Personalised referrals
When opening links from inside Reddit, Washington Post will show personalised offers.
Design Examples
Personalisation Examples: Real Product Recommendations
See how companies like Wise, LinkedIn, Petbarn and Shop personalise referral pages, search bars and permission prompts, with annotated examples from our UX Bites library.
Real world examples:
Updated: 23/09/2026, view all 1,482 examples
Examples on Built for Mars include
Wise names the referrer to lift conversions
LinkedIn says why it recommends each page
Shop previews alerts using your real orders
Specific LinkedIn recommendations
When recommending pages or groups, LinkedIn will often show you why they think you may be interested in it.
Personalising the search bar
After completing your pet's profile, Petbarn will personalise their search bar.
Leveraging your previous orders
If you've not given Shop notification permissions, they'll use one of your recent orders as an animated example to demonstrate how notifications are used throughout the process.
Dynamic suggestions
When entering gift mode on Etsy, the main search box will dynamically show themes and ideas, with matching background art.
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Personalised referral links
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"I’d never met anybody who looks at usability and UX the way I do until I met Peter. Only he’s smarter."
"The completest view of the psychological underpinnings of human behaviour that I’ve ever seen."
"What a nice idea! Christopher Alexander would be proud to see patterns collected like this."
FAQs
Is personalisation worth it if it doesn't lift same-day sales?
Some personalisation is about building a relationship, not driving an immediate purchase. For example, Petbarn changes its search bar to 'Find something nice for Rover' once you complete a pet profile. It's unlikely to raise that day's basket size, but it can increase long-term spend from that customer.
How do you personalise a landing page for referred traffic?
Match the page to the source or the sender, so the offer feels real rather than generic. As an example, Washington Post tells visitors arriving from Reddit that 'Redditors get 7 free stories', which may make the referral stickier.
Why use a user's own data in a notification permission prompt?
A real example removes the need to imagine what a useful notification looks like, so the value is obvious. This is what Shop does, animating one of your recent orders through each delivery stage. The Endowment Effect adds to it, because it feels like your order rather than a demo.
Does personalisation have to change the actual content to work?
Not always, because the aim is often to make users feel heard. For instance, Shop's preference screen highlights images as you pick 'Men's' or 'Women's', even though none are clickable products. Balance shows an icon after post-meditation questions to signal your experience is getting more personalised, a small reward that encourages more engagement.
Why are LinkedIn's recommendation reasons harder to build than they look?
Social graphs are complex, and there's rarely one single reason a page is recommended. LinkedIn still picks a specific, readable reason, e.g., 'People who work at Citadel also follow these pages', which gives the suggestion credibility.
How can a search box help users who don't know what to search for?
Rotating themes inside the input gives people a starting point and breaks blank-search paralysis. For example, Etsy's Gift Mode cycles through ideas like 'plants', 'crafting' and 'the great outdoors', each with matching background art.