Personalization

A reader asked me the following question:

• "Surely personalization works, right? I mean, it just makes logical sense to put the right message in front of the right customer at the right time. You must have some data that proves that personalization works. Can you share it?"

Here's what we know.

Personalized messaging is a hit-or-miss proposition. Messaging is a hit-or-miss proposition. Anybody who analyzes A/B tests on your website knows that outcomes are generally inconsistent. Clients who have brilliant brand marketers and/or copywriters tend to have a messaging advantage. Clients who rely upon data tend to have a messaging disadvantage. Clients who test different tactics with brilliant brand marketers and/or copywriters tend to have a messaging advantage.

Personalized merchandising (this is very different than personalized messaging) is nearly guaranteed to work. Across my client base, you'll see gains of anywhere between 10% and 50% in conversion rates, with home page merchandise personalization, landing page merchandise personalization, and email merchandise personalization leading the way.

If you have to choose, always choose merchandise personalization. Putting widgets in front of some customers and putting bidgets in front of other customers based on predicted future behavior works, plain and simple.