What's the difference between product attributes and behavioral nudges?

What's the difference between product attributes and behavioral nudges?

Behavioral Nudges are messages that leverage behavioral principles (or cognitive biases) to drive purchase behavior. These are displayed as Dynamic Badges or Notifications but shouldn’t be confused with product attributes.

Behavioral Nudges leverage subconscious biases that nudge people through their customer journey, like “Recommended” (Authority), “Staff Picked” (Authority), or “New Line” (Novelty).

Product attributes are, on the other hand, a product’s characteristics that make it special, unique, or different from others in the same category. Displayed as Dynamic Badges and Notifications, product attributes drive behavior by showing exactly what components your customers are looking for in your products.

When do I use each?

When planning your product badging campaigns you should always start with the end goal in mind. For example, do you want to increase the CTR and CR on a certain product segment in the two weeks leading up to Christmas? Or maybe you'd like to create awareness around your new sustainable product range?

Whatever the goal, it will usually fall under one of two categories: Sell or inform. For each intent, you can leverage a certain messaging type. The results you get from these approaches will either be short-term or long-term.

Short-term strategy: Focuses on seasonal campaigns or retail events.

• Message type = Behavioral Nudges (e.g., "Bestseller", "Few Left", "Recommended")

Long-term strategy: Focuses on sharing product-specific information.

• Message type = Product Attributes (e.g., "Extra Warm", "Reflective", "Windproof")

To sum it up,

• Behavioral Nudges are messages that leverage behavioral principles to drive purchase behavior.

• Product Attributes are a product’s characteristics that make it special, unique, or different from others in the same category.

Displayed as Dynamic Messages in the Crobox App, both drive behavior by showing what your customers are looking for on a psychological level (nudges) and informational level (attributes).

Things like the size, color, shape, or material of your products are all things that fall under product attributes. In other words, these are the products’ features and functions. For example, I might want to buy a running shoe because I’m a runner. The product attributes of a shoe are the rational reasons why I choose to buy the product.

Meanwhile, Behavioral Nudges may urge me to buy a product based on a subconscious desire to follow the behavior of others (Social Proof), or because the product is exclusive (Scarcity), or even because it boasts of new technologies (Innovation). Behavioral Nudges are the impact drivers of Dynamic Messaging. Because they are persuasive by nature, these messages are more likely to resonate with your customers on a broad level. You can also use Behavioral Nudges to get a better idea of your customer segments' psychographics. This information can be used to optimize your psychographic segmentation.

Product Attributes are insight drivers. Because you are inherently testing more copy variations and messages, you will get deeper insights into which micro-segments respond to which messages. The trade-off for these insights, however, could be a short-term negative impact on CTR. In the bigger picture, this trade-off is worth it for those looking for unique insights, as it's just as important to learn which messages have a negative impact on behavior as it is a positive impact.

This could lead to a temporary inverse effect on KPIs such as CTR and CR. With time, however, the AI will have enough data to optimize how the messages are being shown to the shopper.