SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 16, 2015) - Certona , the leader in real-time omnichannel personalization for the world's largest brands and retailers, today announced that the United States Patent Office (USPTO) has issued the company a patent for personalized search. The patent supports expanded search functionality within Certona's Personalized Experience Management suite to enhance retailers' site search and product discovery capabilities and optimize paid search landing pages. With real-time consumer behavioral and transactional knowledge, Certona helps retailers create engaging and personalized customer experiences.
The patent, " System and Method for Personalized Search ," US Patent No. 8,903,811, covers the indexing of search terms based on behavioral outcomes rather than text analysis. In particular Certona's behavioral search predicts which products or content the site visitor is most likely to be interested in based on what previous visitors have browsed after using those search terms, overlaid with the personal interests of the search user. Typically, a search provider ranks search results on a retailer's site based on word structure and proximity to a search term. This is problematic in scenarios where there is no exact match or a high volume of results. Certona's self-learning algorithms improve the performance of site search by using individualized behavioral profiling to influence the order in which products display in results, based on an individual's unique profile.
Certona's Smart Discovery solutions are easily integrated into client applications via API calls to the Certona® Predictive Cloud ™. New search and discovery products include:
- Visual Discovery: Delivers personalized keyword and product results by capturing the context of a shopper's keystrokes in real-time, including type-ahead keywords and visual product personalization.
- Auto Discovery: Re-ranks and personalizes search results or product listing pages based on a shopper's intent implicit in prior or current browse, search and purchase behavior.
- Guided Discovery: Interacts with shoppers through a set of engaging product and/or lifestyle related questions to help guide them through a fun product discovery journey.
- Alternate Search Results: Provides product suggestions based on individual profiles and behaviors, next to the static site search results or product listing pages and even on "no search results found" pages where there is no exact keyword match to the site's catalog.
- Paid Search Discovery - Improves conversion of paid search campaigns by optimizing personalized landing pages with a higher return on search spend.
"Consumers have a profound amount of possible product and brand choices in the retail landscape," said Geoffrey Hueter, CTO and co-founder of Certona. "With our patented search and listings functionality, we can give brands a competitive edge through personalized experiences that optimize the consumer's path to purchase."
Certona Smart Discovery analyzes a customer's keystrokes to provide the best results to entice them to click through and ultimately purchase. Often, customers are directed to a search results page that does not connect them to the products they're likely to buy. Certona Smart Discovery allows customers to click directly into the product of interest, ultimately improving conversion for retailers.
"As a fashion-forward global brand, it is imperative that we stay ahead of trends and serve our diverse customer base with highly relevant personalized experiences," said Erik Lautier, EVP and Chief Digital Officer at bebe. "We are seeing measurable gains in performance from Certona's product recommendations and are excited about offering Smart Discovery to engage and help guide our customers to the products that suit their individual lifestyles."
Certona's behavioral search and discovery is complementary to existing text-based search engines. By combining the two approaches, Certona's technology greatly improves the search experience by delivering search results tailored to each individual using a seamless balance of text-based indexing and behavior modeling. Unlike text-based search engines, which require hand-tuning by a site merchandiser, Certona's behavioral search learns from the behavior of the site's visitors, continuously self-learning and adapting so that the search results get better with use.
Last year, Certona was awarded two patents for profiling and predicting consumer behavior and identifying non-normative behavior. Their new patent for personalized search further validates core technology that powers the Certona Predictive Cloud™, with another 8 patents pending. Certona's new search capabilities are available in the Certona Experience Manager™. Learn more at: http://www.certona.com/solutions .
About Certona
Delivering personalized customer experiences for the world's most popular brands, Certona is the leader for true omnichannel personalization. Trusted by more than 500 top ecommerce sites, Certona's enterprise-class, cloud-based personalization platform increases engagement and conversions by leveraging one-to-one behavioral profiling, Big Data insights, and predictive analytics to serve up individualized content, promotional offers and product recommendations across all customer touch points. Combined with a flexible decision engine and contextualization, marketers can harness the power of real-time behavioral profiling while maintaining control over their personalization strategies.
Media contacts: Todd Scholl Certona (858) 369-3888 x 212 Email Contact Leigh Ann Benicewicz LEWIS PR (619) 677-2700 Email Contact
