News

Certona Product Recommendations drove 1 percent of all Cyber Monday purchases

January 31, 2011

Tallying the numbers from a positive 2010 holiday shopping season, multi-channel personalization firm Certona reported more good news in its post-2010 holiday sales study.

One of the more notable highlights shows Certona product recommendations were directly responsible for one out of every $100 spent online on Cyber Monday 2010. Along with these productive statistics, the study also reports 2010's online spending increases in average order value (AOV) and sales conversions via product recommendations from its more than 250 Resonance Personalization Platform client sites.

Certona is the creator of Resonance, a leading real-time personalization and revenue optimization platform for multi-channel retailers. Trusted by more than 250 top e-commerce sites throughout the world, Resonance increases average order value and revenue per visit by delivering individualized real-time content and product recommendations across all customer touch points, according to the company. With seven patents pending, the "self-optimizing" system is powered by sophisticated neural networks and a portfolio of algorithms to deliver product, content, and promotional offers through multiple channels — web, email, call center, point-of-sale, and mobile.

As online holiday sales increased in 2010 (up 12 percent at $28.6 billion from 2009 according to comScore), Certona's Resonance recommendation engine conversion rates more than doubled non-recommendation conversion rates on each major shopping day with Black Friday receiving 117 percent more recommendation conversions, Cyber Monday 148 percent, and Green Monday with 147 percent more. Online holiday shopping tapered off by the third week of December after retailers no longer guaranteed that packages shipped by the cheapest methods would arrive by Christmas. Please see chart for detailed data.

Certona's 2010 Resonance recommendation conversion rates increased dramatically from 2009 with Black Friday up 44 percent, Cyber Monday up 87 percent, and Green Monday up 41 percent. Adding to the good news, sales from recommendations jumped this year significantly with Black Friday up 11 percent, Cyber Monday up 85 percent, and Green Monday up 40 percent.