What is Personalisation in Digital Marketing & Can AI be Helpful?

What is personalisation in digital marketing, especially in the age of AI? Let’s consider a scenario to summarise what it means. Consider an online shopper who regularly purchases sneakers online, always selecting size 8. Despite this, the retailer persistently sends promotional emails linking to size 10 shoes. The constant mismatch erodes trust, making the shopper question their understanding of their needs despite sufficient recorded purchase data. In a situation where the shopper receives updates only about size 8 sneakers, this intuitive engagement will have the opposite impact on the shopper. It will foster loyalty, streamline decision-making, and make the customer feel valued. This is the power of personalisation in digital marketing—a concept elevated dramatically by the advent of AI.
What is Personalisation in Digital Marketing?
To further understand personalisation in digital marketing, let’s look at Google’s autocomplete feature. Once you begin typing a query, it predicts the rest based on collective user behavior. But what if the suggestion mechanism relied entirely on specific, individual search history instead of generic patterns? Such an approach would save time and improve relevance, showcasing the core principle of personalisation in digital marketing.
Personalisation can be viewed as the process of shaping experiences that adapt dynamically with each interaction. It focuses on delivering value by continually refining how a system understands and responds to an individual’s preferences and needs. The essence lies in creating a seamless journey where every touchpoint feels more intuitive, relevant, and meaningful than the last.
This clearly underscores the transition from one-size-fits-all to uniquely tailored experiences. Picture online advertisements. Traditionally, they show products trending with other consumers. However, personalised digital marketing flips this model. Instead of generic suggestions, the system curates ads specifically aligned with your shopping patterns.Â
How Personalisation in Digital Marketing Helps
Personalisation in digital marketing offers a multifaceted array of benefits, transforming not just consumer engagement but business outcomes. Let’s dissect its contributions:
1. Increased Growth & Revenue
Customised recommendations and offers align closely with customer interests, significantly boosting conversion rates. As a McKinsey report suggests, personalisation can increase a company’s revenue by 10 to 15 percent(1). Â
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2. Improved Targeting
By analysing behavioral patterns, businesses can pinpoint potential buyers with unparalleled accuracy, resulting in reduced waste in advertising spend and improved ROI.Â
3. Improved Reputation
A brand that anticipates customer needs fosters trust and loyalty, ensuring a strong brand reputation among customers.Â
4. Competitive Advantage
Companies utilising AI-driven personalisation secure a distinct edge over competitors, as refined retargeting strategies enhance effectiveness and engagement.
5. Improved Customer Experience
A seamless, relevant experience delights customers, creates awareness and builds loyalty, setting the stage for long-term relationships. This overarching benefit directly influences every other outcome mentioned.
How AI Enhances Personalisation in Digital Marketing
Digital marketing in India is experiencing rapid progress, and AI is playing a key role in this.. This transformative capability of AI stems from its unmatched ability to process vast volumes of data with exceptional speed, identify intricate patterns, and automate processes with precision. These attributes empower marketers to uncover hidden insights within sprawling datasets, enabling more informed, strategic decision-making. By simultaneously analysing historical and real-time data, AI anticipates customer behaviour. Whether through predictive analytics or highly refined segmentation, AI ensures that every marketing initiative is meticulously aligned with individual consumer preferences, creating experiences that feel seamless, intuitive and uniquely tailored.Â
Here’s how these capabilities elevate personalisation in digital marketing, even at the individual level:
1. Hyper-Accurate Customer Segmentation
AI transcends traditional demographic segmentation by analysing behavioural, transactional, and contextual data. This granular understanding creates customer profiles tailored to individual preferences and habits. For example, an AI-driven platform might cluster users based on shopping patterns, such as frequent purchases during sales or preferences for eco-friendly products.
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2. Predictive Personalisation
One of AI’s most potent tools is predictive analytics. By analysing past behaviour, AI anticipates future actions, enabling marketers to pre-emptively engage customers. For instance, an AI system might predict when a user is likely to repurchase a favourite product, triggering a timely discount email. As a result, this anticipatory approach transforms personalisation. Customers feel understood, receiving offers and suggestions that align perfectly with their needs, often before they articulate them.
3. Dynamic Content Customisation
AI enhances personalisation by dynamically tailoring content in real time. Email campaigns, website interfaces and even app experiences adapt to individual preferences. Imagine visiting a retailer’s website and finding a homepage featuring items curated specifically for you—products aligned with your recent searches, preferred price range and even browsing time. Generative AI further elevates this by creating personalised email copy, product descriptions and ad content. The result? Every piece of communication feels bespoke, fostering a deeper connection with the brand.
4. Smarter Retargeting Strategies
Retargeting has long been a staple of digital marketing, but AI takes it to an entirely new level. Traditional methods often rely on generic ads reminding users of previously viewed products. AI refines this process by incorporating contextual data, such as the user’s browsing history, preferences and past interactions. For instance, instead of showing a generic ad for sneakers, AI might display promotions for size 8 sneakers in colours you prefer, paired with complementary items like socks or insoles. This level of personalisation increases conversion rates significantly.
5. Automated Chatbots with Personalised Interactions
AI-powered chatbots redefine customer service by delivering personalised assistance in real time. Unlike static bots, these AI-driven systems adapt their responses based on the user’s query history and preferences. For example, a chatbot assisting with travel bookings might recommend destinations based on past searches and seasonal preferences.
6. Real-Time Recommendations
AI’s real-time processing power enables instantaneous recommendations during a customer’s browsing journey. Streaming platforms such as Netflix or e-commerce giants like Amazon excel in this area, presenting users with curated suggestions based on their ongoing activity.
A Programmatic Approach to Personalisation in Digital Marketing with AI
Comprehensive expertise in both domains is indispensable to harnessing the power of AI-driven personalisation in digital marketing. Marketers must understand the nuances of customer journeys, digital engagement strategies and the technicalities of AI integration. ISB Executive Education’s Digital Marketing and Analytics Programme , offered in collaboration with Emeritus, provides the perfect platform for mastering this intersection. Integrated with live masterclasses on how to use AI in digital marketing, some of the key features of this 12-week intensive programme are:Â
- 20+ practical assignments and hands-on projects with top brands
- Live masterclasses on generative AI in marketing, covering topics like ChatGPT and AI for personalised strategies
- Real-world case studies (such as Jio, MakeMyTrip) featuring renowned companies illustrating how they leverage personalisation effectively
- 13 online sessions with programme leaders to ensure deep, actionable insights
- Inclusion into the prestigious ISB Executive Network
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The comprehensive modules of this programme delve into every critical aspect of digital marketing, including customer journey optimisation, digital strategy and analytics. Participants will master various marketing channels such as email campaigns, social media strategies and other modes of digital engagement, ensuring a versatile skill set. Furthermore, emerging technologies play a pivotal role in the program, with a dedicated focus on integrating generative AI into marketing strategies. As global reports highlight generative AI’s transformative impact on marketing, this programme equips participants with the knowledge and tools to leverage AI effectively (2).
Enhancing knowledge and skills about personalisation in digital marketing with ISB Executive Education’s Digital Marketing and Analytics programme is a step in the right direction. Delivered in collaboration with Emeritus, it combines expertise and innovation, empowering you to lead in the competitive digital marketing landscape.
Write to us at content@emeritus.orgÂ
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