You can’t get away with basic personalisation anymore. A ‘[FIRST NAME]’ field in your subject lines and email copy isn’t going to cut it - customers know more, they expect more, and brands need to do more if they want to keep their audience from looking elsewhere. So, how do you take your personalisation offering from basic to brilliant?

What personalisation means today

Personalisation used to be based heavily on identity, or ‘static data’, like a person’s location, age, and job title. Times have changed, though, and they’ve changed significantly. Now, personalisation needs to be based on behaviour - pages visited, past purchases, emails clicked and products viewed.

Static data tells us very, very little about a person - just because two people have the same job title, it doesn’t mean they’ll have the same interests. Behaviour, on the other hand, shows intent, which is infinitely more useful to marketers and offers a wealth of opportunities for effective personalisation.

Types of personalisation

Website content:

Greet customers with dynamic web pages that are aligned to their interests, with product recommendations that are based on their previous purchases or page visits. Their past online behaviour will tell you everything you need to know to create a bespoke experience that leverages those interests and turns them into action.

Email journeys:

Mailing list emails can be effective on occasion, but trigger-based emails take automated email marketing to a new level. You can set different types of emails to send when a customer performs a specific action, such as staying on a product page for a certain amount of time, abandoning their cart at checkout, adding a product to their wishlist, or making a purchase.

By sending emails with increased relevance, you can connect with your audience at better times, which means they’re more likely to engage with you. If someone’s just signed up for an event you’re hosting, a prompt follow-up email containing more information is going to be extra useful to them, and they’re more likely to read it.

If your trigger emails contain well-designed, well-written, and useful content, then your customers will appreciate it. It’s a great way of creating a personalised experience, which increases customer satisfaction and loyalty to your brand.

Targeted ads:

Targeted ads aren’t a new concept, but applying behaviour-based personalisation opens up more avenues for engagement. If a customer abandons their cart at point of purchase, a carefully timed ad showing the products they opted against can help drive reconsideration. Creative tailored to user behaviour makes your ads more noticeable, and gives a stronger feeling of connection with a brand, but it’s important to refresh these ads regularly to help avoid creative fatigue.

What is powering personalisation?

First-party data

As third-party cookies are being phased out, first-party data is now the core component behind effective personalised marketing. One of the most useful benefits of first-party data is that you can control how and what you collect, which means you can make sure it reflects real customer intent and complies with all regulations.

First-party data is more accurate than third-party data, because customers are providing it themselves through routes like sign-ups, page views, social media, and surveys. It’s also more cost-effective for brands, because they don’t need to pay external companies to collate the data for them - research has found that brands using first-party data experienced a 2.9x lift in revenue.

Purchase history

There are few better indicators of a customer’s preferences than their purchase history. It’s a window into their interests and their needs, and it can help you tailor product recommendations based on logical next steps.

Website behaviour

Which pages are your users visiting the most, and which pages are they spending the most time on? Few people spend time browsing pages and categories of products and services they’re not interested in, so make sure to leverage your users’ website behaviour to its full potential.

Email engagement

Another very strong indicator of intent and interest. From opens to clicks, you can learn a lot about your customers from how they interact with your emails. Trying to engage with users who never open your emails is a waste of time and resources, so look for those who open and click through your comms, and tailor your personalisation to their behaviour.

CRM data

Enquiries and sales conversations are exceptional sources of first-party data: your users are often (literally) telling you exactly what they need or don’t need from your brand, and that’s a goldmine.

Quick wins for businesses

Upgrade your segmentation and split your user base up into high-impact segments.

New vs returning visitors

For new customers, lead with educational content rather than sales content in order to build trust and demonstrate your brand’s authority. When targeting returning customers, you can push reminders and stronger CTAs, as they’re already familiar with your brand and likely already trust you.

Engaged vs unengaged users

More direct offers are best reserved for users who are already engaged with your brand. If you’re trying to encourage unengaged users to interact with you, deploy re-engagement campaigns before deploying sales tactics.

Browsed but didn’t convert

Identified users who viewed a product page but didn’t take any action? Time to follow up. Use reminders, FAQs, and social proof like reviews and testimonials to reassure them and encourage a purchase.

Customers vs leads

If a customer has bought from you before, whether once or multiple times, then cross-selling and upselling can be effective for both ROI and loyalty. They trust your brand already, so you can focus on giving them reasons to be loyal to you over your competitors.

Use trigger emails instead of newsletters to encourage leads down the funnel. With a newsletter, you’re guided by a schedule, whereas trigger emails are informed by action. For example, if a customer hasn’t viewed your site or engaged in 30 days, you can send a bespoke “we’ve not seen you in a while…” email - it shows you’ve noticed they haven’t engaged with the brand, and it might make them change their mind.

Wrapping up

Personalisation isn’t a bonus anymore - it’s the basic expectation of marketing. With all the options and capabilities available through modern marketing tools, brands should be delivering better customer experiences through their comms. From improved customer trust to better ROI and an uptick in revenue, the benefits are there to be gained by the brands who put the effort in.