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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nWelcome to the age of personalization: A time where customers are simultaneously expecting you to know everything about them before they land on your site, while still being extremely cautious about how their data is being collected and stored.<\/p>\n
Marketers have been walking this tight rope for nearly two decades at this point, but we\u2019ve finally reached an inflection point; companies who don\u2019t provide a personalized experience will fall behind those that do.<\/p>\n
With over 75% of consumers<\/a> more likely to consider buying products from brands that personalize (and an equal number of consumers who admit to becoming frustrated when they\u2019re not greeted with a personalized experience), personalization strategies have never been more prescient.<\/p>\n And yet top senior executives across marketing, ecommerce, IT are struggling to rev their personalization engines, never mind scaling their personalization strategies. In a recent survey<\/a>, 64% of executives said their teams have only just begun implementing real-time personalization strategies.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s holding them back? Well\u2026<\/p>\n Implementing a personalization strategy<\/a> and building a personalization engine that operates on all cylinders is much easier said than done. Modern consumers are interacting with your brand with the expectation that the experience will be tailored to their individual preferences and characteristics before the landing page is done loading or the app is done opening.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no wonder 86% of executives reported they\u2019re in need of more advanced personalization than what they\u2019re currently capable of delivering. It\u2019s also no surprise that 62% of executives increased their personalization budgets in 2024 from 2023, a clear indication of how dire the situation is for organizations.<\/p>\n It can.<\/p>\n In fact, just 26% of executives report having a unified definition of personalization throughout their organization.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re asking yourself, \u201chow can an organization provide a personalized web experience if they don\u2019t even know what personalization means to them<\/em>,\u201d it\u2019s because they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n Of the executives that do <\/em>have a personalization strategy, they\u2019re looking to three key categories to measure their ROI:\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s telling is that not a single metric breaks the 50% mark, which speaks to the general uncertainty of how to track success.<\/p>\n The truth is that many companies are flying blind when it comes to personalization, with 43% of respondents expressing concerns that ineffective personalization campaigns will result in reduced budgets in the future.<\/p>\n Personalization requires careful coordination. Organizations typically rely on cross-functional teams spanning marketing, product, engineering and sales to build a personalization infrastructure, which also relies on data systems and martech tools.<\/p>\n What could go wrong? Well\u2026<\/p>\n If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you\u2019re in good company; only 9 percent of executives noted that their personalization strategy is fully operational.<\/p>\n Here are some ways to ease the burden of getting started with personalization<\/a> so you can minimize friction:<\/p>\n Having an abundance of tools at your disposal might make you feel powerful, but the reality is that it\u2019s likely slowing you down, resulting in fragmented systems and disjointed workflows. Unless your tools are intelligently weaved together, the data flow will become isolated and unreliable.<\/p>\n This fragmentation usually results in work about work.<\/p>\n Ensure your personalization platform has strong integrations with the tools and platforms where your data is stored. Also, make sure the platform enables a holistic view of the customer and allows you to efficiently manage your audiences.<\/p>\n Walk before you run, run before you scale and stick with your most reliable data points while focusing on relevant business outcomes.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have a ton of data or it\u2019s spotty, focus on the data you do <\/em>have, and what you can most accurately measure.<\/p>\n Personalization will only lead to new business opportunities when it\u2019s nearly fully operational. If you\u2019re struggling to get your personalization off the ground, focusing on your most trusted data and tried-and-true segments will help you build a solid foundation for the future.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t get very far with personalization if you don\u2019t have a large inventory of content or products.\u00a0<\/p>\n All of the workflows you\u2019ll design, strategies you\u2019ll implement, and data you\u2019ll collect will all be done with one clear goal; to deliver the right content to the right customer at the right time.<\/p>\n The problem is that you\u2019ll need a ton of content or products to effectively enable personalization. Your customers won\u2019t really need a nudge in any direction if you only have 5 pieces of content on your site or a handful of products.<\/p>\n At some point, if you want to succeed with personalization, you\u2019ll need a scalable content strategy<\/a> that provides a diversity of content assets to customers at various stages of the customer journey.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve already begun personalization but it\u2019s not going well, consider how experimentation<\/a> can help. Multi-armed bandits,<\/a> which refer to a type of A\/B testing that uses machine learning algorithms to dynamically allocate traffic to variations that are performing well, while allocating less traffic to variations that are underperforming, are effective since they show the best-performing option in real-time and automatically direct traffic to the best experience. This approach not only optimizes engagement but also continually refines your strategy to ensure your campaigns are always aligned with user preferences.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, executives are already recognizing that experimentation provides benefits including:<\/p>\n Earlier, we mentioned 44% of executives noted omplicated or fragmented data is a top challenge, while about the same amount noted a lack of effective analytics holds them up.<\/p>\n One way to guarantee data won\u2019t be an issue is with a powerful customer data platform (CDP).<\/p>\n Instead of tearing everything down and starting from scratch with your data that\u2019s strewn about countless data warehouses and data clouds, leverage a CDP to keep track of constantly accumulating data. This is especially important for personalization, as you want to ensure you\u2019re surfacing the right<\/em> data at the right time to the right customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Do you need AI to execute personalization? Well, no, but it would make things a whole lot easier.<\/p>\n Personalization isn\u2019t just some fancy buzzword or corporate jargon. It\u2019s changing the way organizations are connecting with customers. As companies continue to step up their personalization game, those who successfully navigate these challenges will be better positioned to meet rising consumer expectations, build stronger customer relationships, and deliver personalized experiences.<\/p>\n\n
The current state of personalization<\/h2>\n
Personalization can\u2019t really be that difficult, can it?<\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nMaking personalization easier<\/h2>\n
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Perform an audit of your personalization tools for strong audience management capabilities<\/h3>\n
Start small<\/h3>\n
Keep an eye on content<\/h3>\n
Start experimenting<\/h3>\n
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Organize your data<\/h3>\n
Ever hear of AI?<\/h3>\n
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Recap<\/h2>\n