Personalized marketing has been the buzzword in advertising for some time now. Brands spend countless hours and dollars tailoring ads, emails, and product recommendations to specific customers. In theory, this should create stronger connections with customers and boost engagement. But sometimes, despite all the efforts, personalized marketing falls flat. Why? And more importantly, how can you fix it?
One key reason personalized marketing doesn’t always succeed is the lack of accurate data and poor identity resolution. Let’s explore why personalized strategies fail and what you can do to make them work effectively.
Why Personalized Marketing Misses the Mark
1.   Incomplete or Inaccurate Data
Data is the foundation of any personalized marketing effort. The problem arises when the data you have is incomplete or inaccurate. You will miss the mark if you’re basing your strategy on outdated or incorrect information. For example, sending product recommendations based on a customer’s past purchases only works if the data reflects their current preferences and needs. Your personalized efforts will feel off-target if their preferences have changed and your data hasn’t been updated.
2.   Lack of a Unified Customer View
Many companies have customer data scattered across various systems and platforms. Without a unified customer view, having a holistic understanding of your audience is impossible. For instance, a customer might interact with your brand via social media, email, and in-store visits, but if this data is siloed in different systems, you miss out on the bigger picture. This fragmentation leads to disjointed messaging and irrelevant personalization efforts.
3.   Poor Identity Resolution
Another major reason personalized marketing falls short is poor identity matching. Identity matching connects a customer’s interactions across multiple touchpoints and devices to create a cohesive profile. Without accurate identity matching, you risk treating the same customer as multiple different people, which results in irrelevant and redundant marketing messages. For example, a customer who has already purchased a product might continue receiving ads for it, which can be frustrating and make the marketing seem disconnected.
How to Fix Personalized Marketing
1.   Invest in Better Data Quality
The first step in fixing personalized marketing is to invest in improving your data quality. Make sure you’re collecting data from all relevant sources and that it’s consistently updated. Inaccurate data leads to misguided personalization, so it’s crucial to cleanse and validate the information you have regularly. Integrating customer feedback and behavior tracking into your strategy will help ensure your data reflects your customers’ current needs and preferences.
2.   Achieve a Unified Customer View
Creating a unified customer view is essential for personalization to be effective. This means centralizing all the data you have on a customer—whether it’s from website interactions, social media engagements, or in-store purchases—into one place. By consolidating this information, you better understand your customers’ behavior, allowing you to deliver consistent and relevant experiences across all channels.
3.   Implement Effective Identity Resolution
To fix the personalization gap, businesses must prioritize identity matching. This process connects the dots between various customer interactions, ensuring you have each individual’s complete and accurate profile. Acxiom provides advanced identity resolution solutions that help link multiple interactions back to the same customer, like an email sign-up on one device and a purchase on another. Effective identity matching makes your marketing efforts more targeted, consistent, and aligned with each customer’s journey.
4.   Personalize at the Right Time
Timing is everything in marketing, especially when it comes to personalization. Even with accurate data and strong identity matching, sending the right message at the wrong time can still fall flat. Use real-time data and automation tools to ensure your marketing messages are sent when they’re most likely to resonate with the customer. This could be right after they’ve interacted with your brand or during key moments in their customer journey.
Conclusion
Personalized marketing has the potential to strengthen customer relationships and drive higher engagement, but only if done right. The key is to ensure your data is accurate, your customer view is unified, and your identity matching is spot on. By addressing these challenges, you can create a personalized marketing strategy that feels relevant, timely, and, most importantly, successful. In an age where consumers expect personalization, investing in these improvements will help your brand stand out.
