VP, Solution Strategy Nicola Ayan discusses where to get started with personalization.

Defining personalization

What is personalization?

That’s a great question.  

In fact, in a recent Optimizely study that surveyed marketing, ecommerce, and IT executives worldwide, only 26% of executives reported having a unified definition of personalization throughout their organization. 

Personalization is the process of tailoring web or mobile app experiences so that they're unique for each individual user.  

Specifically for websites and apps, it often encompasses building or adopting a personalization engine that is capable of unifying data solutions, content marketing workflows, experimentation frameworks and analytics suites.

Only 26% of executives reported having a unified definition of personalization throughout their organization. 

If you're having trouble understanding what personalization means for your organization, try visualizing the entirety of your customer base as a pyramid. 

Here; we'll help...

Introducing the personalization pyramid

As you venture up the pyramid, the personalization needs to be more, well, personal. 

At the bottom of the pyramid are your broadest customer segments that will see virtually identical experiences. The middle sections of the pyramid are where customers begin to differentiate themselves from one another and the experiences you deliver need to be reflective of these changes. 

Once you’re near the top, your algorithms should be advanced enough to accurately predict customer behavior to surface relevant content or product recommendations. 

Breaking down different types of personalization frameworks

From an implementation perspective, there are generally two methods of executing personalization:

Rules-based personalization

Rules-based personalization refers to predefined rules and schema that dynamically route the user experience. This works by customizing user experiences with predefined rules to display specific content or features based on user characteristics or behavior.  

You can almost think of this type of personalization as a flow chart, relying on “if/then” logic (e.g. if a user performs action x, show them content y). 

Algorithmic or AI personalization

This type of personalization leverages AI engines that are context aware and react to real-time user behavior to shape the user experience

Some examples are: 

• Product recommendations
• Content recommendation
• Email recommendations 

For a much deeper dive into the different types of personalization, check out our breakdown of when to use rules-based and AI to deliver those BADA$$ personalized experiences. 

Spoiler alert: most personalization strategies will need to rely on both. And the reason is because customer segments and journeys are becoming increasingly complex. Let's think about it in terms of atomic structure. 

VP, Solution Strategy Nicola Ayan discusses the challenges of implementing personalization

Personalization challenges

When Optimizely conducted a survey of top executives in the marketing industry worldwide, here’s where the respondents noted the biggest challenge areas were:  

• 44% say complicated or fragmented data is a top challenge
• 43% say a lack of effective analytics holds them up
• 40% say they have difficulty scaling their program
• 39% say they struggle to implement the program in real-time
• 36% say disjointed workflows are holding them back

So, it kind of sounds like many companies are struggling with adopting a proper personalization infrastructure, right?

Not to mention, the impact of doing away with third-party cookies, which 97% of executives admit they’re not ready for (but, shout out to the 3% that are).

44% of top executives in the marketing industry say complicated or fragmented data is a top challenge

Challenge 1: Defining personalization

Not to get all meta, but as it turns out, just defining personalization is also matter of personalization. Who knew?  

This is why it’s so challenging for so many companies to even get started on their personalization strategy; they don’t even know where to start or what it means for them. 

Check out our guide on how to define personalization for your organization if you're still stuck.

Here's an example of how drastically the shape of personalization can shift between 2 companies in the same industry; 

Challenge 2: Scaling content creation

Personalization is where content meets data.

It’s tough to create an optimized customer experience with a limited library of content. There’s really no point in trying to personalize if you’re going to surface the same 5 blog posts to every customer on your site.  

Scaling content creation is easier than you think. With the right content marketing platform, you can facilitate workflows that drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to create content, easily collaborate on ideation and strategy, publish with ease, and even leverage AI for content creation.  

Check out our guide on scaling content creation for personalized experiences.

Challenge 3: Managing data and privacy concerns

Bringing together data from a million different sources sounds about as fun as... bringing data together from a million different sources. 

Unifying your data through a customer data platform (CDP) will ensure your data is consistent across customer profiles no matter where it's collected.

On top of that, you need to be super transparent about how and what data you’re collecting from your customers can be ensured of data privacy. Even though 78% of consumers cite they are likely to engage with a personalized offer tailored to their interests, 77% of consumers also cited that data privacy policies are important to maintaining brand loyalty. It’s important to strike a delicate balance that respects boundaries.

Be sure to offer them ways to opt out of data capture, not only for the sake of customer loyalty, but also so you don’t get walloped with massive fines.  

Challenge 4: Measuring the impact of personalization

One of the biggest challenges with personalization is knowing whether or not it's working how you want it to. 

A/B testing and experimentation are common ways of overcoming personalization challenges when you can’t quite figure out exactly what your audience wants, or if what they want isn’t abundantly clear.  

If you're crushing your ROI goals, then hats off to you, but what happens if you're not? How do you know what to change and what not? That's where experimentation comes in. 

Now, it just so happens that Optimizely provides a solution for all these challenges in one unified platform, but you probably already guessed that being the astute B2B marketer you are. 

Challenge 5: Building a personalization engine

Your personalization engine consists of all the tools that are necessary to execute your personalization strategy. 

Like any other engine, all it takes is one faulty component for everything to fall apart. 

Whether your personalization is one unified solution (wink wink), or you have a patchwork of disparate systems, here are the basic necessities of what your personalization should include:

• Smooth, seamless integration with existing technology structures, including CMS and CRMs, to optimize data utilization
• Scalability potential alongside your business as your audience and data grow, allowing for more complex personalization efforts without compromising performance
• AI and machine learning capabilities, enabling it to make real-time adjustments based on user behavior, which enhances accuracy in recommendations
• Additionally, with privacy concerns rising, the ability to utilize first-party data effectively is critical for personalization that complies with evolving regulations
• Robust testing capabilities, such as A/B testing, to refine strategies continuously
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting are necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of your personalization campaigns and ensure that ROI is clear

For way more goodness, check out our in-depth guide on personalization engines. 

Planning your personalization strategy

Remember when we stated that 36% of executives are being held back by disjointed workflows? And remember when we said that personalization is a team sport? That’s because personalization often includes collaboration between different departments across an organization.  

Before you do anything, you’ll need to ensure you have a shared workspace that allows for cross-functional planning and collaboration.  

Here’s what your marketing planning software should do and some questions you should ask to ensure it’s the right fit:  

1. Collaboration

   How are you and the rest of your organization with a stake in personalization communicating with one another? How are you planning out your strategy?

2. Visualization

   Does the tool you use allow you to orchestrate your entire program from a flexible board with multiple views and ways of filtering? Does it integrate seamlessly with your entire martech stack?

3. Ideation

   Providing a unique customer experience is an iterative process, no matter how much data you have. That’s because the customer’s wants and needs are fluid. How are you and your team brainstorming new ideas?  

4. Visibility

   Is your strategy buried in a spreadsheet on a drive that no one outside of your team has access to? Are you just winging it?  

Once you have a way to actually work with your team, it's time to get started. 

Start with your personas

You likely have already built out your ideal customer profile (ICP) prior to making the leap into broader personalization. You should start by ideating campaigns against those personas to give yourself as much runway as possible before you’ve even begun ideating or collecting data. 

Understand your broadest audiences

Again, you already probably have a sense of who your customers are. You likely have a solid understanding of the segments they belong to such as:   

• Prospects vs. customers
• First-time buyers vs. repeat buyers
• Desktop vs. mobile
• User locations
• Typical age group

As you gather more data and insights, you can refine your approach and create more granular personalization strategies.  

Identify opportunities

Once you’ve identified your personas and audiences, you’ll need to map out the associated opportunities within those segments and focus on the ones that are most likely to succeed. You might already have this through customer feedback and surveys you’ve done in the past.