Nosto is a cutting-edge AI customer experience platform that provides personalisation through the use of customer behaviour data.
From personalised content and product recommendations to pop-ups and personalised emails, Nosto allows brands to tailor their websites to turn visitors into customers.
1. What’s your name and title, what do you do day-to-day in 20 words or fewer?
I’m Brian Graydon and I’m a Head of Partnerships for the UK & Nordics. My day-to-day is trying to add as much value to and help the incredible agency and tech partners we work with.
2. At Nosto you help merchants personalise their customers experience. Can you give us a success story for a D2C brand you’ve worked with. Eg what was the problem? what did you do? what were the results?
Chelsea Peers is a great example, they were able to double their category page conversions by personalizing to curve and maternity shoppers.
Inclusivity is really important to the Chelsea Peers brand, and so they wanted to streamline the product discovery experience for this particular customer group.
They leveraged Nosto’s category merchandising functionality to re-order the category pages for specific segments, to ensure that the products shown first were in stock, performing well and available in a shopper’s preferred size.
For instance, returning customers would immediately see products related to their browsing history, and any customer with an affinity for the ‘curve’ or ‘maternity’ ranges, was shown the relevant-sized model images for these items too. Not only did this initiative optimise the customer experience, but it allowed customers to find the most relevant products as quickly as possible, saving the Chelsea Peers team hours of merchandising manually in the process!
3. You specialize in data, insights and optimisation – what piece of advice would you give to DTC brands who want to improve this area of their business?
One of my key recommendations for brands is prioritising a proactive approach to experimentation and A/B testing and optimising the on-site experience based on your actual user data. What works for one brand, doesn’t always translate to another.
By putting your new strategies and ideas to the test, brands can mitigate the risk of implementing a change that negatively impacts conversions (while saving you unnecessary development hours!)
The most successful brands have a culture of continuous improvement – in essence, the website is never finished!
Ultimately, this approach helps e-commerce brands stay responsive to constantly evolving market trends and customer preferences, ensuring your site is performing as well as possible for your specific audience.
4. Complete this sentence – DTC brands that survive and thrive in 2023 will …
Place a strong emphasis on data-driven personalisation. It’s all about understanding your customers’ needs, and crafting experiences that seamlessly cater to them. This means staying in tune with what your target audience expects and values. It’s not just about selling a product; it’s about creating a connection that resonates, cuts through the noise and drives customer lifetime value.
5. Name three D2C brands that are killing it and whom you recommend others to emulate/learn from.
Dermalogica – Their online consultations mirror the personalised in-store experience that they grew their brand from. Great example of what an omnichannel approach should look like, and how you can bring a human touch online too.
Beauty Pie – Everyone likes to use the word ‘disrupt’ these days, but I think Beauty Pie is a genuine example of this. They have a really unique offering, which is quite rare within the beauty industry and their marketing is always on point too!
Represent – Represent is a real D2C success story of recent years and I think lots of brands could learn from how well they’ve cultivated their online community through their brand story and successful influencer marketing campaigns.