Marketers' perceptions about personalization don't match reality: Study

Dive Brief:

New research from Forrester commissioned by SAP Hybris looked at personalization and found that 66% of respondents said their efforts were "very good" or "excellent," while only 48% are leveraging behavior-based data, and a dismal 16% are capturing customer intent and using that insight in real-time marketing efforts.
On the other side of the transaction, consumers aren’t feeling like marketing messages are particularly personalized; 40% report most promotions don't offer anything of interest to them.
Marketers, however, are planning on improving personalization with 91% prioritizing improving customer experience through personalization next year.

Dive Insight:

Even though marketers want to actively personalize campaign messaging, data is a challenge. The study found that marketers use an average of 15 siloed data sources creating an inconsistent customer experience, but some of those data issues can be improved with a single customer database. The 70% of respondents that reported having a single customer database said the data they collected was “very useful” in creating a single view of the customer.

Another challenge the report uncovered was just how much personalization marketers are actually doing. Email was the marketing channel most used for personalization, but more than half of surveyed marketers use rule-based segmentation and right around half target only 10 or fewer segments with 32% targeting only two to five segments.

Even though behavioral data is only being used by 48% of respondents, it is seen as a key data source for personalization. "In order to create these types of [personalized] customer experiences, marketers must strategically collect and utilize customer data, including real-time signals of intent, which are typically not captured today," the report explained.

"A growing database is a retail marketers' greatest asset and greatest challenge," Persio CEO Marc Grabowski recently told Marketing Dive. Marketers have to collect data, merging past and present information, in order to find ways to reach the consumer with offers they want.