Mobile Personalization: How to Turn Expectations Into Opportunities

The need to personalize communications, particularly those appearing on mobile devices, cannot be overstated. Smaato's Glenn Fishback examines how far along marketers are in their efforts.

Personalization has grown in importance in mobile marketing over the past few years, with 52 percent of consumers saying they will switch brands due to non-personalized communication. In addition, 90 percent of consumers say that messages from companies that are not personally relevant to them are “annoying,” with 53 percent citing ads for irrelevant products as their top messaging annoyance.

THE NEW RULES OF (MULTI-CHANNEL) CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT: HANDBOOK FOR GROWTH MARKETERS

Winning CX will come from Brands who can balance relevance, consistency and convenience to drive engagement. The kind of engagement that drives optimal customer lifetime value and real business impact.

Download

The need to personalize communications, particularly those appearing on personal mobile devices, cannot be overstated. But how far along are marketers in these efforts?

Also Read: Putting Trust Back into the Mobile Ecosystem

Marketers’ Progress Toward Personalization

Marketers intuitively understand the importance of personalization within mobile, and they’re making progress on their journeys to connect more meaningfully with consumers. The sophistication of techniques like geo-fencing and geo-targeting continue to grow, as does the number of companies that are leveraging such capabilities within their advertising efforts. The ability to understand a person’s “where” is, after all, a key component when reaching that person with the right messaging at the right time.

In the US and UK, consumers are acknowledging brand efforts toward personalization, but in many scenarios, significant room for improvement exists. According to eMarketer, a minority of consumers—42 percent—are satisfied with the flexibility that brands give them in determining the level and frequency of interaction that they have with the companies.

A huge opportunity still exists to increase the proportion of marketing messages that are pertinent to consumers’ specific buying habits and preferences. In doing so, companies have the opportunity to correspondingly increase customers’ loyalty, conversion rate, and average value order—while reducing bounce rates at the same time.

But there’s still an elephant in the room. Its name is Privacy.

The Personalization vs. Privacy Conundrum

Over the past two years, more brands than ever have begun to prioritize personalization within their marketing efforts, and acquisition of the needed data for these initiatives has been accelerated. However, at the same time, an emerging privacy legislation in the form of the GDPR in Europe and the CCPA (among others) in the US have given many marketers pause. Are consumers truly willing to provide the consent needed for personalized communications under these more-stringent regulations?

Research and consumer behavior suggest that, yes, they are. Across the board, brands are finding that consumers are willing to share their data for personalized offers, discounts, product recommendations, and personalized shopping experience. Knowing this, marketers are growing more aware of the need to balance personalization and privacy compared to just two years ago.

Also Read: Google's New Cookie Restrictions: A Nail in a Coffin We Should Have Already Buried

Keeping Pace with Higher Expectations

As marketers continue their efforts to deliver the personalized experiences consumers expect when they surrender their valuable data, they must also be aware that they are chasing a moving target. Consumers’ expectations are growing with each passing year, and simply personalizing a message with consumers’ first names will no longer cut it.

That said, for those companies that truly commit to putting their consumer data to work for them, their efforts will be rewarded. The payoff of personalization is perhaps best reflected in the retail sector, where consumers will gladly make repeat purchases after a personalized shopping experience with a particular brand. Retail brands that take the time to understand their consumers and tailor recommendations based on browsing and buying habits are able to drive purchases that consumers would not have considered if not for personalized communication from the brand. Often, these personalized recommendations can drive higher-ticket purchases than a consumer would naturally make because the consumer feels the brand understands their needs and preferences. It’s like having your own personal shopping concierge.

Done right, personalization extends beyond marketing as well, with valuable consumer insights feeding back into the product development cycle. The market for personalized products and services continues to grow, as design and manufacturing technologies become more enhanced and capable of keeping pace with custom consumer desires.

From better usage of existing data to customization that meets consumers’ needs with increased precision, the advantages of personalization in mobile marketing are numerous. When advertisers deliver well-tailored offers, they not only prevent users’ frustration over irrelevant content, but they also build deeper relationships with those consumers that will translate into increased lifetime value over the long haul.