July 9, 2025
Introduction
Industry Trends in Personalization
Personalization as an Experience
Types of Personalization
Adapting Your Marketing to Personalization
Marketing used to be about shoes. Those who had boots on the ground and connected personally received the most momentum. Traction was a term that described not only the ability to walk without slipping, but also linked from boots to business as a definition of building momentum. Networking and creating personalized relationships led the way for businesses to launch and grow as one of the biggest drivers of a business.
Once everything became digitized, marketers changed gears and enjoyed an entire decade of blasting. It was simple to push a publish or send button and reach thousands and millions of people.
The era of reaching the masses was great for marketers to showcase larger numbers and statistics, but it became a poor experience for prospects.
The lash back of blasting by quantity is now evolving into a combo pack of personalized networking with technical mechanics to scale blasting practices with a sense of personalization.
Technology is taking the formula of building traction through personal reach and turning it into a new approach - boots on the ground with digitized reach. This year, personalization is running to the front of the lane with new expectations.
2025 is scaling back to personalization as one of the leading drivers for marketing growth.
For consumers, these is a demand in desiring to create connectivity with brands. Personalization is directly related to engagement, creating a change in how consumers relate to a brand entity.
* 61% of consumers have stated they feel like a number rather than a customer and it leads to disengagement and a lack of loyalty to a brand (Salesforce).
* 77% of customers are frustrated with irrelevant promotional notifications (Segment).
* 202% increase in revenue are common with those who receive personalized CTAs (HubSpot).
For companies, personalization is also a notable key in changing the pace and results.
* 40% revenue increases take place by companies who utilize personalization (McKinsey).
* 80% of businesses report an increased consumer spending when personalization is used (Segment).
* 28% reduction in CAC takes place with the use of personalization (Comviva).
* 60% of shoppers expect to become loyal when personalization is used (Segment).
Both consumers and companies see significant value in the use of personalization all the way from acquisition to loyalty. Without the right pieces of data in place, companies leave opportunities and growth at the door.
Because of the notable increases in personalization, the focus on 1:1 initiatives has increased as a larger trend, showcasing the need to pivot larger strategies into reaching every customer at the level they expect.
One of the common experiences at a store is when the customer representative walks by you to see if you need help. They then “size you up” and bring you all the closely related items that you may be of interest based on your current look.
The experience you receive from this interaction is different from browsing. It’s targeted, catered, and gives you the focus you want to make an informed decision and to spend your money.
Personalization as a technical lever is driven by data. At a foundational level, there are only two areas to look at: where did someone go and what are they interested in. Affinity and behaviors drive two layers of personalization to create an impact with targeting. Data becomes your customer service representative to help you make an informed decision.
Personalization beyond these two layers of data requires a deeper look at who the person is by interest, demographics, and related information. Types of data are able to inform results and help with deeper personalization.
Any channel you are in requires personalization as an experience to drive results. Linking these together as a channel to channel experience helps to create a personalized and streamlined experience while allowing prospects to feel like they are seen and heard in the digital landscape.
Targeting is the heartbeat of all things personal across all channels. If targeting isn’t used by affinity or behavior, then it becomes the wrong message to the wrong person. The easiest and most effective way to scale a channel is to personalize the information.
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Targeting across channels works with behavior and affinity. To further personalize it, create distance and definition around information you have through the use of RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetization Value). When was the last time someone visited a specific product, how often do they visit, and what are they most interested in?
Don’t have that information? Then treat them as a new prospect and focus on get to know you data. Predictability and other targeting mechanics within platforms can help to get these pieces of data faster, allowing you to target by RFM as someone continues to remain proactive.
A beautifully designed everything always remains beautiful. But an effective paid or email creative piece is personally impactful over time. That effectiveness is based on technicalities that cater to personalization at the level you desire.
Dynamic personalization intertwines with the customer beyond targeting levels. The strategy allows marketers to go broader with the segments they send to and to simultaneously narrow down a 1:1 experience with the creative that is used.
Contextual and creative types of personalization can include:
The more information you gather about a person, the easier it is to create personalization with the ad or email that you are sharing. Tactics that support customer-centric relationships also deepen the targeting strategies available through data.
It’s like taking one email or ad and turning it into 15 and then turning it into 200,000 and then turning it around into a catered experience to Jake, Anna, and Ron. Data as a personalized experience works as an elastic band that splits by categorization and information. It drills all the way to the representative that sizes up your interests and targets you with what to buy then pushes it all the way to the top for a broad target.
Dynamic personalization is used with product feeds and first-party data that is signaled. It’s as simple as saying Hey [[First Name]] and changing out the name to who the prospect is. And, it’s as complex as catering to product interest, individual interests, and predictable information that steps out of the bounds of blasted marketing.
Data has expanded its reach so far that it often becomes difficult for marketers to find profile targets. They become a needle in a haystack when looking at the larger audience splits and the ways it works.
AI targeting is an extra support system and layering technique to support strategies that are used to create a personalized experience.
Predictability is one of the well-known forms of AI targeting where segments are predicted by “likely to” or “expected interest”. This takes data from a profile that sits outside of the normal targeting buckets and integrates it into the send as a secondary definition. Increases are an incremental 10 - 20% of the list because of the predictability.
AI targeting is now moving into 1:1 personalization, one of the reasons why personalization is becoming a more desirable strategy. It can take foundational or targeted content and dynamically personalize it by profile data. It can also take segment interests and work with extended targeting behaviors, allowing personalization to bake in an extra layer of targeting.
We’re entering an era where digital marketing is finally coming full circle—bringing the boots-on-the-ground mindset back into the spotlight, but this time with the power of scale. The difference today is that personalization isn’t just a strategy; it’s an expectation. Businesses that learn to listen, interpret, and act on the signals their customers send—through behavior, affinity, or demographics—will lead the next wave of meaningful engagement.
Personalization isn't about tricking the system or creating flashy one-off campaigns. It’s about deeply aligning with human behavior—understanding who someone is, what they care about, and how to meet them where they are. The businesses that build systems around this intention are the ones setting up traction that lasts. It’s not a hack, a trend, or a passing tactic. It’s the foundation of digital momentum in 2025 and beyond.
As personalization becomes more data-driven, AI-enabled, and creatively dynamic, its success depends not on the tech alone, but on the strategy behind it. The brands that treat personalization like an ongoing relationship—not a one-time stunt—are the ones that will earn attention, loyalty, and long-term growth. This isn’t just the return of personalization—it’s the evolution of marketing.
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