Personalisation in digital marketing: What it is and how to get started

Currently, a good digital marketing agency will be recommending personalisation to their clients.

Personalisation in digital marketing is where brands tailor their messaging to individual customers.

It involves knowing the needs, preferences, and interests of your current and prospective customers so that you can serve them exactly what they’re looking for, when they’re looking for it.

And it’s a growing industry. According to 360i Research, the global personalisation software market is expected to reach $943.25 million this year, and $2.72 billion by 2027.

PERSONALISATION IS EXPECTED

According to a McKinsey report, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.

PERSONALISATION ENGAGES CUSTOMERS

By collecting, analysing, and effectively using information about your consumers, you will be able to create campaigns, content and experiences that actually resonate with your target audience.

PERSONALISATION BOOSTS LOYALTY AND RETENTION

An Accenture survey in 2018 reported that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognise, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations.

PERSONALISATION INCREASES REVENUE

A McKinsey report found that companies that leverage personalisation generate 40% more revenue than companies that don’t. Personalisation can also reduce customer acquisition costs by up to 50%.

So personalisation is going to be a top strategy for a digital marketing agency to recommend to their clients.

Personalisation can (and should) be applied throughout the entire customer journey. From paid media messages, to web page and app content, to discounts and offers, to email communications. There are even benefits to personalising transnational communications like invoices, receipts and shipping notifications.

Here are a few examples…

SMART CONTENT ACROSS WEBSITES, ADS AND EMAIL CAMPAIGNS

Adaptive content means changing aspects of a web page or email based on the past behaviour or interest of a user using cookies stored in the browser of a visitor (note: once Google gets rid of cookies in 2024, they are likely to move to using an in-browser algorithm to analyse users’ activity and generate a “privacy-preserving” ID that can be used by advertisers for targeting).

This might look like sending a user an email reminding them of the products they have placed in their wishlist. Or offering a user a cake recipe when they have been browsing cake tins.

AI CHATBOTS

eCommerce brands can benefit greatly from using guided shopping AI chatbots on their website to help customers find products from large catalogues.

Alternatively, brands can use chatbots on their social media channels to eradicate ad fatigue by giving users a personalised buying journey in real time.

Data collected from these chatbots helps to identify customer intents and allows brands to respond intelligently at scale.

PERSONALISED VIDEOS

The power of short form video is huge, and continuing to grow. Personalisation can give your video content an additional boost.

This can be as simple as featuring the user’s name at the beginning of the video.

Or as complex as featuring photos, names, and locations of specific people in your user’s life. The Cadbury Glow campaign pulled personal photos and names from their viewers’ Facebook profiles and included them in the video they served to them.

COLLECT AS MUCH DATA AS YOU CAN

Collect data from your users both in the form of cookies and also declared data (or first party data). Declared data is information explicitly volunteered by consumers in a direct interaction with your business. You can do this with incentivised surveys, and by asking your customers questions periodically here and there. This is super important considering Google’s planned removal of cookies (discussed above).

Be sure to collect all of this data in a central profile, and make sure that your data is formatted correctly for input into a data management system.

CREATE CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

Group customers with similar behaviours and needs. Segment on a range of factors, from demographics such as age, gender, location, income, to shopping habits and incentives they might respond to.

UNDERSTAND THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY FOR EACH SEGMENT

The customer journey is the series of interactions with a brand from initial consideration to purchase and use and then subsequent purchases.

Integrate information from internal sources (like website visits, in-store purchases, contact centre calls) and external sources (like visits to competitor websites).

CREATE MICROSEGMENTS AND PRIORITISE

From these segments and journeys, create microsegments. Be sure to evaluate and prioritise each one based on their relative values. Which microsegment is likely to return more?

CREATE CONTENT FOR EACH MICROSEGMENT

Plan a library of content across all of your channels that you can serve to each segment. Plan in advance to react to customer signals as well. By this, we mean to plan what communication activity can be triggered when a customer provides information about a specific need or intention (e.g. a Google search, a social media post, or a purchase).

MAKE YOUR PERSONALISATION OMNICHANNEL

Ensure your customer gets a unified brand experience across the whole customer journey by including all of your channels in your activity.

Personalisation is definitely on the rise – a good digital marketing agency will be recommending your marketing strategy includes it over the coming years. Brands that will excel will be those that embrace a data-driven mindset throughout their decision-making and marketing efforts. 

So ensure that you examine the full customer lifecycle, leverage customer segments and microsegments, and factor in data like behavioural, transactional, and engagement trends into your marketing strategy.

Propeller is a digital marketing agency specialising in creating unique, engaging and creative strategies for brands. We will help you understand your customers’ intent, trends and opportunities in the digital space to deliver measurable campaign results. We aim to ensure that every digital decision you make is strategic and data-driven.