The Intent-Based Segmentation Framework for Ecommerce

93% of communication is nonverbal.

That’s a big and heavy statistic when you think about it. When we talk to each other, our posture, facial expressions, and all the other little nuanced details that make up our body language give context that helps communicate what we’re saying.

Your body language is a series of signals the person you’re speaking to picks up automatically.

The same is true online.

We stand by a strong statement:
Retailers communicate inappropriately with their customers.

And that’s because retailers aren’t listening.

In ecommerce, we design our communications and websites for the 2% of customers ready to buy. We treat all customers like they’ve arrived onsite with their cards in their hands.

This isn’t completely your fault. Ecommerce solutions are designed for all, with an obsessive focus on conversion rate.

That obsession leads to a page template focus, meaning you’re missing out on what your customers actually want to do. Hitting a product detail page doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy; we lose sight and context of what they need because we aren’t listening to what they’re telling us.

By over-indexing the importance of Product Listing Pages (PLPs) and Product Detail Pages (PDPs), we miss out on providing a huge chunk of our customers with what they need because we lose focus. Ultimately, this leads to poor performance in what we’re trying so hard to get them to do: convert.

Alas, a lot of this is old hat. Retailers have known for years that we need to personalise, but how do you do that in a scalable way? How do you actually understand where your customers are and what they need? And how do you help or intervene appropriately?

This deep dive into intent-based predictive segmentation will answer all those questions and more because, conveniently, your customers are broadcasting signals about where they are and what they need. You’re just not picking them up.

When we pick up these signals, we can understand where customers are in their buying stage. We can predict their likelihood to purchase, leave, or return. We can appropriately adapt their experience in real-time, in-session, or post-visit. And voila: personalisation - at scale.

So, let's examine our current strategies before considering a new approach to intent.

Stages, Not Pages

The key to personalisation at scale is segmentation. Segmentation is supposed to be a lever that helps marketers carve up customer types and serve more targeted and appropriate messaging.

Traditional segmentation is a sales-first approach. You have an objective: conversion. The journey you build is reverse-engineered to get to that point in the most effective way possible. Naturally, you’ll group parts of your customers to make communicating and selling easier.

It’s a process that works—to an extent. The problem lies in the opportunity cost.

Focusing only on sales interactions often means obsessing over specific pages—especially PLPs and PDPs. This hyper-narrow view overlooks the broader customer journey, missing critical touchpoints and potential opportunities.

Customers don't make decisions in a vacuum. Their buying journey is a fluid progression through multiple stages, each with unique interactions. Adopting a "Stages, Not Pages" mindset shifts your focus from isolated web pages to the entire customer journey.

By examining the buying process holistically, you can identify weak spots, uncover new opportunities, and direct your efforts where they matter most. This approach not only enhances customer experience but also maximises your potential for conversion.

Customers go through 5 easy to identify stages:

Browsing

Browsing is the initial stage in which customers are casually exploring products or services without a strong intent to purchase. They typically gather information, compare options, and familiarise themselves with what is available.

Refining

In the refining stage, customers start to narrow down their options based on their preferences, requirements, or specific criteria. They might filter their searches, read reviews, and compare detailed features of the products they are interested in.

Evaluating

During the evaluating stage, customers actively consider their options and weigh the pros and cons of each. They may research more in-depth details, seek opinions, and assess the value or benefits each option offers. This stage involves a more critical analysis of the choices available.

Deciding

The deciding stage is when customers are ready to make a final decision on their purchase. They have evaluated their options and are now choosing the product or service that best meets their needs. This stage might involve looking for final assurances, such as return policies or customer support information.

Committing

Committing is the stage where the customer completes the purchase process. They have made their decision and are taking the necessary steps to buy the product or service. This includes adding items to their cart, entering payment information, and finalising the transaction.

By recognising and addressing these stages, you can create a seamless and engaging customer journey that meets their needs at every step, guiding your customers from casual browsing to committed buying with ease.

Stages, and Intent

Buying stages let you understand where a customer is in their purchase journey, but they still miss context.

The stages covered above can tell you how far along a customer is. From this, we can infer how close they are to converting, what information they need to see, and where they might need to go next.

Stages help you understand the journey your customer has to go through before they buy.

A customer in the browsing stage has a very different intent (and, therefore, purpose) than one in the committing stage.

However, coming back to our earlier point on signals, you could have three customers in the same stage with very different intentions. One could be getting ready to move to the next stage, one could be wavering and unsure, and the other could be about to abandon their journey.

The signals they give off let us know whether we should get out of their way and let them continue on their journey, help them get to the next stage, or intervene to stop the abandonment. They infer intent.

This is invaluable context.

Context - definition: the situation within which something exists or happens and can help explain it

Aligning How People Buy with How You Sell

If I’m jumping from one Nike PDP to another, you might be able to say that I’m refining my options. But is that jumping good or bad? Does it mean I’ll progress to the next buying stage?

Intent and buying stages are context. Context can't be "averaged" or "summarised" easily. They miss an objective.

An objective is a specific, measurable goal that follows a linear path to completion that can be broken down into smaller “goals.”

When you know your objective, you can classify your intent. This gives you the insight to act upon.

For example, you can layer the following objectives onto a standard buying journey:

Browsing stage:

Objective = Engage. Get your visitors to progress from this stage and initiate their journey.

Our focus here is on getting people to start their journey on a website and move out of the browsing-buying phase.

Refining/ Evaluating:

Objective = Build. Build intent and get visitors interacting more meaningfully.

Our focus here is on getting people to 5x their original expected conversion, suggesting a positive shift in intent.

Deciding:

Objective = Maintain. Maintain intent and get your visitors to choose their options and move into committing on their choices.

Our focus here is on getting people to add to baskets and show positive purchase intent, moving them into the "committing” buying stage. We also want to prevent or recover from intent drops and finalise basket contents.

Commit:

Objective = Convert. Now that their choice is made, get the customer across the line and finish the purchase.

Our focus here is getting people to complete the checkout.

The objectives don’t always need to overlay onto the buying stages in this manner. But the four objectives allow you to be really precise as to “what” you should be doing with customers based on their intent.

It's possible that a customer could have gone all the way through the purchase process where our objective should be to convert them, but they've moved back into a refining state as they look at validating their decision by revisiting product discovery.

The objective we have gives us the insight as to whether the intent is good or bad, based on their behaviour.

Understanding the actual intent being displayed helps you tailor interactions and interventions more effectively to meet customer needs and expectations. It’s marketing and personalisation that is more appropriate, matching the specific mindset and behaviours displayed. Always relevant and timely.

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So, we have clarity on buying stages and the intent being displayed. Now, we’re ready to get some insights. Intent can now be broadly categorised into three states. This is what their intent tells us they are likely to do.

Focus, Struggle and Abandon States

People show different momentum throughout a purchase journey - intent can grow and drop at varying speeds. The signals are different, but they exist - just like how body language and behaviours communicate a positive or negative shift in a person.

Online, we can group them, if we listen:

Focus

Visitors in a focus state are showing positive signals. Their intent is increasing, and they will likely progress to the next buying stage.

We don’t need to get in this user’s way. Let them be; or do something that continues to promote this positive behaviour. Let them progress through their journey to conversion, however long or short that may be.

Struggle

These visitors are slowing in their journey. Their intent isn’t changing, and they’re showing signs they may not achieve the objective we’re looking for, suggesting that they’re moving towards a state of abandonment.

They’re having difficulty, and with context, we can meet them where they are now and help them become more focused.

Abandon

This is the bad stuff. Your user is showing negative behaviours. Their intent is decreasing, and they are unlikely to achieve the desired objective, suggesting they’re likely to leave soon.

We need to intervene here. This is the place to take specific, contextual actions to engage the user again.

With each of these categories, we can respond more appropriately. We have quite a bit of insight that helps us understand where a user is, what they should be doing, and how we can respond appropriately.

To target customers more effectively, we now have the following:

Behavioural Context

What are they trying to do, where are they (i.e. page) etc?

Objective

What should you be trying to get them to do?

Journey Context

Are they moving in a positive or negative direction? What’s the severity of this?

With this in mind, we can look at how this leads to better segmentation. When you pick up on the signals your audience is broadcasting, you’re responding behaviourally to the context you’re being given. You can use this to get insights about your audience and where the problem areas are, diagnose issues, respond in-session to changes in intent, and adapt journeys post-visit to enhance conversion.

More appropriate. More effective. More meaningful.

The Intent-Based Segmentation Framework

We’re going to take a look at segments for each of the objectives you may have. They are split by their state—whether they are focused, struggling, or abandoning. We’ve given a little bit of context for each of the segments and an objective you may want to consider.

Each of these segments can be targeted and dealt with differently. This is a far cry from the static, persona-based, and retroactive segmentation ecommerce currently struggles with.

Welcome to a new approach: Predictive segmentation aligned to objectives, behavioural and journey contexts.