Guest Post: How Product Recommendations Can Lead to More Online Sales

In a conventional setting, consumers walk inside a store and look around for viable products that can satisfy their whims. Newcomers often turn to sales representative and solicit recommendations.

This kind of buyer-merchant interaction used to be quite arduous in the online arena. For one, most e-commerce sites are not built with features that allow two parties to communicate in real time. There are, of course, options to send queries but it takes time before businessmen can get back to their consumers.

For the same reason, sellers fail to give referrals and grab the opportunity to lure the consumers into making a purchase.

Fortunately, the emergence of recommendation engines helped bridge this gap.

Defining Product Recommendation Engines

As many netizens might have noticed, there are visible sidebars situated on a website. This section contains icon-like ads and announcements that frame search result displays from engines. This is what product recommendation engines look like.

Recommendation engines work through their system that can filter information and pick specific data to display.

Currently, these tools are seized by online shops, social networking sites, service providers and other online entrepreneurs to generate more sales. It is by far one of the most effective instruments in marketing as the information showcased or items featured are generated based from the observed activity of a user.

In Facebook, for instance, liking a page about fashion paves the way for iconic advertisements of shoes, dresses, and accessories. These thumbnails serve as a link that directs users to websites that sell highly recommended products.

Basically, it works like affiliate marketing: one website displays the ads of another in exchange for commissions and sale percentages.

Unraveling Product Engine Recommendation Mechanism

Suppose a consumer buys a skin care product from Amazon. The online store would collate hints on the buyer’s preferences based from her previous purchases and browsing history. Based on the raw observation, the shop’s product recommendation engine generates significantly related item suggestions. These will be displayed somewhere within the webpage.

Music streaming sites, entertainment providers and other merchants adopt this kind of system to sell products that are suitable to their niche’s interest.

This is made possible by the mechanism of recommendation engines, where relevant information about the ways at which consumers pick and purchase products are stored. If a user viewed skin care products in the past, for instance, the ads displayed on the website are more likely about lotions and other beauty products for the skin.

The ads displayed for one user therefore vary from the others.

More Sales with Affiliate Marketing

Such an engine is a breakthrough from the usual method of gathering information from the Internet. Note that users used to resort to search engines in amassing specific details about certain areas. This can be problematic in marketing, as users only find a product when they prompt the search.

As such, online businessmen and other companies cannot maximize their leads when their target consumers fail to use keywords used for search engine optimization. In essence, merchants cannot sell when consumers wouldn’t make an effort to find them.

With product recommendation engines, enterprises can have their products displayed on the screen of their target consumers with minimal efforts. The mechanism mimics the nature of supermarkets where similar products are displayed along the same aisle. Visibility of their products (in the guise of iconic ads) therefore increases the chance of ensnaring leads.

At some point, letting buyers see related products can open doors for “consumer recognition” – that is, making the visitors review the current items they have on their must-have list. This is practically a subtle way to inculcate motivation to purchase a product that they never thought they wanted.

The best thing about it is that all the right items are proposed to the right people, much like hitting the bull’s eye in marketing.

Affiliate marketers can equally benefit from this tool. The process of putting forth related products to prospect is simplified by recommendation engine. In the same vein, the challenge of choosing the right items to promote is duly alleviated.

With the product recommendation engine performing some of affiliate marketer’s vital task, it is easy for them to earn their commissions and enjoy continuous flow of profits.

What’s in store for users?

One could say that product recommendation engine draws a win-win situation for every party involved in sales and marketing. Apart from businessmen and affiliate marketers, users can have a fair share of the advantages.

Note that the engines allow them to view the most significant information without sweating out in hunting among search results. Product recommendation saves a lot of time, effort and energy.

In a nutshell, product recommendation engines makes it easier for business minded netizens to earn cash while helping consumers land the best finds.

About the Author
Ruben Corbo which writes about various topics which include technology, online marketing especially topics that are associated with the tracking process like AB testing, Multivariate testing and more. When Ruben is not writing he is composing or producing music for short films and other visual arts. You can read more information about Product Recommendation Engines at Maxymiser.

Tags: Guest blog, Maxymiser, online product recommendations, Recommendation engines, Ruben Corbo