Zoopla x Contentsquare
How Zoopla uses Contentsquare and Optimizely to build and refine their personalization strategy
The company
Zoopla is a British residential property software, data, and insight company founded in 2007. As Head of Analytics at Zoopla, Veronica leads a team of analytics specialists. Her role is wide-ranging from strategy to product and infrastructure projects to assembling a high-performing team and providing them with the resources they need.
The challenge
With six years of experience at Zoopla under her belt, Veronica has seen the company evolve and is now focusing on the next phase of its analytics journey. “We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years building the analytics infrastructure at Zoopla,“ says Veronica.
“Now we’re in the position where we can leverage data for personalization. To do this, we’ve implemented platforms like Optimizely and Contentsquare. Both platforms allow us to personalize our digital journey, making the experience intuitive, simple, and clear so users can move through our portal seamlessly.”
Why is personalization so important?
A personalized experience isn’t just a nice to have—today’s customers have become accustomed to personalized interactions with the brands they know and love.
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Using Contentsquare and Optimizely has provided our digital teams with easy, quick access to data insights and removed bottlenecks from our analytics and experimentation processes."
Veronica Saha
Head of Analytics at Zoopla.
The solution
Zoopla's personlization strategy
Zoopla’s personalization strategy is based on four main pillars: data, journey mapping, experimentation, and automation. Veronica breaks down each step and how it’s helping her team create a solid foundation for personalization.
Pillar 1: Data
The first step for Zoopla is bringing clarity to how they collect and use customer data.
“In a cookieless world, first-party data is becoming more and more important. So we’re focused on building trust and being transparent about how that data is used.”
Pillar 2: Journey Mapping
Journey mapping enables the team at Zoopla to understand where personalization needs to be applied, what the best action for the customer is, and how to develop products down the line. “The key is having a comprehensive, single view of the customer, where we have a repository of user data and an understanding of our digital journeys and usage across devices,” says Veronica.
Part of Zoopla’s journey mapping process involves using segments within Contentsquare’s Customer Journey Analysis.“The process of buying a house can take months or even years. So knowing where buyers are in their journey is important—whether someone is just browsing or actually ready to apply for a mortgage,” says Veronica. “Segments help make this possible—it’s a very flexible and versatile tool.”
Pillar 3: Experimentation
At Zoopla, personalization is rooted in testing. The team has created a culture of experimentation and takes a test-and-learn approach to optimization to create the best digital experience for their visitors.
“Experimentation helps us improve both our products and services,” says Veronica. “Hypothesis testing has been built into our product development and we’re able to test at a user level and audience level.”
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Product managers and designers can experiment using Contentsquare and Optimizely without needing support from data analysts. They’re able to self-serve; if they have an idea, they can test it themselves."
Veronica Saha
Head of Analytics at Zoopla.
The solution
Combining unique customer insights in Contentsquare and Optimizely
Using the Contentsquare and Optimizely integration, teams across Zoopla can combine unique customer behavior insights with experimentation capabilities. “The integration gives everyone across our digital teams access to quick insights,” says Veronica.
Not only does the integration provide easy access to insights, it also allows their analysts, product owners, and designers to be more efficient. “Without a complicated data process, our people can focus on the job they need to get done, freeing up time for brainstorming and creating hypotheses,” explains Veronica.
What's next?
“Now that we have our technical set-up in place, we’re focused on analyzing, iterating, and testing—because like with anything, it’s unlikely you’ll get it right the first time around. For our personalization strategy to be truly successful, we need to go back and continuously test,” says Veronica.
The next step for Zoopla also includes scaling its strategy across all its digital channels. “It’s one thing to run a small experiment or introduce personalization, but we need to learn how to use data in better ways, like with machine learning,” says Veronica.