17 | Personalisation Is Nothing Without Relevance According to Tim Ryan

Statements of Intent

In this episode, David Mannheim chats to Tim Ryan, Director of Digital at Seasalt, about his thoughts on how eCommerce has evolved over the past 15 years - both the good and the bad. He emphasises the importance of driving relevance over pure personalisation and making online shopping experiences as frictionless as possible for customers.

Tim has over 16 years experience working in eCommerce for brands like The Walt Disney Company, Direct Line Group, Lidl GB, Karen Millen… The list goes on! Tim has a wealth of skills from digital marketing and SEO to product strategy. If anyone knows how to maximise sales onsite, it’s him.

Topics Covered:

• How eCommerce has changed, from a lack of personalisation to assumptions based on limited data
• The balance between personalisation and allowing customer choice
• Using data to become a customer-led business
• The limitations of broad customer personas

Key Quotes:

• "Personalisation is only as good as the on-site journey the relevance that you're actually pushing through, so it can't just be personalising a bit of content or product offering.”
• "You want the customer to be able to choose things, otherwise everyone would just push all their money through PMAX driving customers to a random product.”
• "It's about making the journey as frictionless and relevant as possible. It's not just about purchase, it's about understanding the customer's drivers.”

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:09 Guest Intro: Tim Ryan
04:25 How eCommerce Has Changed Over 15 Years
09:56 Pro or Anti Personalisation?
13:24 Tim's Statement: Driving Relevance Over Personalisation
19:07 Tim's Personalisation Experience And Advice
22:37 Outro

Social Media

• Tim's LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/tryan1/
• Made With Intent LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/madewithintent/?viewAsMember=true
• YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@madewithintent