How To Maximize Engagement with Easy Date and Time-Based Personalization

Personalizing your website’s content based on date and time can significantly boost engagement, ensuring visitors see relevant content at the perfect moment. Whether it’s showcasing weekend promotions or displaying morning-only deals, PersonalizeWP makes it easy to set up and manage time-sensitive content.

This guide will walk you through how to maximize engagement using easy date and time-based personalization.

1. Why date and time-based personalization matters
2. A step-by-step guide to setting it up with PersonalizeWP
3. Best practices to make the most of this feature

Date and time-based personalization is a powerful tool for ensuring that your website delivers relevant, timely content to visitors. Here’s why it matters:

Increased Relevance

Your visitors are more likely to engage when they see content that’s aligned with their current needs or the specific time of their visit, whether it’s a weekend offer or a lunch-time special.

Higher Conversion Rates

When visitors receive content or promotions that are tied to the moment, they are more likely to act quickly, leading to higher conversion rates and more sales.

Fresh and Timely Content

Regularly changing content based on time periods (such as seasons, holidays, or specific times of the day) keeps your site fresh and engaging, encouraging repeat visits.

Let’s say you’re running a café and you want to set up a content block to highlight your seasonal breakfast specials during December. Here’s how to set up an easy date and time-based display condition using PersonalizeWP:

1. Navigate to the PersonalizeWP dashboard and click on Personalization, here you will find all of your current display conditions.

2. Click on the ‘Create Rule‘ button in the top-right hand corner to start setting up a new display condition.

3. Click on the ‘Create Rule‘ button in the top-right hand corner to start setting up a new display condition. Give your new condition a name like ‘December Breakfast Specials‘ and select the ‘Time‘ category.

4. Then set the conditions to match the time period you want your content to show on the page. In this scenario, we want to add:

‘Date‘ > ‘After‘ > ‘01/12/2024‘

‘Date‘ > ‘Before‘ > ‘31/12/2024‘

‘Visit Time‘ > ‘Before‘ > ‘12:00‘

These conditions mean the content block will show every day throughout December in the morning (before midday).

5. Once you’re happy with the conditions, click the pink ‘Create Rule‘ button at the bottom of the screen. Then you’re ready to start using your new display condition!

To use the new condition, select a content block and scroll down to the Personalize menu on the right hand side. Then click on the dropdown list to find your newly created rule. Once selected, under ‘then take the following action’ make sure it’s set to ‘show block‘ and publish your page.

6. In this example, if you visit the page on a date in December at a time before 12pm, you will see the personalized content appearing on the page.

Update Your Content Regularly

Ensure that your date and time-based rules are always aligned with your current promotions. Outdated content can confuse visitors, so regularly update your personalized messages and offers.

Create Urgency with Time-Sensitive Offers

Incorporating limited-time offers with specific end dates can motivate visitors to act quickly. Using phrases like “This offer ends tonight!” can help create urgency.

Combine Multiple Conditions

You can enhance the effectiveness of date and time-based personalization by combining it with other conditions, like visitor location or behavior. For example, you could display region-specific offers that appear only during the visitor’s local time.

Holiday Promotions

During holidays like Black Friday or Christmas, use date-based rules to show special offers or countdowns. For instance, you can schedule a Black Friday banner to appear only during that weekend, keeping your promotions relevant and timely.

Time of Day Specials

If you run a restaurant or cafe, you can use time-based conditions to show different menus or offers depending on the time of day. Morning visitors could see breakfast deals, while afternoon visitors are greeted with lunch specials.

Weekend-Only Offers

For businesses that get more traffic on weekends, you can set up weekend-specific promotions. This ensures that your best deals are seen by users when they’re most active and likely to convert.

Adding time and date based personalization to your WordPress site is a powerful way to engage visitors and drive more conversions. With PersonalizeWP’s free version, you can set up an unlimited number of time-based display conditions quickly and easily.

Ready to get started? Download the free version of PersonalizeWP today and start creating personalized, time-sensitive countdown offers that will boost your sales and customer engagement during the holiday season.