(New York, NY - October 14, 2003) — Jupiter Research, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM), today announced that according to a new report from its Jupiter Research division, only 14% of consumers say that personalized offers or recommendations on shopping Web sites lead them to buy more often from online stores, and just 8% say that personalization increases their repeat visits to content, news or entertainment Web sites. This is in contrast to the majority of consumers who stated that basic site improvements would make them buy or visit Web sites more often — 54% cited faster-loading pages and 52% cited better navigation as greater incentives. The report outlines why personalization efforts on Web sites often fail and suggests other alternatives.Based on interviews with dozens of companies and a recent Jupiter Research executive survey, the new report “Beyond the Personalization Myth: Cost Effective Alternatives to Influence Intent” finds that building and operating a personalized Web site can cost four or more times more than operating a comparable dynamic site. Yet most sites that have deployed personalization have realized inadequate returns on their investments. According to Matthew Berk, Research Director at Jupiter Research, “Most Web site personalization projects fail to deliver real business benefits. Our industry has always assumed that a personalized Web site was a better one, both for the visitor and the site operator. Our research has found that this is not the case.”
According to the report, for every intended benefit tied to a personalization-related agenda, site operators can select from many other tactics to achieve the same goals, at far lower cost. “To drive key business metrics, most sites are better off focusing on the basics, like usability, information architecture and making key tasks easy for users to accomplish,” said David Schatsky, Senior Vice President at Jupiter Research.
The complete findings of this report are immediately available to Jupiter Research clients online. For more information about this report or Jupiter Research’s Site Technologies & Operations research service, please contact Kieran Kelly at 1-800-481-1212 or e-mail researchsales@jupitermedia.com.
