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.

You’ll fall foul of some of the issues we discussed in the Stages Not Pages deep dive, but 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.

Users 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 users to progress from this stage and initiate their journey. 

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

Refining/ Evaluating: 

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

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

Deciding:

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

Our focus here is on getting users 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 user across the line and make the purchase. 

Our focus here is getting users to complete the purchase.

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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 users 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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*****GRAPHIC WITH THE OBJECTIVED TO BE ADDED *****

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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 

Users 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

Users in a focus state are showing positive signals. The users' 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 users 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. 

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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.

Engage

Focus

Focused Browsers

• Context: Positive movement/progression
• Summary: These customers are in the early stages of their shopping journey. They have initiated their journey and are showing positive intent to progress.
• Objective: Engage. Keep these customers on track (you should probably just leave them alone) and, if needed, help move them into a refinement journey.

Struggle

Struggling Browsers

• Context: Struggle behaviour with little engagement in browsing
• Summary: These customers are engaging, but only a little. They aren’t looking likely to progress from Browsing.
• Objective: Engaging this segment means understanding why they’re hesitating, piquing interest, and encouraging a deeper exploration of your site. Inspire these customers with categories/products to help them progress in their journey. They aren’t really interacting with your website.

Unengaged Browsers

• Context: Struggle Behaviour with active events in Browsing (min. 10 events)
• Summary: These customers are starting to interact with the website and passing events to MWI, but they’re not progressing from browsing and actively engaging in product discovery (yet). Unengaged Browsers are characterised by their lack of interaction beyond basic page views.
• Objective: Engaging this segment means understanding why they’re hesitating, piquing interest and encouraging a deeper exploration of your site. Inspire these customers with categories/products to help progress them in their journey. They interact with the website but haven’t moved into a Refining Buying Stage.

Abandon

First-Time Bouncers

• Context: First session, likely to abandon
• Summary: These customers are in their first session and are likely to abandon without taking any meaningful action
• Objective: Engage. The goal is not just to reduce bounce rates but to lay the groundwork for a lasting relationship that grows over time. That requires appreciating any context and introducing yourselves and/or welcoming users. Your aim is to generate curiosity to elicit engagement.

First-Time Abandoners

• Context: First-time bouncers with low expected return
• Summary: These customers are in their first session and are likely to abandon without taking any meaningful action and are unlikely to return
• Objective: Engage. This is likely your last chance to generate curiosity and elicit engagement with this customer group before they abandon their shopping journey.

Build Intent

Focus

Focused Refiners

• Context: Positive movement with expected progression
• Summary: These customers have initiated their journey, are actively engaging with the website, and should be growing their intent. They are refining products and finding the right ones to match their requirements.
• Objective: Build Intent. Keep these customers on track (probably just leave them alone or use subtle enhancements to the journey, e.g. hero filters, helpful content, etc.) and, if needed, help move them into evaluating product(s).

Focused Evaluators

• Context: Positive engagement in the evaluating stage, but have not yet built an affinity to a product
• Summary: These customers are positively evaluating products but have not yet built an affinity to any items
• Objective: Build Intent. How can these customers be convinced about the products they’re shopping for? Consider product-specific anxieties and motivators that can be used to influence them. They need just the right nudge to transition from interest to action. The challenge lies in identifying and addressing the factors that can convert this hesitation into decisive action.

Basket Convincers

• Context: On a PDP with a high affinity for the current product but has not yet added to the basket
• Summary: These customers are on a PDP, with a strong affinity for the product they’re looking at and high Add to Basket activity, but they have not yet added any items to the basket
• Objective: Build Intent. How can these customers be convinced to Add to Basket? Consider product-specific anxieties and motivators that can be used to influence them. They need just the right nudge to transition from interest to action. The challenge lies in identifying and addressing the factors that can convert this hesitation into decisive action.

Struggle

Struggling Refiners

• Context: Struggle behaviour with high engagement in the *Refining* stage. Expected progression is not high.
• Summary: These customers are in the refining stage and have high engagement. They have not been on a product page in the last 10 events and are not likely to progress to the evaluating stage.
• Objective: Build Intent. Their behaviour displays the need for guidance and clarity in their shopping journey, from broad exploration to focused decision-making. Your job is to help them make a decision. This segment often suffers from the paradox of choice. Users could be overwhelmed by options and underwhelmed by their ability to decide. The goal is to streamline their decision-making process by making product discovery more intuitive and less daunting. How can you help them make a decision?

Struggling Evaluators

• Context: Customers who haven’t added a product to the basket, have viewed multiple PDPs and haven’t built an affinity for any products
• Summary: Broad Evaluators are the *tire-kickers*. They are shoppers immersed in the evaluation stage, showing an interest in what your brand offers but without any clear direction or behaviour towards purchase.
• Objective: Build Intent. The objective is to guide deeper engagement with your brand first and then your products, not the other way around. They need help finding the right product. They need ease of comparison but also content to help them understand what product is right for their needs.

Product Persuaders

• Context: Showing struggle behaviours, haven’t added any products to cart, have built product affinity/affinities but are losing momentum
• Summary: Customers who have built a product affinity but have not added any items to the basket and whose journey is showing signs of slowing down / heading in the wrong direction
• Objective: Build Intent. Their behaviour suggests a moment of hesitation or reconsideration. They have potential interest in specific products or categories but also need further persuasion or reassurance. How can you help these customers get back to a product and persuade them to actually add to basket?

Abandon

Abandoning Refiners

• Context: In Refining, Likely to Abandon
• Summary: Customers in the Refining Stage who are highly likely to abandon
• Objective: Build Intent. These customers have shown enough engagement to suggest they were/are looking for a product but are now likely to leave. Did they not find what they were looking for? Was there a problem with the product(s) they found? How can you uncover this insight and respond appropriately?

Abandoning Evaluators

• Context: In Evaluating, Likely to Abandon and unlikely to return
• Summary: Customers in the Evaluating Stage who are highly likely to abandon their session
• Objective: Build Intent. These customers have reached the Evaluating stage but are now showing signs they’re about to abandon and are unlikely to return. Likely, they’ve not been “sold” on any products they’ve viewed or believe they don’t fit their needs. How can you engage this customer to try to help change their mind?

Maintain Intent

Focus

Focused Shoppers

• Context: Positive behaviours
• Summary: These shoppers are on the cusp of conversion, are progressing nicely and are making their final decision(s) before moving to checkout
• Objective:  Maintain Intent. Keep these customers on track (probably just leave them alone or use subtle enhancements to the journey), and if needed, help move them into checkout. Make things more accessible, and gently persuade them over the finish line.

Ready Returners

• Context: Landed back on site (at least 2nd session) and have a high likelihood of committing
• Summary: Landing page customers who have returned to the site and, after showing high intent to purchase, are likely back to purchase again.
• Objective: Maintain Intent. Their behaviour is a testament to their previous unresolved actions. Having already shown high levels of engagement, the challenge now lies in nudging them over the final hurdle to complete their purchase. Try to understand why this behaviour exists. How can you get these customers back into their product purchase journey without distracting them when they return?

Basket Builders

• Context: Have added two or more products to basket, are likely to add more products and are progressing well
• Summary: Typical “basket builder” behaviour. Either these customers are building a list to compare, or they’re adding multiple items to their basket to purchase
• Objective: Maintain Intent. How can we help these customers compare and decide which of their wish-listed products is right for them? They need a final nudge while being supportive in a product decision process. Your job is to consider how to retain as much basket value as possible while being wary of signs of exiting. If they show exit intent, how can we save their basket to re-engage them?

Struggle

Stalled Shoppers

• Context: Struggle behaviour with significant intent drop
• Summary: These customers are in the committing stage and were showing good intent to purchase but have just seen a significant drop in intent
• Objective: Maintain Intent. These customers have high potential, as they’ve shown all the right signs before their intent has dropped. Why? Have they seen something they don’t like (delivery date, delivery cost, ineligible voucher code, etc.) or has something else stopped them in their tracks (e.g. waiting for payday, etc.)? Your job is to understand this context and respond appropriately.

Abandon

Basket Abandoners

• Context: Abandon behaviour and unlikely to return
• Summary: These customers have built up a basket and are now showing signs that they’re likely to leave and not return
• Objective: Maintain Intent. This is likely one of the last chances you have to persuade these customers; think about appropriate messaging that can reduce their likelihood of exit. This is the perfect segment for you to highlight immediate value. It’s extra time, and it's probably your last-ditch attempt to keep them and persuade them to convert.

Basket Pauser

• Context: Abandon behaviour
• Summary: These customers have built up a basket and are now showing signs that they’re likely to leave and may return
• Objective: Maintain Intent. What can you do to encourage this behaviour, e.g., save items for later (with email), sign up for payday reminders, etc., or convince these customers that now is the right time to purchase?

Convert

Focus

Focused Committers

• Context: Positive behaviours
• Summary: These shoppers are on the cusp of conversion, progressing nicely
• Objective: Convert. Keep these customers on track (probably just leave them alone), and if needed, nudge them to convert.

Checkout Revivers

• Context: Landing on site after previously abandoning
• Summary: Landing page customers who have returned to the site with positive intent after abandoning their order
• Objective: Convert. These customers were about to convert and didn’t, but they returned to the website. How can you make it easy for these customers to get the order over the line? Do they need one final push to convince them they’re buying the right product?

Struggle

Struggling Buyers

• Context: Struggle
• Summary: Customers likely on the checkout who are showing struggle behaviours
• Objective: Convert. They're struggling and not checking out. Why? Are they checking discounts? Rather than push them through a checkout when you know this journey isn't typical, how can you allow for the fact that they don't seem ready to buy? Without cutting the checkout off, of course. Understanding and addressing this hesitancy is key to converting stalled checkouts into successful transactions.

Hesitant Buyers

• Context: Struggling, not in Committing
• Summary: Customers who showed they are ready to convert but are no longer on the checkout and who are showing struggling behaviours
• Objective: Convert. The challenge with this segment is understanding and addressing the underlying anxieties that hold them back. That can be a set of questions you’re not answering effectively enough, concerns about the product, price, and trust in the brand. How can you influence their experience to remove any anxieties causing hesitation and promote motivating factors?

Abandon

Last Chancers

• Context: Abandon, low expected return
• Summary: Customers who showed signs they wanted to convert but are now abandoning the journey and are unlikely to return
• Objective: Convert. These customers have demonstrated high levels of intent but are unlikely to return and are predicted to exit soon. This is likely one of the last chances you have to persuade these customers; think about appropriate messaging that can be used to reduce their likelihood of exiting. This is the perfect segment for you to highlight immediate value. It’s extra time and probably your last-ditch attempt to keep them and persuade them to convert.

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And there we have it. An intent-based predictive segmentation. A new method for understanding your audience, optimising how you sell with how people really buy. 

These segments were derived from analysing millions of sessions, examining over 250+ intent signals, and modelling their behaviour with our proprietary LLM. 

We take the data from the intent signals your audience is displaying, listen to them, and feed them into our model. We provide intent metrics and match these prebuilt segments to enrich your current marketing with intent. You can check out some of our use cases here. 

What to do now

Now that you’ve considered some of the ways you should segment your audience and what intent can help you do, it’s time to take action. 

Our advice is: 
Understand Intent, get insight, take action.

Use your intent data to gain insights into your audience. For example, drill down into your cart abandoners. What sub-segments do they fit into? Where are your areas of opportunity? 

What can you do in session as part of your in-flight targeting? How can you adapt and intervene, and how can you nudge strugglers along? You can find some great concepts here. 

What can you do post-visit? What areas of opportunity do you have once users have left the site? Can you reduce your retargeting ads to only those that have high intent? What about your CRM and Experience platforms? More ideas can be found here. 

Use the insights to help you choose your objective. What do you want people to do at various stages? What’s stopping them? What can you test to fix problem areas or enhance performance? 

Intent-based predictive segmentation helps you convert more customers by being more appropriate. It’s a step away from aggregated, retroactive and short-term segmentation. 

It’s time for more human, more effective marketing.