How I amsterdam tripled conversion rates with personalization

CHALLENGE

Increase engagement

The challenge for Iamsterdam.com was clear: how to increase engagement with visitors and locals. The first step? Given the digital age we live in: improving the digital experience for visitors.

But before jumping into solutions, let’s see how I amsterdam fleshed out the details and split the challenge into two distinct problems to solve.

Make visitors spread out more in the city

Like many of us when exploring a new city, tourists typically tend to see only its famous sights, regardless of their personal interests, causing overcrowding. This posed the question: How do we get visitors to explore sights that match their interests in different parts of the city?

Increase participation of Amsterdam residents

Even after living in a city for years, or even being born there, people often don't fully explore their own city or neighborhood. Research confirms this, showing that residents aren't aware of all the activities available in their neighborhoods. So another question arose: How do we get Amsterdam residents to participate in more events and activities in their neighborhoods?

SOLUTION

A personalized experience

To solve the issues, the team came up with a solution. They wanted to see if creating personalized experiences for specific visitor groups could help increase engagement and, consequently, conversions. 

To test the effectiveness of personalization, I amsterdam used Prepr CMS for the website and came up with two personalization strategies:

• Interest-based content for visitors. Recommend visitors content about places that match their interests and are located in different parts of the city.
• Location-based content for residents. Show residents recommendations for activities to enjoy in their neighborhood.

Let's take a closer look at each of these solutions.

Interest-based recommendations for visitors

To make sure visitors discover more than just the typical attractions in Amsterdam, the team opted to provide personalized content matching their interests in three steps.

1. The website collects data based on the visitor's interests. To enable this data collection, the website incorporates the Prepr tracking code. When a visitor visits a page, this activity is tracked and the information is sent to Prepr CMS.
2. Prepr CMS adds visitors to segments that match their interests. Prepr CMS includes segments tailored to visitor interests like shopping or museums. This setup ensures that Prepr CMS utilizes tracking information from the website to match each visitor to the appropriate segment.
3. The website displays personalized recommendations based on user interests. Marketers or content editors craft personalized recommendations in Prepr and associate them with the appropriate target audience (segment). When a visitor requests a page, Prepr CMS delivers personalized content relevant to the segment that the visitor falls into.

Location-based recommendations for locals

Iamsterdam.com offers a special promotion for locals, providing discounts for events and attractions happening nearby. To increase participation I amsterdam implemented a location-based personalization solution in three steps:

1. The website collects postal code data. The I amsterdam team uses marketing campaigns to offer discounts to locals on social media. They click through to the website, where they enter their postal code to redeem the discount. The website stores this postal code in Prepr CMS.
2. Prepr CMS adds locals to a segment matching their Amsterdam neighborhood. Prepr contains segments for each neighborhood and conditions to match visitors by their postal code.
3. The website provides personalized recommendations for nearby events. Marketers and editors create personalized content for different neighborhoods using Prepr, linking it to the relevant segment. When a visitor accesses a page, Prepr returns personalized content based on the visitor's neighborhood.

RESULTS

10% Increase in engagement

Challenge accepted… and succeeded! The personalization strategies put in place by the Iamsterdam.com team through the use of Prepr CMS saw a remarkable 10% increase in engagement and drove a threefold (3x) rise in conversion rates. These results exceeded expectations and marked an exciting beginning.

3x Higher click-through-rate (CTR) to partner websites

Three times more visitors click links to partner websites from personalized pages. For example, the visitor browses the website and is presented with personalized recommendations for museums. From these recommendations, they click through to the Eye Filmmuseum page. And from this attraction page, the visitor then clicks the Visit website link to visit the partner website of Eye Filmmuseum.

10% More engagement with visitors and locals

Visitors engage 10% more with the website when they are presented with personalized pages than visitors without the personalization experience. For example, when visitors see recommended restaurants in their local neighborhood. They scroll through the narrowed-down list and visit more restaurant pages than a visitor who sees a general list of restaurants.

In conclusion, Iamsterdam.com is extremely satisfied with the outcomes and finds it very easy to set up segments and create personalized content using Prepr CMS. The positive results inspire the team to find more ways to improve the customer experience with personalized content. We look forward to the growth of these initiatives and continued success.

Increase your conversion rates like I amsterdam

Learn more about Prepr CMS with personalization and how it can increase your conversion rates like Iamsterdam.com. Contact us to get a demo.