The Bannerflow Blog

The Beginner's Guide to Personalization at Scale

Written by Ioanna Tatari | Feb 7, 2025 8:58:43 AM

For a customer, there’s nothing more annoying than an irrelevant ad or a generic email. As a company, there aren’t many things more damaging than annoying your customers away. Generic customer experiences are damaging in many ways: not only do you not get conversions, but you also burn through your budget. And you also miss a great window of opportunity for your brand to stand out among hundreds of others.

One thing most successful marketing campaigns have in common is they connect to their audience. But your audience is individuals with different needs, preferences, and at different points in their buying journey.

So, where do you start? In this article, you’ll discover what personalization at scale is and the benefits of personalizing your marketing campaigns. You will also get the basics that will help you take your first steps into creating a better experience for your audience.

What is personalization at scale?

Personalization at scale means using data-driven insights to create personalized digital experiences. By leveraging those insights, your brand is able to talk to your customers in a way that is tailored to their specific preferences and needs, creating the effect of a private conversation. ‘At scale’ means you can apply this strategy to all of your audience, regardless of size. In effect, personalization at scale makes your whole customer base feel understood and connected to your brand, and delivers the right message to the right people. When it involves multiple channels, both online and offline, it’s referred to as omnichannel personalization.

The benefits of personalization at scale

Personalization is not a new concept, but it is a trending one. According to The State of Personalization Report 2024 by Twilio Segment, 89% of business leaders believe that personalization is going to play a crucial role in their business’s success in the next three years. And there are many good reasons for this.

Maybe the most important thing personalization at scale can help you with is that your brand will resonate with your customers, improving both your relationship with your customer base and your marketing campaign ROI. But the benefits of personalization aren’t limited to just that. Let’s have a look at all the ways personalization strategies can help your brand.

Higher audience engagement

If you’ve ever received a generic email or have been persistently ‘followed’ by an ad that is completely irrelevant to you, then you know how irritating it can be. Audiences connect with brands that understand them. It’s about the feeling, the shared experience and the personal pain point. And that’s what personalization helps you achieve.

Personalization at scale helps you connect with every customer in a way that is relevant to them. This creates a unique connection between you, capturing the audience’s attention and creating higher engagement.

Higher conversion rates

A product that speaks to you is a product you’re more likely to buy. Converting to a product is the natural next step from an engaged audience. A highly personalized experience helps your product ‘stick’ to customers’ minds. So, even if part of your audience is not ready to convert from the get-go, the minute the need has matured, your brand will be the first that comes to mind.

What is more, product sales targeted to specific audience segments can perform better than generic sales campaigns. This, in turn, leads to better conversion rates, and a direct increase in your ROI.

Larger Average Order Value (AOV)

Personalization has now helped you achieve better conversion rates. But this isn’t where you stop taking advantage of it. Personalization at scale encourages both upselling and cross-selling, increasing the Average Order Value.

Product recommendations tailored to customers’ preferences, needs, and previous shopping history are more likely to lead to an additional purchase before checkout. Suggesting a complementary product that fits their past purchases will also lead to larger purchases. Now, think about doing this at scale: if every customer who visits your website sees these recommendations that are tailored to their specific wants and needs, the increase in Average Order Value can be significant.

Better customer experience

No matter the industry you belong to, you aim to create the best possible customer experience. Of course, it should be smooth and include successful transactions. But if you want to keep those customers coming back, it should also be memorable.

A personalized experience answers your customers’ needs and wants, helps them feel that your brand genuinely cares for them, and ultimately makes your brand more valuable to them. Content is more relevant to them, and ads tailored to them create less ad fatigue. This adds up to a better customer experience that not only fulfils but exceeds customers’ expectations.

Customer retention

Personalization helps you create a better connection between your brand and your customers. When they feel valued, understood, and taken care of, they are more likely to keep purchasing your products. A memorable customer experience can set the groundwork for a long-lasting relationship with your customers, strengthening their loyalty to your brand and making them come back repeatedly.

Improved brand image

What makes your brand impressive to one segment of your audience might leave another one completely indifferent. All brands have their strong points, but those aren’t necessarily what resonates with everyone. Personalization at scale, however, can help you fix that problem.

When your potential customers get personalized messages, offers, and ads, you actively cater to their needs. You speak to their specific pain points and showcase the part of your brand that resonates with them. Personalization helps your brand shine in different ways based on each customer’s viewpoints and needs and helps you create a better, enhanced brand image.

Reduced Customer Acquisition Cost

Creating one generic ad campaign for everyone doesn’t work anymore. The percentage of the audience this resonates with is far too small, meaning that you’re putting effort and money into irrelevant advertising that doesn’t return the expected revenue. Personalized ads, on the other hand, can help you target the right audience and create specific messaging that resonates with them. This doesn’t just increase your ROI - it also significantly reduces your Customer Acquisition Cost.

And this isn’t the only way your CAC goes down: higher personalization means more customer satisfaction. And your best brand advocates are happy, loyal customers. These customers are likely to spread the word, helping you drive organic growth and maintain a low CAC.

Improved insights and better strategy development

Personalized marketing campaigns can help you gather insights into your audience. You can then better pinpoint your ideal customer personas, further understand customer behavior, and refine your branding strategy. This information can be invaluable to your future marketing strategies. 


Personalization creates benefits in a cyclical way: the more accurately you use the data available to you, the higher your ROI is, the better the customer experience gets, and the more accurate the data that you collect becomes. The second attempt at a personalized marketing campaign would use the data results of the first one, thus creating an even better-tailored, more personalized experience for your audience, which resonates with them even more and benefits your brand further.


Examples of personalization at scale

Personalization at scale is not limited to one industry or marketing tactic. It can be adjusted to apply to your brand in various ways. Here are some of the most popular examples of personalization right now.

Personalization in e-commerce

Tailored shopping experiences help customers connect more to the brand and create more revenue. Using first-party data, companies provide customized product recommendations and offers, effectively cross-selling and upselling, increasing both conversion rates and Average Order Value. Personalization in e-commerce can come in the form of on-site messaging, emails, messages at checkout, etc.

Streaming platforms

Streaming platforms use algorithms to suggest content to their audience, whether that’s films and series, music, or podcasts. These companies create personalized recommendations based on the users’ preferences, increasing engagement and creating better customer experiences.

Email campaigns

Brands use customer behavior data to send personalized emails. The topic may vary - from travel and hospitality brands sending a suggestion for complimentary travel insurance based on a customer’s planned trip to financial apps sending updates according to topics of concern to their clients, personalized emails create content that is actually valuable to your audience and increase engagement. 

Targeted advertising

With targeted advertising, companies present their audience with specific ads that are tailored to their wants and needs. Those personalized ads resonate more with their audience and connect them better to the brand, resulting in increased brand awareness, better conversion rates, and reduced CAC. At the same time, personalized ads reduce ad fatigue and increase brand perception. 

Live chat and in-app messaging

QSR and food delivery companies use personalization to invest in customer retention. Using personalized push notifications based on customers’ order history and past preferences, they promote limited-time offers to specific customer segments, building better customer relationships and increasing customer loyalty. Other companies opt to use personalization to refine their rewards program, or onboard customers using personalized in-app messaging.

Companies in various industries choose to trigger live chat on their web page based on specific customer behaviors and actions. Instead of a generic ‘Hi there, how can we help?’, the messaging becomes specific to the user’s intent, creating a better connection and helping raise engagement as well as conversion rates.

Personalized retargeting ads

Personalized retargeting focuses on showing ads to people who have already visited a website. Triggered after a specific behavior, like visiting a page a specific number of times or abandoning their shopping cart, these personalized ads have different short-term goals depending on the part of the customer journey they are focused on, but ultimately they aim to raise conversion rates.

Goal customization

Across various industries, companies use a set of questions when the customer subscribes to an app, asking about their interests, goals, etc. This data is then used to create customized goals and guide the users towards achieving them. The companies achieve higher customer loyalty, while at the same time creating a better customer experience, leading to higher customer retention.

The basics of personalization at scale

Although widely used for years, the concept of personalization at scale might feel daunting at first. So, where do you start? There are a few basic steps that can make the process easier.

Align personalization strategies with business goals


Why is it important?

Setting the right goals is the first step in any business strategy. Align your goals with the strategy you’re creating to help you refine it and set the right KPIs to measure success more easily.

How do you start?

Start by choosing the business goals your personalization strategy is going to serve. Try to translate the goals into short, concise objectives. Align those goals with the strategy objectives, and determine the right KPIs to measure the effectiveness of your strategy.

Pay attention to data quality


Why is it important?

Simply put, the better the data you have, the better the outcome of your personalization efforts. Your campaigns can only go so far without the right data. Accuracy is key to a good personalization strategy. 


How do you start?

Your data needs to be trusted. Start by applying clear data governance frameworks across your company. Remember to audit and cleanse data regularly, so you can ensure its trustworthiness and accuracy. It’s also important to focus on transparent data practices across the organization and always remain compliant with data privacy regulations.

Emphasize omnichannel personalization


Why is it important?

Utilizing all customer touchpoints will help you create a seamless, unified experience for your audience. Deploy your personalized content across all possible used channels to not only create a more memorable customer experience but also improve customer engagement and satisfaction. 

How do you start?

Keep brand consistency at the forefront of your omnichannel strategy. Make sure you understand your customers’ lifecycle, so your message can be adjusted throughout their journey. Consider using a Customer Data Platform to gather all touchpoints where you need to create personalized interactions.

Use dynamic segmentation


Why is it important?

Dynamic segmentation is the process of categorizing your customers into groups based on various data. By using the data you have already collected and vetted, you create valuable audience segments. As your audience’s preferences and actions change, the segments are dynamically adjusted, maintaining an updated version for you to take advantage of.

How do you start?

Having already prioritized data quality, your next step is to identify the types of data most valuable to you according to your audience and already defined goals. Segment your audience based on clearly set criteria. After that, use automation tools that will connect to your data sources and will adjust your segmentation whenever data changes.

Test and optimize often

 

Why is it important?

Your personalization strategy will not be polished and perfect from day one. As with all strategies, it will need to be tested and adjusted according to performance and feedback. Continuous testing will make for a more effective personalization strategy that will yield the best possible results according to your goals.

How do you start?

Pinpoint the most suitable metrics to measure your efforts according to your goals, such as conversion, engagement, etc. Use A/B testing to see how different versions of your personalized content or other personalized practices perform. As with any other A/B testing you might be running, collect and analyze the data based on the metrics you have already set. Adjust accordingly and test again as needed. Audiences fluctuate and preferences and behaviors change, so make sure you test often. This way you will be able to stay on top of your audience’s preferences, needs and behaviors.

 

Next steps

Personalization at scale helps brands across all industries connect to their target audience, creating meaningful customer experiences. Reaching your audience and answering their specific needs no matter the number of your prospects has never been more achievable or time-effective. More than just lowering your CAC and increasing your ROI, personalization at scale will help your brand resonate with a larger audience, and you’ll create long-lasting relationships with your customers. 

Now that you understand what personalization can do for your marketing strategies, it's important to explore the challenges you might face while deploying it. Dive deeper into the most common hurdles with this article on personalization challenges (and how to tackle them).

 

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