What’s New in Nosto: weather-based targeting
We’ve just broadened our Segmentation capabilities. Now, you create targeted ecommerce campaigns and merchandise your online store based on your shoppers’ current and forecasted weather conditions. Here’s more!
What is weather-based targeting?
Weather-based targeting is a new capability that lets you segment your online shoppers based on their local weather conditions, plus what these are forecasted to be for the coming days. It acknowledges shoppers’ overall weather conditions, e.g. ‘clear and sunny’, the temperature, and UV index.
From here, merchants can create targeted, weather-based campaigns and make merchandising decisions across their online store for when users meet certain conditions. For instance, fashion brands might highlight beachwear to those in hot, sunny places, while showing thermals and scarfs to shoppers who’re more on the chilly side!
With a range of targeting options, there’s plenty of room to get savvy here. Let’s look at how it all works.
How does weather-based targeting work?
Weather-based targeting works by sussing a user’s approximate location and linking that to the current weather conditions and what’s forecasted for that location in the coming days. This weather and forecasted data updates Nosto in a matter of minutes, meaning that if it’s sunny outside, your on-site promotions can be shining too!
How can I use weather-based targeting?
As a merchant, you can create weather-based segments using a combination of the conditions we mentioned before, then applying these across our suite of personalization and merchandising modules. Some examples:
- Using Category Merchandising, a fashion brand might rank outerwear products that are say, down-filled, more highly to traffic experiencing colder conditions.
- A health and beauty merchant could employ dynamic homepage banners using Content Personalization to promote suncream to traffic expecting a heatwave. (They might even throw a Pop-up in there to offer a free next-day delivery code!).
- A kids’ toy store could highlight pool toys and parasols to those expecting warm and sunny environments across the school holidays, while pushing indoor toys to those who aren’t that lucky.
What’s more? With weather-based targeting, merchants can get as specific as they want. They can cherry-pick items for their campaigns, or instead choose applicable product categories for different conditions. Merchants can also add other targeting options into the mix, for example creating a segment of users whose weather conditions are sunny and have shown category affinity towards beachwear.
Why would I use weather-based targeting?
Of course, weather-based personalization brings another dimension of relevancy to users, creating a more personalized experience that resonates.
It also allows merchants to take advantage of weather-specific buying intentions. For instance, it’s receptive to shoppers’ urgency to purchase specific things as the weather fluctuates. Meanwhile, the forecasting capabilities encourage people to shop ahead and make prepared purchases.
It’s also worth noting that weather-based targeting brings benefits beyond creating tailored on-site experiences. With weather now available as a segment, this means the tracking and analyzing of shopper behavior based on weather conditions is possible, helping merchants better understand their customers and anticipate patterns of demand among their catalog. For instance, perhaps conversion rates drop during sunny weather, but your average order value improves.
Ready to get started?
If you’re an existing Nosto client looking to get a better idea of how you can utilize weather-based targeting within your personalization and merchandising strategy, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager today. In the meantime, have a look around Segmentation within the Nosto admin to get familiar with this.
New to Nosto? Check out the modules within our Commerce Experience Platform to see what sorts of things you could be using to target your customers—based on their weather, and so much more! Or, simply request a demo today.