location, and you can have a host of personalized pages at the ready. When you personalize your website content, you’re not only presenting customers with products and services most relevant to their current wants and needs– you’re also developing a trusting relationship with your customers.

Delivering personalized content shows your customers you care about supporting them throughout their shopping experience. The customer experience plays a big role in customer success these days, and geographic personalization is a solid way to improve your customer experience so that customers will keep coming back.

Discover weglot

Ready to display your website in multiple languages?

Try Weglot on your website for free (no credit card required).

Icon blog

In this article, we're going to look into:
No items found.
Try for free