Personalizing the retail homepage for every visitor

Jan 12, 2026

Three experiments that show how matching the right content to the right visitor changes what happens when they land on your site.

  • WHO: E-commerce & CRO teams
  • INDUSTRY: Retail
  • IMPACTED PAGES: Homepage, Product Detail Pages

Experiment 1: Personalized product recommendations

Hypothesis: Showing visitor-specific product recommendations on the homepage will increase click-through to PDPs compared to static product recommendations.

Personalised product recommendationsImage source: Optimizely

Results:

  • +136% Increase in CTR to PDPs

Takeaways:

  1. The product recommendations powered by Optimizely significantly outperformed the static product recommendations.
  2. This campaign validated the hypothesis and is influencing a roadmap of product recommendation testing throughout the site.

Experiment 2: Bestseller recommendations for new visitors

Hypothesis: Showing new visitors static bestseller product recommendations will increase click-through to PDPs compared to static featured product recommendations.

Bestseller product recommendations testImage source: Optimizely

Results:

  • +23.01% Increase in CTR to PDPs

Takeaways:

  1. Showing new visitors the bestselling products on the homepage resonated with that audience.
  2. The static bestselling product recommendations significantly outperformed the static featured product recommendations.

Experiment 3: Homepage messaging breadth

Hypothesis: If the homepage promotes a wide variety of items across many product categories, a visitor will be more likely to discover a product of interest, driving purchase intent.

homepage messaging breadth testImage source: Optimizely

Results:

  • -6.07% Decrease in Add to Cart
  • -10.4% Decrease in Click-Through Rate

Takeaways:

  1. Serving full head-to-toe outfits on the homepage was overwhelming for visitors, decreasing engagement.
  2. Negative trends for exit rate from the home page, further supporting this assumption.
  3. The negative underperformance from the carousel was significant enough to drag down the sitewide PDP view rate.

Your homepage cannot be one thing for everyone

A returning shopper and a first-time visitor land on the same page and see the same content. That is the gap. The Personalization Ideation Agent turns homepage signals into tailored experiences for each audience, so returning visitors see what is relevant to them and new visitors see what converts them.

And here are more use cases from the retail industry:

 

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