How Would We Personalize the Social Proofs on Spendesk to Make Them Smart and Relevant
Social proof adds instant credibility to the value you're promising
Spendesk
Spendesk is the all-in-one spend management solution that delivers more control, visibility, and automation to today's finance teams.
It allows combining spend approvals, virtual cards, physical cards, expense reimbursements, and invoice management into a single source of truth. With automated reconciliation processes and complete pre-spend control, finance teams are empowered to make smarter spending decisions.
How to Make Social Proofs Smart and Relevant via Personalization
Step 1: Analyzing Data to Find Opportunities
Most of the businesses have similar goals:
Increase Conversion Rates
Increase Customer Lifetime Value
Increase Revenue
...
For this reason, it's important to analyze website analytics and find opportunities to improve.
In this case study, we'll focus on the landing page improvement. Personalizing the landing page is one of the best ways to increase these metrics.
The purpose of a landing page is to convert visitors into leads by focusing on one offer and ensuring that the user experience is tailored to their wants and needs.
Although the needs and wants are different from one Spendesk visitor to another, every visitor sees the same page, offers, and social proofs.
Step 2: Brainstorming Ideas
In the first step, we checked the website and analytics and found that the landing page could be improved.
Now, it's time to choose which components to personalize on Spendesk's landing page.
In this step, it's important to dump as many ideas as possible. Because the more idea we have, the more personalization test we can do to increase revenue, conversion rate, etc.
After completing the brainstorming session, in our personalized variations, we'll personalize the following component on the landing page: Social Proofs
On the landing page, Spendesk has social proofs in three different locations:
Hero Visual
Company Logos
Testimonials
Disclaimer: Yes, we're aware that there can be more important components than social proof. However, since we personalized the hero section of the landing page before, we wanted to show something different. For previous case studies:
→ How to Personalize a Landing Page Based on Social Ads
→ How to Personalize the Shopping Experience
→ How to Personalize the Product Offers
Step 3: Defining Hypothesis, Methodology, and Required Tech Stack
Our hypothesis is that if we personalize the social proofs on the landing page, we will see an increase in conversion rates - ultimately, in revenue too.
The more personal the connection between the landing page and the visitor, the more likely it will increase the:
Conversion
Customer Loyalty
Customer Lifetime Value
Revenue
To personalize the social proofs, Spendesk needs to leverage website visitors’ data and use the data they have to ensure that social proofs on the landing page are smart and relevant.
To create this personalized experience, Spendesk will need the following tech stack:
Contentful
Next.js
B2B Data Provider (e.g., Clearbit)
Step 4: Defining Audiences, Choosing Personalization Signals, and Creating Variations
Defining Audiences
Before diving into personalization, first, we need to define whom Spendesk is going to personalize its social proofs for.
When we checked the website and products, we can easily say that Spendesk's customers are businesses.
Since the customers are businesses, we'll use firmographic segmentation.
Choosing Personalization Signals
To create a seamless customer experience with personalized variations, we'll use the following firmographic signals to segment B2B visitors:
Industry: This type of grouping enables companies to tailor their strategy to the needs of enterprises in a particular sector.
Company Size: Company size allows personalizing the right audience with the right campaigns. Obviously, the impact of a marketing campaign targeting startups will be different from the impact of the same campaign targeting enterprises.
Location: Personalization based on location allows to categorize companies based on where they're located. Therefore, companies can be categorized according to variables such as a country, region, state, city, and so on.
Annual Revenue: Very similar to company size, personalization based on annual revenue allows tailoring offers for different levels of purchasing power.
Company Structure: Company structure refers to the relationship between an organization's legal standing. Knowing the company structure allows creating tailored messages and strategies for different organization types.
Step 5: Personalization Journey
Before creating personalized content for audiences, let's define our audience and its journey for this case study:
A visitor visits a blog post on Spendesk
As a next step, the visitor goes to the home page → Hero visual personalization based on firmographic data (location, industry)
Then, the visitor scrolls down to the testimonials section → Testimonial personalization based on firmographic data (location, industry, company size)
After that, the visitor clicks 'Watch a Customer Video' → Video personalization based on firmographic data (location, industry, company size)
Lastly, the visitor goes to the 'Customers' page → Case study personalization based on firmographic data (location, industry, company size)
The Result: Before vs. After
After creating personalized content for audiences, the experience of the home page will be automatically personalized based on the predefined signals and audiences.
In our example, the visitor is working in a mobile gaming company located in Berlin which has 50-100 employees.
To understand it better, let's look at the personalization experience step by step:
The visitor goes to the home page after viewing a blog post:
Then, the visitor scrolls down to the testimonials section:
After that, the visitor clicks 'Watch a Customer Video':
Lastly, the visitor goes to the 'Customers' page:
The Bottom Line
Personalization initiatives are continuous, which means that once one implementation is completed, organizations will return to the beginning of the framework to analyze acquired data, discuss new ideas, hypothesize further improvements, and so on.
Through continuous learning and experimentation, this strategy enables various teams
content creators,
growth,
product management, or
development
to create meaningful personalization experiences.
To create a personalized experience on their social proofs, Spendesk has all they need - the right tech stack, customer data, and so on.
Time to Experience the 'Personalized Experience'
So far, you've read which components to personalize, how to personalize the components, how to attach audiences to personalized variations.
Although there were screenshots of the personalized components and pages, they cannot replace the real experience.
Now, it's time to experience a personalized landing page in action.
When you go to this landing page now, you'll see that the page is personalized for you 😊