The current state of cross-channel marketing in the financial services industry is in flux. 

To help BFSI marketers like you stay on top of all the changes, we decided to do another edition of The State of Cross-Channel Marketing in Financial Services: 2025. 

This year’s report:

• Analyzes findings from a survey of 150+ BFSI professionals
• Uncovers how BFSI marketing has evolved from 2024 and how it compares to the broader market in 2025
• Includes insights from experts at Treasure Data, a customer data platform (CDP) and Artefact, a global data and AI consulting company. 
• Features cartoons from Tom Fishburne i.e. Marketoonist

Here are the top 5 findings from the report:

💰 Mobile apps are considerably more popular for BFSI marketers (68.6%) than they are for the general group of respondents (51.6%). Also, their usage has grown significantly from last year (49%).

💰 As BFSI marketers start focusing on more sustainable marketing practices, the #1 business objective in 2025 is “increasing customer engagement or loyalty” (44.4%).

💰 BFSI marketers are still struggling the most with “executing effective cross-channel communication” (61.4%) and this number has grown significantly from last year (33.3%).

💰 When asked what has contributed the most to building an effective cross-channel marketing strategy, integrated marketing technology was the #1 response (37.9%).

💰 81.1% of BFSI marketers plan to invest more in marketing technology to improve customer experiences in the next 12 months.

Want to read more such takeaways? Then download your copy of The State of Cross-Channel Marketing in Financial Services: 2025. 

If you’re interested, below are highlights from last year’s report.

The State of Cross-Channel Marketing for Financial Services: 2024

This year, the Financial Services industry stands at a unique intersection of tradition and innovation. 

Our comprehensive survey of 730 marketers, including 147 respondents from this space, reveals intriguing insights into how this industry navigates cross-channel marketing in today’s digital-first landscape. 

What stands out is not just their reliance on trusted channels like email and social media, but also their strategic approach to personalization and the challenges they face with legacy systems.

Surprisingly, they emphasize personalizing the customer journey at various stages, a tactic more prevalent in this sector than within the broader market. Yet, the path toward effective customer engagement is fraught with technological hurdles, with over half relying on outdated systems or manual processes.

This article will explore these compelling findings, exploring the balance financial services brands strike between security, personalization, and innovation. 

Let’s dive in.

Who We Surveyed: Methodology + Demographics

While other industries we’ve explored as part of this series (like Ecommerce & Retail and Food & Beverage) have differed from the general group of respondents in some areas, when looking specifically at the Financial Services industry, we found that these brands’ channel usage mirrors what we found in the overarching group. 

This might be due to the nature of their audience’s preferences and the nature of their content. Email, as the primary channel, offers a direct, personalized, and secure way to communicate sensitive financial information, which is paramount in this industry. Social media ranks second, serving as a platform for broader engagement and brand awareness. Desktop and mobile websites follow, providing accessible information and services, while mobile apps, though fifth, offer on-the-go convenience for more engaged users. 

This prioritization reflects a balance between security, accessibility, and user engagement specific to the financial sector’s needs.

Objectives

For Financial Services brands, attracting new customers is the top objective for 52.4% of respondents. Nevertheless, maintaining existing customer relationships is deemed more crucial (44.2% vs. 40.8%) than enhancing customer engagement or fostering loyalty.

This is likely because this industry is competitive and each long-term customer relationship is highly valuable. Of course, attracting new customers is essential for growth and market share expansion. 

However, retaining existing customers is also critical, as it’s generally more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, and loyal customers can provide a stable revenue stream through continued business and potential upselling opportunities. This focus reflects the strategic balance financial services must maintain between growth and sustainability, emphasizing the importance of both acquiring and nurturing customer relationships for overall success.

AI Usage

Based on the graph, you can see that when it comes to AI in cross-channel marketing in banking and Financial Services, two key use cases stand out: 

• “AI-enhanced subject lines and targeting” and 
• “AI Chatbots for instant customer interaction” 

But why might this be the case? 

Well, using AI-enhanced subject lines and targeting is pivotal because AI’s ability to tailor communications not only increases email open rates but also ensures the right messages reach the right customers at the right time, enhancing the relevance and trustworthiness of financial advisories or offers.

And regarding the use of AI Chatbots, their significance lies in providing immediate, round-the-clock assistance for a range of financial inquiries, from account management to transaction support. This capability is crucial in the financial sector, where timely and accurate information can impact customers’ financial decisions and trust in their provider. 

By offering instantaneous support, financial services can elevate customer satisfaction, loyalty, and confidence in their services, setting a high standard for customer experience in an industry where trust and reliability are paramount.

Challenges

In Financial Services, businesses pinpoint delivering personalized experiences as a top challenge, with 42.9% highlighting it as a key hurdle, even above budget and resource limitations. This concern for personalization is understandable given the industry’s focus on managing substantial customer assets, which naturally raises the bar for customized services. However, navigating the complexities of sensitive financial data to provide these tailored experiences is no small feat.

Interestingly, financial constraints are slightly less of a concern, possibly due to the typically larger budgets this industry enjoys. But, there’s still a pronounced emphasis on deciphering the effectiveness of marketing channels. 

In an industry as competitive as financial services, understanding which channels deliver the best bang for the buck is crucial. This need is compounded by the strict regulatory environment and compliance requirements, underscoring the importance of clear insights into marketing channel performance.

When diving into the primary blind spots for Financial Services organizations, it’s interesting to note that over half of the survey participants (50%) pointed out their struggle with grasping the long-term effects of customer engagement initiatives—this is in contrast to just 42.7% from the broader group feeling the same way. 

This indicates a unique challenge in this industry: understanding the enduring impact of their marketing on customer loyalty and lifetime value, which isn’t always easy to measure over extended periods.

On the flip side, concerns about spotting weaknesses in the customer journey seem less pressing for these organizations, with only 39.5% flagging it. This might be because the customer journey within financial services is often well-charted and regulated, offering fewer surprises. 

Plus, given the critical importance of safeguarding financial information, these firms likely have strong systems already in place to smooth out the customer experience, making significant journey gaps less of a worry.

This focus reflects the industry’s emphasis on cultivating long-term customer relationships and the built-in measures to ensure a seamless experience, despite the intricate challenges of tracking long-term engagement outcomes.

Technology

From our survey, we found that the majority of Financial Services marketers (53.1%) are either using clunky legacy systems, spreadsheets, or in-house solutions to manage their cross-channel marketing programs.

Unfortunately, there are a few problems we need to address with this martech strategy. 

Legacy systems often lack the integration capabilities needed to seamlessly connect different marketing channels, leading to siloed data and a disjointed customer experience.

Spreadsheets, while flexible, are prone to human error and can become unwieldy with complex campaigns or large data sets. They also lack real-time analytics and automation features that modern marketing platforms offer.

And in-house solutions may be tailored to specific needs but can be resource-intensive to maintain and may not keep pace with the evolving marketing technology landscape.

These challenges can prevent Financial Services marketers from effectively analyzing campaign performance across channels, personalizing customer interactions, and adapting to market changes swiftly. Ultimately, this can impact the ROI of marketing efforts and the ability to compete against more advanced operations.

Investing in a dedicated Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) is key to streamlining processes, improving collaboration, and providing robust analytics for better decision-making and personalized experiences.

Best Practices

When we explored the essentials for a successful cross-channel marketing strategy, leveraging customer data analytics for strategic marketing decisions was identified as the key factor across all industries.

Digging deep into customer data sheds light on vital insights regarding consumer behaviors, preferences, and evolving trends. Armed with this knowledge, marketers are in a prime position to devise strategies that precisely target and meet customer needs.

This approach enables the crafting of personalized experiences that not only resonate deeply with the audience but also encourage their continued loyalty and engagement. It’s about striking the perfect balance between professionalism and personal touch to keep customers engaged and returning.

Personalization

In terms of how these organizations are using personalization, something that stands out is that 45.6% are customizing communications for different stages of the customer journey. Only 40.2% of general respondents are doing this with the majority relying only on the most basic form of personalization (name, age, gender, etc).

A small portion of Financial Services respondents admitted to not personalizing at all (8.8%) versus the general group at 10.1%. However, this industry is less interested in implementing content that changes based on user preferences (15% vs. 25.2%) and using AI for product or content suggestions (20.4% vs. 24.4%).

As we noted earlier, marketers in this space seem to have a deeper understanding of the customer lifecycle and journey than marketers in other industries like Ecommerce & Retail or Food & Beverage, who expressed difficulties with customer journey mapping. 

The personalization approach being used within Financial Services goes beyond the basics to tailor interactions based on where the customer is in their journey with the brand. It’s a more strategic use of personalization, recognizing that the needs and interests of customers evolve as they move from awareness to consideration and decision-making stages.

The fact that a smaller percentage of financial services firms are not personalizing at all, compared to the general group, reflects the industry’s recognition of personalization’s value in building relationships and trust. Financial services deal with sensitive and personal matters, so even a small effort to personalize can significantly impact customer trust and loyalty.

However, the reluctance to implement content that adapts based on user preferences or to heavily invest in AI for product or content suggestions might stem from the industry’s nature. 

Financial services involve complex products and regulatory constraints that may not lend themselves as easily to dynamic content personalization or AI-driven suggestions. These organizations might prioritize accuracy, security, and compliance over hyper-personalization, focusing on personalization strategies that align with the industry’s regulatory environment and the nature of their products and services. It’s a balance between offering personalized experiences and ensuring those experiences meet the stringent standards of the financial industry.

Financial Services Cross-Channel Marketing: Closing Thoughts

In wrapping up our deep dive into the state of cross-channel marketing within the financial services industry, it’s evident that navigating this digital-first landscape requires a nuanced approach. Our survey highlighted a sector committed to leveraging traditional communication channels like email and social media, underscored by a keen focus on security and direct engagement due to the sensitive nature of financial information.

Key takeaways include the industry’s emphasis on personalized, journey-specific communications and the challenges faced due to reliance on outdated technologies. These insights point to a critical gap between the desire for deeper customer engagement and the tools currently at their disposal.

MoEngage offers a range of solutions that can help Financial Services companies close that gap. With 2.2 billion experiences delivered monthly across multiple channels, you can ensure that your message reaches your customers effectively.

Schedule a demo today to see how MoEngage can help your Financial Services business deliver excellent customer experiences.

The current state of cross-channel marketing in the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) industry is in flux, with rapid advancements in technology and changing consumer behavior. 

To help QSR marketers like you stay on top of all the changes, we decided to do another edition of The State of Cross-Channel Marketing in QSR: 2025. 

This year’s report:

• Analyzes findings from a survey of 70 QSR professionals
• Uncovers how QSR marketing has evolved from 2024 and how it compares to the broader market in 2025
• Includes insights from experts at Bottle Rocket, a digital product agency, and Radar, an all-in-one geolocation platform.
• Features cartoons from Tom Fishburne i.e., Marketoonist

Here are the top 5 findings from the report:

🍔  As QSR marketers start focusing on more sustainable marketing practices, the #1 business objective in 2025 is “increasing customer engagement or loyalty” (55.7%), with a larger number of QSR marketers prioritizing it than last year (46.8%).

🍔  The top 4 engagement channels QSR marketers are using this year are Email (68.7%), Social Media (58.2%), Mobile Website (41.8%), and Mobile App (40.3%)

🍔  The most popular way QSR marketers are using AI is for “content creation” (50%), which is a significant increase from last year (29.8%).

🍔  QSR marketers are still struggling the most with “delivering personalized experiences” (60%), and this number has grown from last year (48.9%). 

🍔  When asked what has contributed the most to helping you build an effective cross-channel marketing strategy, having a skilled marketing team (31.4%) and integrated marketing technology (30.0%) were the top responses. 

For more insights, download your copy of The State of Cross-Channel Marketing in QSR: 2025. Alternatively, you can find highlights from last year’s report below.

State of Cross-Channel Marketing for QSRs: 2024

Anyone familiar with the QSR industry knows that with ever-changing consumer preferences, brands in this space face a unique set of cross-channel marketing challenges.

In our recent State of Cross-Channel Marketing survey and report, we found that QSR brands are experiencing difficulty with executing cross-channel communications, leveraging their data to deliver personalized experiences, and attributing marketing performance. 

And despite their focus on increasing customer engagement and loyalty in the next twelve months, investment in modern customer engagement technology is lagging with spreadsheets acting as the main software of record for these types of marketing activities.

Here, we’ll take a look at the specific responses from QSR marketers to unearth the most frequently used engagement channels, the top blind spots they encounter when executing cross-channel marketing campaigns, and some of the best practices they can deploy to drive success.

Let’s jump in.

When looking specifically at the QSR industry, we found that these brands follow suit for the most popular channels they use until we get to the fourth spot. Instead of a greater focus on Mobile Website usage, brands in this space are more likely to use a Mobile App to engage and communicate with customers.

In the QSR industry, brands often give more importance to mobile apps rather than mobile websites for a few key reasons. Let me break it down for you:

First of all, mobile apps provide a top-notch user experience with features like personalized recommendations, loyalty programs, and easy ordering, which really make customers happy and engaged. 

Secondly, mobile apps are super convenient – customers can access menus, place orders, and get all the info they need with just a few taps on their smartphones. Plus, brands can send personalized push notifications directly to users, keeping them in the loop about special offers and events, which is a great way to boost engagement. 

And let’s not forget about loyalty programs! Many brands have these integrated into their mobile apps, making it easy for customers to earn rewards and enjoy exclusive deals. Having a dedicated mobile app also helps QSR brands establish a unique brand identity and stand out from the competition. 

While mobile websites are still important for providing information, the focus on mobile apps in this industry is all about delivering a personalized, convenient, and engaging experience to customers.

Objectives

When it comes to QSR brands, they have a unique focus compared to the general population of respondents. While finding new customers is still important (42.55%), these brands put slightly more emphasis on increasing customer engagement and loyalty (46.81%). 

They understand that building strong relationships with their existing customer base is key to long-term success. That’s why they prioritize strategies that foster customer engagement, such as personalized marketing campaigns and loyalty programs. They want to create experiences that keep customers coming back for more.

Interestingly enough, QSR brands also prioritize attributing marketing performance as a key objective. In a competitive industry like theirs, it’s crucial to ensure that their marketing efforts are effective and generating a positive return on investment. By measuring and analyzing the impact of their cross-channel marketing activities, they can optimize their strategies and make data-driven decisions to drive revenue growth.

These priorities stem from the unique dynamics of the QSR industry. With changing consumer preferences and evolving food and beverage trends, these brands need to stay agile and responsive. By focusing on customer engagement, loyalty, and marketing performance attribution, they can adapt quickly to market shifts and maintain a competitive edge.

AI Usage

Based on the graph, you can see that, when it comes to AI in cross-channel marketing for QSR, a few interesting things stand out. This group is using AI at a higher rate than the general group (14.9% are not using AI as compared to 22.8%), and their key use case is: 

• “AI for automated ad buying and personalization” 

But why might this be the case?

Well, as noted earlier, the QSR industry is highly competitive, with numerous brands vying for consumer attention. To stand out in this crowded market, companies are turning to AI-powered technologies for automated ad buying, allowing them to optimize their advertising campaigns and reach the right audience at the right time.

In addition, customer expectations are on the rise. Consumers today want personalized experiences that cater to their preferences and needs. In fact, according to our recent Personalization Pulse Check Report, 58% of consumers are frustrated with brands that offer generic and inconsistent communication.

That’s where AI comes in. 

By leveraging AI for personalization, marketers in this industry can analyze vast amounts of customer data to understand individual preferences, behaviors, and purchase patterns. This enables them to deliver personalized recommendations, offers, and promotions across various channels, creating a more engaging and tailored customer experience.

This level of personalization builds stronger connections with customers and increases the likelihood of repeat purchases.

Also, AI can help companies stay ahead of these trends by analyzing market data, social media conversations, and consumer feedback. This allows them to identify emerging trends and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly, ensuring they remain relevant and appealing to their target audience.

Challenges

According to the survey data, QSR brands are struggling to execute effective cross-channel communications at a higher rate than the general group of respondents. 

To dig into this further, similar to within the Ecommerce & Retail industry, the customer journey in the QSR industry is often fragmented, with multiple touch points like online platforms, social media, mobile apps, and physical locations. Coordinating and delivering consistent messaging across these channels can be challenging, especially when there’s a lack of integration or synchronization between them. This fragmentation can make it difficult to execute seamless cross-channel communications.

Another factor is the complex operations that QSR brands often have. With multiple locations, franchises, or delivery partners, coordinating messaging and ensuring consistent brand communication can be a logistical challenge. The complexity of operations can result in inconsistent messaging or disjointed customer experiences, impacting the effectiveness of cross-channel communications.

Limited resources can also contribute to the struggle. Smaller QSR brands may have constraints in terms of budget and personnel, making it challenging to develop and implement comprehensive cross-channel strategies. This limitation can affect the effectiveness of communication across channels.

Finally, compliance and regulatory requirements play a role. The QSR industry is subject to various regulations, such as food safety and advertising guidelines. Ensuring compliance while maintaining consistent messaging across channels can be a challenge. Brands may face limitations or restrictions in their communication strategies, impacting their ability to execute effective cross-channel communications.

Technology

According to our survey, a high percentage (19.15%) of QSR or Food & Beverage brands rely on spreadsheets to manage their customer engagement programs. In fact, this was the number one response. 

However, relying solely on spreadsheets to handle customer engagement programs might not be the best approach. Spreadsheets have their limitations when it comes to scalability, collaboration, and automation.

As customer data grows, spreadsheets can become a bit of a hassle and prone to errors. They don’t offer real-time updates and fail to provide a complete picture of customer interactions. On top of that, spreadsheets require manual data entry and lack the automation capabilities that are crucial for efficient customer engagement.

That’s why it’s worth considering investing in a dedicated Customer Engagement Platform (CEP). Such a platform can streamline processes, enhance collaboration, and offer advanced analytics for better decision-making and personalized experiences.

Best Practices

The top response regarding the key factor for a successful QSR or Food & Beverage cross-channel marketing strategy was the utilization of customer data analytics to make targeted marketing decisions. 

By analyzing customer data, businesses gain valuable insights into behaviors, preferences, and trends. With this knowledge, they can develop strategies that effectively engage customers and provide personalized experiences, ultimately fostering customer loyalty and retention.

From the responses we gathered, it’s evident that QSR brand marketers are implementing more sophisticated personalization strategies compared to the general group of respondents. 

In addition to basic tactics like utilizing age, gender, and location, they are taking it a step further by customizing their messages, personalizing based on previous purchases, and leveraging AI for product and content recommendations at a higher frequency. It’s worth noting that a mere 4.3% admitted to not utilizing any form of personalization at all.

There could be several reasons why QSR brand marketers are adopting more advanced personalization strategies compared to the general group of respondents.

As we discussed earlier, with a wide range of products and a diverse customer base, QSR brands often have access to rich customer data, including purchase history and preferences. This valuable information enables them to tailor their messages and offerings more effectively, creating a more personalized and relevant experience for their customers.

By leveraging advanced personalization tactics, brands can stand out from the crowd, build stronger customer relationships, and ultimately drive customer loyalty and repeat business.

Also, advancements in technology, such as AI and machine learning, have made it easier for QSR brands to implement personalized strategies at scale. These technologies can analyze vast amounts of data and provide real-time recommendations, allowing brands to deliver personalized content and product suggestions to their customers more efficiently.

QSR Cross-Channel Marketing: Closing Thoughts

In the dynamic QSR industry, brands that use AI effectively, maintain compliance while delivering a consistent brand message, and create highly tailored customer experiences will maintain a competitive edge. This is why it is critical to adapt to emerging trends and technologies. 

Using a Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) like MoEngage can provide you with the tools and insights you need to achieve your cross-channel marketing objectives.

MoEngage offers a range of solutions that can help QSR companies improve their cross-channel communication. With 2.2 billion experiences delivered monthly across multiple channels, you can ensure that your message reaches your customers effectively.

Additionally, MoEngage enables you to deliver personalized experiences, leading to a 12% increase in retention with unique 1:1 experiences. By understanding your customers’ preferences and tailoring your communication accordingly, you can build stronger relationships and drive loyalty.

Finally, our analytics and reporting suite provides brands with a holistic view of their cross-channel marketing programs, allowing them to see which channels are working and which are not so they can optimize with ease.

Schedule a demo today to see how MoEngage can help your QSR or Food & Beverage business thrive.

Ah, the good old email!

One of the earliest sources of digital communication that is still super relevant to businesses and people all over the world, email is the channel of choice for business communication, corporate news, marketing and promotions, and, of course, spam.

Our good friends at Google and Yahoo understand the importance of email, and the annoyance brought on by spam, unsolicited communications, and email fraud. To mitigate that, new policy updates are brought on to ensure your inboxes (and ours) remain as clean as we keep our houses when guests are visiting.

In this context, the latest Google and Yahoo email-sending mandates for 2024 are game-changing. These digital leaders who host most email inboxes in the world are tightening the noose around spammers and other bad actors in the email industry. Still, even well-meaning companies could bear the brunt of having their emails partially or completely junked if they aren’t careful.

So, what are these guidelines, and what should companies do to ensure 100% compliance?

The Guidelines

The new guidelines for emails by Yahoo and Google could be summarized as the below commandments:

1. Thou shalt authenticate all thy emails using SPIF, DKIM, and DMARC: This helps the receivers rest assured that emails coming from you are truly yours and not some spammer.
2. Thou shalt make unsubscribing easy: If your recipients feel spammed, they should be able to unsubscribe easily or one-click unsubscribe whenever they want.
3. Thou shalt adhere to the spam-rate threshold at all times: Your domain’s spam complaint rate should remain below 0.3%, proving that you send emails only to your intended audiences and are not spamming people.

What is the most important thing to do when a new law is enforced? Ensure that you’re compliant with it, of course. With the new email guidelines, the good news is that brands that uphold the highest standards of email marketing and communications are already compliant.

But brands that haven’t been compliant in the past have the chance to kill two birds with one stone – not making Google and Yahoo penalize them whilst also improving the quality and outcomes of their email marketing strategy.

In our recent #GROWTH Masterclass on Feb 29, 2024, we asked email marketing professionals what concerned them the most about the new email-sending guidelines. Their top picks were as follows:

Now, let’s look at what our expert panelists had to say about how you can address the above concerns despite the new guidelines set by Google and Yahoo.

Understanding The Mandate & Its Impact

According to Baradhwaj (Brad), Director of Marketing at MoEngage, the mandate necessitates stronger authentication, full IP lookup, a one-click unsubscribe feature, and ensuring spam complaints are below the threshold of 0.3%. The ramifications for non-compliance seem substantial; non-compliant email traffic will start experiencing issues from February 2024, and by June 2024, all non-compliant emails will be rejected outright – a drastic measure that’s understandably causing marketers worldwide some sleepless nights.

Adapting To The Mandate & Risks

Francis, Head of Digital Marketing at CIMB, equates this abrupt move to unexpected changes in road traffic rules – and the first step to adaptation is reducing speed and understanding the changes. He explains how digital marketing has always been about learning, adapting, keeping up, and innovating – and the need for marketers to have the agility to continuously learn and adapt, not just in content and channels, but with compliance as well.

He advises businesses to enhance their email authentication with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records while also focusing on increasing content personalization to drive up engagement rates – not just because email platforms are mandating it, but simply because it’s the secure thing to do. 

The Role of Advanced Tech in Compliance and Efficiency

Jessica Natania, a Senior Customer Specialist at Ruparupa, praises technology as the co-pilot, easing navigation through the turbulent storm of compliance regulations. Adopting advanced email marketing tools allows businesses to automate compliance checks, manage subscription preferences, ensure authentication standards are met, and perform automatic spam checks. Moreover, using tech to understand customer behavior helps businesses personalize email content to gain better engagement and reduce unsubscribes.

Hyper-Personalization and Segmentation For Customer Engagement

Francis also shed light on the significance of understanding customer behavior trends and the importance of segmentation in industries such as banking. Personalization and Segmentation can lead to substantial improvements in engagement rates while simultaneously maintaining compliance. He likens outdated email marketing tactics to fashion faux pas, emphasizing the importance of staying updated and adopting techniques such as Google’s recently introduced BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) standard to raise brand visibility in inboxes.

Engagement Strategy for Dormant Subscribers

To revive dormant customer engagement, Mervelle, Regional Marketing Manager at Chope, recommends strategies likened to rekindling old friendships. For example, campaigns highlighting missed content paired with exclusive incentives, or leveraging humor to spark curiosity, can crank up customer interest and re-ignite customer engagement. Mervelle also highlights that it’s okay to talk to your customers less frequently, but when you do, make it count!

Addressing Complaints and Bounces

In line with a digital hospitality analogy, Jessica suggests handling email complaints and bounces gracefully, as a good host would at a party. She compares spam to someone not liking your party, and email deliverability to someone not being invited to your party. As a good host, you would want to understand why they didn’t receive the invite in the first place or don’t like coming to your party and rectify it for them and for the benefit of your other guests. It’s critical to use feedback loops promptly to resolve complaints and maintain a clean list by removing bounced emails.

Ensuring Authentication and Avoiding Non-Compliance

To avoid non-compliance, Brad advocates for businesses to work on building a solid online reputation, following a steady email schedule, avoiding spam traps and blacklists, crafting accurate and relevant content, amongst others. Brad also emphasizes email authentication and suggests selecting a proper infrastructure for the task.

Content That Captivates Subscribers

Mervelle discussed the importance of creativity in email content, with storytelling being an essential tool for engagement. She suggests leveraging AI-powered insights from customer engagement platforms to build resonating narratives and highlights the importance of quirky and interesting subject lines to boost email open rates.

She gives the example of Chope, and how something as physical as dining needs to feel personalized to customers over an online channel like email. She highlights how they understand customer’s cuisine or location preferences based on their past dining experiences, past bookings or browsing behavior, and from there they tailor the recommendations. At the same time, they are also aware that customers would always be open to new experiences, so they also sprinkle sections of ‘people with similar interests as you have also tried out’ across the email. 

Mervelle highlights that while this level of personalization is a must, it may take time to achieve, especially at scale. Which is why she advocates using an AI-powered engagement platform like MoEngage to help tailor these recommendations for different segments of their customers, in a scalable manner! 

Establishing Optimal Sending Frequency

Mervelle maintains that managing email frequency is like tuning a musical instrument—it must be ‘just right.’ This could be achieved by offering frequency choice options at the point of subscription, using AI to predict optimum sending times, or analyzing subscriber engagement metrics to understand preferences.

A/B Testing For Superior Insights

Though a 2024 party may seem a long way off, Francis illustrated the necessity of aggressive A/B testing to ensure quality email engagement. Recounting a CIMB testing experience, he shared how he wanted a more sophisticated route, while his team wanted to go for the more humorous, casual type of material. Guess which material performed better? The latter!  Francis highlighted that our job as marketers is not to be right but to deliver results!

He also shared two key A/B Testing methods that he has used. One involves A/B testing one of your campaigns, learning from the results, and applying them to subsequent campaigns. Making A/B Testing a way of life is something he swears by as an always-on marketing strategy. He recommends not just doing it for a single campaign but for every campaign that you plan on executing—this paves the way for continuous refining and redefining. 

Key Fixes For Better Email Deliverability

Brad demonstrated a simple hack to check if your domain authentication to achieve better deliverability of emails. He reiterated the importance of the different authentication protocols and if they are not set, he recommended talking to your email service provider. He added the implications of shared IP addresses by legacy systems and how they can be a huge gamble based on whether the other party is adhering to all the rules and regulations. 

Additionally, he advised to, segment like your life depended on it, send emails only to intended recipients, make unsubscribing easy, stick to a consistent schedule, and craft personalized content. Brad also showcased how you can track spam rates in real-time using the MoEngage platform. 

Brad also emphasized the need for your audience to choose the kind of emails they would still like to receive rather than unsubscribing the domain, which impacts receiving transactional emails. You can use that opportunity to understand if sending frequency is the problem—if yes, you can get input from the customer on how frequently they would like to be contacted. 

You can watch the complete masterclass here:

Conclusion

And there you have it: actionable insights to ace these new email standards and turn potential challenges into opportunities! Special thanks to our expert panelists for their insights and advice. With careful planning, strategy realignment, and technological implementation, complying with the new rules needn’t seem like a daunting task. Armed with these insights, businesses can navigate seamlessly through this disruption to emerge with optimized email marketing campaigns and improved customer engagement in this new era. Don’t underestimate the humble email; it’s still one of the most powerful tools in your marketing kit.

App stickiness is all about having an interactive experience that your users love — and want to return to.

According to our Personalization Pulse Check Report, 56% of North American consumers want a curated shopping experience from the brands they shop from regularly. And 44.6% said they wanted this to be in the form of interactive mobile app experiences.

The fact is, customers are looking for personalized, tailored experiences that intuitively understand their preferences and intent. And if you can’t deliver that, they’ll look elsewhere.

The best marketers use mobile app personalization to curate a unique experience for their customers, fostering engagement and brand loyalty. In this piece, we’ll help you perfect your mobile app personalization efforts by covering what it is, why it matters, and how to implement a successful strategy.

To start, let’s define what we mean by mobile app personalization, how it works, and the most common personalization methods you should know.

What is Mobile App Personalization?

Mobile app personalization is the process of creating curated app-related experiences based on the user’s preferences, interests, and behavior. This includes tailoring in-app elements such as the interface, onboarding process, and content, as well as out-of-app elements like push notifications.

Marketers use app personalization to drive user engagement, improve retention, and increase conversions and revenue.

How Mobile App Marketing Personalization Works

The goal of mobile app personalization is to offer in-app experiences that are customized based on the preferences of the user.

To do this effectively, marketers need to gather and analyze information about purchase patterns, personality traits, preferences, and interests; create buyer personas based on customer segmentation; and then tailor hyper-personalized messaging and experiences for different buyer personas.

Below, we break down the three main steps of the app personalization process in detail.

1. Data Collection

The bedrock of any personalization strategy is the data it’s built on. Without accurate, reliable data, it’s impossible to implement a successful personalization program.

First, marketers collect and marshal app users’ data, including their profile information, app usage data, geographic location, purchase history, and social media activity. This data will be integral in developing the overall app personalization strategy,  as well as individual campaigns and messages. By leveraging this data effectively, marketers can re-engineer the customer journey to focus on the customer’s wants and needs, infusing that into the overall app experience (and each individual campaign).

Perfecting app personalization user engagement is extremely data-heavy. A tool like MoEngage is vital for handling and processing high volumes of data quickly and reliably, so you can focus on optimizing your campaigns and messaging.

2. Customer Segmentation

Even the most accurate, abundant dataset is no good unless it can be properly leveraged to build personalized experiences that drive engagement.

The second step is to use the data you’ve collected to segment customers based on demographics, location, and previous activity and behavior. The more granular you can be, the more focused, nuanced, and refined your personalization strategies can be. Build consumer profiles based on common characteristics.

Make sure the segmentation you conduct and the personas you create produce results that allow you to develop unique, tailored marketing strategies and tactics that increase engagement.

3. Targeting and Personalization

The objective is to be able to deliver extremely targeted marketing campaigns that connect with your customers. To do that, you’ll need to channel the data you’ve collected and the segments you’ve created to harness and focus your personalized marketing efforts.

Now that you’ve collected data and segmented customers into accurate buyer personas, you can begin to actually use this data to create hyper-personalized experiences that resonate with your audience.

Go beyond simply swapping out the customer’s name, instead building truly personalized end-to-end experiences that entirely change the way each customer interacts with your app and brand. Leverage purchase history to suggest related or similar products use browsing data as intent to create personalized offers, and send notifications based on the user’s personal interests.

The more focused you can be on targeting your personalization campaigns, the more traction you’ll gain, which translates into greater engagement, deeper brand loyalty, and higher conversions.

Types of Mobile App Personalization

Whether you’re engaging in B2B or B2C personalization, there are several types of mobile personalization you can leverage to enhance the customer experience and tailor it to the individual’s unique preferences.

• Content personalization involves customizing the content (web, messages, and advertisements) that a customer sees based on their preferences, geographic location, search history, and any other relevant data points.
• UI personalization involves customizing the look, feel, and design of the app interface based on the customer’s needs and preferences. This can include dynamically adjusting the font size, color scheme, layout, and journey pathway that each user experiences.
• Push notification personalization involves customizing the timing, substance, and subject lines of push notifications based on the customer’s interests, behavior, and activity.
• Location-based personalization involves customizing product and service recommendations, promotions and discounts, and advertisements based on a customer’s geographic location.
• Behavioral personalization involves customizing the app experience based on the customer’s previous activity and behavior within the app, factoring in usage metrics to optimize the customer experience.

While you don’t have to do all of these, you should try to employ as many of these strategies as possible for best results. Some strategies will be more (or less) effective than others based on your industry and business case, so you’ll want to test different strategies to see what works best.

Why Mobile App Personalization is Important

Modern consumers demand a lot from their mobile apps, expecting an intuitive UI and seamless customer experience. And if they don’t get it, they’ll look somewhere else for what they want. Most customers expect you to know what they want, sometimes even before they do.

While your end goal is to increase conversions and revenue, mobile app personalization helps you get there by doing the following:

1. Increase Engagement and Retention

Mobile app personalization comes in many different forms.

Provide targeted product recommendations, inform customers about new launches, and upsell or cross-sell to boost spending. Use location-based alerts to engage local customers. Introduce a loyalty program to improve retention and cultivate brand loyalty. Run retargeting campaigns to win back lost customers and reduce churn.

The list is virtually endless, but all of these efforts have the same objectives: boost customer engagement, improve retention, and foster brand loyalty. Personalizing the app experience at each of these touchpoints will provide even more traction with your users, increasing app stickiness and user retention.

2. Enrich and Streamline the Customer Experience

Rich, meaningful, value-driven customer experiences are key to winning over customers and keeping them around for the long haul. Personalization is the key to bringing customer experiences to a new level, improving customer satisfaction and (in turn) retention.

Consumers are more likely to continue to shop from brands that recognize — and acknowledge — their interests, offer relevant product and content recommendations, personalize their user experience, streamline their customer journey, and generally remember their preferences, needs, and feedback.

Personalized app experiences make this possible by empowering teams to tailor unique customer journey pathways according to their preferences and interests.

3. Boost Brand Loyalty

Sure, solidifying a single purchase is great, but building true brand loyalty that brings repeat purchases will mean true success for your business. At the end of the day, increased engagement and improved retention all lead to one thing: better brand loyalty.

If you’re not providing the personal touch that your customers want you’ll fail to connect with your customers and you’ll struggle to keep pace with your competition.

Personalizing product recommendations, marketing communications, and in-app user journeys will improve the customer experience, humanize your brand, and enhance the relationship you build with your customers. This outcome-focused relationship drives engagement, fostering loyal customers who will stand behind (and advocate for) your brand.

5 Mobile App Personalization Strategies to Improve Your Metrics

Successful app personalization doesn’t happen on its own accord; it takes serious planning and effective execution. Below, we cover five top strategies to improve your mobile app personalization program.

1. Leverage Cross-Channel Transactional and Behavioral Data

Personalization starts with understanding your customers’ patterns and preferences across all the channels they use to interact with your brand. If you silo this data, you won’t have a complete picture of the relationship you have with your customer, or a clear understanding of how they interact with your brand.

Make sure you collect — and amalgamate — data from multiple channels and touchpoints, including web, email, social media, in-store interactions, and more. Analyze the wealth of data you’ve collected as a whole to create customer segments based on demographics, preferences, and behavior, and then leverage these insights to personalize the in-app experience in a way that aligns with your other channels.

Example

The best marketers don’t just provide omnichannel experiences, they also collect cross-channel data to fully understand how customers interact with their company (both in-app and out-of-app).

Netflix collects a wealth of viewing data and user activity, no matter what device you’re watching on to ensure your experience is always curated based on your most recent activity — regardless of where you’re watching. This allows them to keep track of your recently viewed shows across apps, as well as serve the most relevant content to users.

2. Increase In-App Purchases with Relevant Product Recommendations

Personalized product recommendations boost in-app purchases  by providing customers with relevant recommendations that fit their needs and interests. Don’t just take your best guess, use customer data to tailor product recommendations based on your customers’ preferences, purchase history, and past activity.

Continuously test and optimize your recommendations to better suit customers’ desires and increase engagement. Over time, this will improve customer retention and brand loyalty.

Example

Amazon leverages consumer data to create hyper-personalized product recommendations that significantly increase conversion rates. Amazon not only recommends products “you might also like”, but they also create “Frequently bought together” bundles that pair items that are related.

Over time, they also offer customized product offerings based on your shopping and purchase history, as well as in-app activity.

3. Customize the Experience for iOS and Android

For the most part, you want to ensure that you maintain a consistent experience across different devices (web, tablet, and mobile) and operating systems (iOS and Android). That being said, these different channels aren’t identical by nature — nor should they be.

Personalize the mobile app experience for both iOS and Android, according to subtle differences in their operating system. Take advantage of platform-specific features and design guidelines to create a personalized experience for each platform, while still remaining true to the overall feel.

Optimize the look and design for different screen sizes and resolutions, using different fonts, icons, headers, button designs, and colors to create the best user experience for each audience.

Example

Popular apps like Instagram and Facebook have very minute differences based on the operating system it’s running on, down to screen size, font sizes, and even menu options. Integration permissions for your camera or contacts may be slightly different based on what features are called on different operating systems.

For the most part, these differences are extremely subtle.

4. Collect Data Responsibly

According to a McKinsey & Company study, 87% of customers won’t do business with a company if they have concerns about its security practices. And 71% said that if they found out a company had given away their sensitive data without their permission, they would stop doing business with them altogether.

To be able to extract information with accountability, marketers must demonstrate a thoughtful approach to data management and customer security.

Gain customer trust by openly communicating about how you plan on gathering and using data. Stay tapped-in to current customer sentiment and be aware of prominent privacy concerns for different types of digital data. Be aware of data privacy regulations like the CCPA or the GDPR, and make sure you stay compliant with any requirements.

Allow customers to opt out of data collection and provide them clear options for data deletion. Follow all necessary consent laws and obtain consent and permission whenever required. At a minimum, use adequate encryption and security measures when collecting, storing, and managing customer data.

Example

Bloomberg lets its app users opt-in to all cookies at the beginning of their user experience. They offer extremely granular options based on the types of data Bloomberg will collect and how they plan on using it, with some options directly affecting personalized advertising and content recommendations.

5. Conduct Data-Driven Personalization

Don’t just rely on your instincts; maximize the potential of your personalization efforts by rooting your insights and decisions in reliable data.

Set clear goals for your personalization strategy, and consider what metrics you’ll use to measure your performance. Use the data you’ve collected to draw meaningful insights and make data-rich decisions that help you improve your mobile app personalization. Continuously test and optimize using A/B testing, allowing you to identify what resonates with your target audiences (and what doesn’t).

A data-focused approach to hyper-personalization will help you hone your mobile personalization efforts and improve your chances of success.

Example

Netflix doesn’t leave any content recommendation to chance. They are constantly analyzing user data to better understand what each individual customer wants, and serve them more relevant, appealing content recommendations. They leverage previous viewing history, star rating feedback, and every in-app click to better understand what their customers are looking for.

More than that, they are consistently improving the UI based on usage data, identifying where different users get held up and streamlining the customer journey accordingly.

5 Challenges of Mastering Mobile App Personalization

Mobile personalization is a powerful tool for increasing engagement, loyalty, and revenue — but only if it’s done right.

Unfortunately, there are numerous obstacles along the way. Below, we cover the top 5 challenges that developers and marketers face when implementing (and mastering) personalization in mobile apps.

Fortunately, you don’t have to face these challenges alone.

Power App Personalization with MoEngage

Modern consumers have high expectations from their mobile apps, and if they aren’t getting what they want, they’ll look for someone else who can provide it. To keep user attention, foster engagement, and build brand loyalty, companies need to personalize their mobile app experiences based on their customer’s preferences, interests, and behavior.

Make sure your mobile app experience aligns with your complete customer experience, factoring in omnichannel communication across web, social, and even in-person. Collect accurate, reliable data, and use that data to build buyer personas that reflect your audience through deep customer segmentation. Target customers using hyper-personalization and create customized experiences, recommendations, and messages that align with your users’ wants and needs.

Mobile app personalization enriches and streamlines the customer experience, increases user engagement and retention, and boosts brand loyalty. All of this leads to increased conversion and revenue.

MoEngage’s Customer Engagement Platform enables you to connect with customers via personally designed and perfectly timed in-app messages and mobile push notifications. With deep customer insights, you can make data-driven decisions about customer journey orchestration and marketing campaign optimization. And with MoEngage Personalize, you can adapt your app’s layout, add AI recommendations, and tailor your content one-to-one based on customer data.

Schedule a demo today to learn how MoEngage can help you personalize mobile app experiences to increase engagement, loyalty, and revenue.

Market leaders keep a close eye on every action their shoppers take. Netflix and Spotify know every start and stop, pause or play, and every action in between. And they use this data to inform their future recommendations.

According to Forbes, Netflix runs 250 A/B tests per year to better understand user behavior and engagement patterns. And with behavioral data from more than 300 million member profiles, they’re able to predict and recommend content more accurately. This level of personalization drastically enhances the customer experience, leading to increased conversion rates, engagement, and retention.

And quite frankly, this level of personalization is what’s necessary to succeed in the Ecommerce market today. To help you perfect your Ecommerce personalization efforts, we cover the following:

• What is Ecommerce personalization?
• The importance of personalization in Ecommerce
• Benefits of personalization in Ecommerce
• 6 Ecommerce personalization examples & their strategies
• Building an effective Ecommerce personalization strategy
• Mastering Ecommerce personalization with MoEngage

Let’s start the guide with a basic understanding of Ecommerce personalization.

What is Ecommerce Personalization?

Ecommerce personalization is the process of customizing each individual customer’s online shopping experience by serving them personalized product recommendations, advertisements, coupons, content recommendations, and more based on their preferences.

By collecting and analyzing data on customer demographics, online activity, and shopping behavior, organizations can provide customers with a unique experience designed just for them. In turn, this improves satisfaction and engagement, leading to higher conversion rates and lower abandonment.

The Importance of Personalization in Ecommerce

In a sea of options, modern consumers are looking for shopping experiences that save them time, cutting out the nonsense and helping them find the products they actually want. And more than that, they want unique, personalized shopping experiences that make them feel important and valued as a customer.

According to a research study from McKinsey & Company, 71% of consumers expect personalized communication and product recommendations from the brands and businesses they buy from; and 76% of consumers are dissatisfied without this level of personalization.

Companies that fail to offer unique, tailored experiences that foster customer engagement and develop brand loyalty will fall behind. 

While data privacy is a hot button issue, according to 2023 Statista data, “80 percent of responding consumers from across the globe stated they believed that it was appropriate for marketers to collect the brand purchase history of their clients.” 

However, less than half of respondents thought it was appropriate to collect data on a user’s important life events. Regardless, consumers are demanding personalized experiences from their favorite brands.

For organizations to succeed in today’s online retail space, they’ll need to offer Ecommerce personalization that stays within data privacy regulations and guidelines, offering customers an enhanced experience, and empowering you to drive customer engagement, brand loyalty, and sales in the process.

Benefits of Personalization in Ecommerce

Ultimately, Ecommerce personalization is all about ensuring you make the sale. But there are a number of benefits that come from offering your customers personalized shopping experiences.

• Increased conversion rates: Our recent cross-channel marketing report found that conversion rates are the #1 metric that brands in Ecommerce care about when measuring campaign effectiveness. So, you’ll be excited to know that personalization allows teams to market far more effectively and efficiently, increasing the likelihood of a sale at each touchpoint.
• Deeper Segmentation: The more insights you have, the more granular you can be with customer segmentation; allowing you to target customers with pinpoint accuracy.
• Better customer experience: Personalized shopping gives customers an enhanced user experience, encouraging them to complete a sale, return to your store, and love your brand.
• Improved customer loyalty: Customers are more likely to return to—and advocate for—businesses that offer them unique, tailored experiences. Personalized rewards programs are great ways to build a unique relationship with your customers.
• Increased brand engagement: Personalized messages increase customer engagement with your brand, leading to deeper brand loyalty, higher sales, and more repeat customers.
• Higher average order value (AOV): Personalized product recommendations, remarketing campaigns, and loyalty programs incentivize customers to add items to their cart or increase their spend, driving up the average order value and overall spend.

Ultimately, positive customer interactions lead to future engagement and higher conversions. But there are many different ways to get there. We explore some of the most common Ecommerce personalization methods next.

10 Types of Personalization in Ecommerce

When we talk about Ecommerce personalization, we aren’t just speaking about traditional audience targeting, we’re talking about delivering a unique, personalized experience for different customer segments.

Generally, Ecommerce personalization can target individuals on a one-to-one basis, or simply target customer segments, which can be as broad or granular as you want them to be.

• 1:Few Personalization: Deliver a tailored experience for different customer segments based on geographic location, customer behavior, and general interests.
• 1:1 Personalization: Deliver fully customized messaging and shopping experiences to each individual customer on a one-to-one basis.

Personalization Methods to Use

While Ecommerce personalization can range in how focused it is in its targeting, many different types of methods of Ecommerce personalization can be used:

1. Product recommendations: Serve targeted product recommendations that actually fit a customer’s interests, preferences, and previous spending habits to increase conversions.
2. Upsell & cross-sell: Improve conversion rates on upselling and cross-selling by offering targeted products that your customers are more likely to be interested in.
3. Abandonment campaigns: Remind customers they have an abandoned cart via their preferred method of communication for a higher chance of a completed purchase. You can even start them where they left off to save them time and get them right back into the buying process.
4. Location-based targeting: Serving customers with advertising that is relevant based on their geographic location is a must in the online shopping world. Failure to do so can mean you serve completely irrelevant ads that a customer doesn’t want (or can’t even be used based on where they are).
5. Personalized messaging: Give customers a personal experience with tailored messaging throughout their customer lifecycle. Welcome them as a customer when they register or make their first purchase, thank them after they make purchases, and address them individually to build rapport.
6. Omnichannel marketing: Messages customers via their preferred channel (email, push notifications, or SMS) to ensure they see your message and to increase engagement with your marketing campaigns.
7. Website personalization: Customize website experiences for users based on their preferences to improve engagement and increase the likelihood of a conversion.
8. Content suggestions: Deliver interesting, clickable content recommendations that have higher engagement metrics, improving customer retention as well.
9. Promotions & discounts: Offer customers deals, discounts, and promotions that they are actually interested in, instead of cluttering their inbox with offers they don’t want or can’t even use because of where they reside.
10. Remarketing campaigns: Reel in customers who haven’t returned to your Ecommerce store in a while with targeted remarketing campaigns that are more likely to catch their attention.

6 Ecommerce Personalization Examples & Strategies

Ecommerce personalization doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In practice, organizations rarely use one single type of personalization, instead deploying a variety of personalization tactics to gain traction and motivate the customer to stay engaged or complete a sale.

Below, we look at some leading examples of how real companies leverage Ecommerce personalization for success.

Amazon Doubled Down on Dynamic Website Experiences

As one of the world’s leading online retailers, it’s no surprise that Amazon has invested heavily in Ecommerce personalization, separating themselves from competitors by offering an unmatched customer experience.

Part of what makes this possible is the sheer amount of data at Amazon’s disposal. Amazon leverages a wealth of user data to truly understand their customers’ behavior and shopping patterns and develop personalized website experiences that put what customers want in front of them.

Amazon’s dynamic website offers product recommendations based on the user’s shopping habits, recommending related products based on what they’ve already viewed, added to cart, or purchased. Their “Frequently bought together” section compiles a curated list of items that are regularly purchased together, and may make a great bundle for the consumer.

This hyper-focused targeting creates a unique experience for the buyer, saving them time finding the things they need by instead recommending relevant products for the consumer. And at the same time, it creates incredible cross-selling opportunities that don’t direct the user away from the product they’re already interested in.

Walmart Customized Product Recommendations to Open Cross-Selling Opportunities

Walmart’s online grocery ordering service, which took off during COVID-19, has been optimized for incredible performance.

How often have you forgotten an essential ingredient for a meal? Or forget a staple item you buy week to week, just because it wasn’t on the list?

Walmart’s online grocery ordering system has addressed both of these problems. First, they offer product suggestions that are based on the items you’ve already added to your cart. So if you’ve added ‘spaghetti’, you may be recommended ‘spaghetti sauce’ or ‘parmesan cheese’. Second, they remind customers of commonly purchased items before checkout, to ensure they haven’t missed an item they typically buy.

Not only is this a great way for Walmart to leverage the customer’s previous purchase history to increase their odds of a successful cross-sell, but it also gives customers a more convenient, enjoyable user experience. Overall, it’s an innovative way to integrate personalized product recommendations and upselling into the customer shopping and purchase journey.

Sephora Perfected Personalized Shopping and Guided Shopping

In the last decade, Sephora has been at the forefront of Ecommerce personalization, providing a variety of personalization features to customers. That’s why they’ve topped Sailthru’s Retail Personalization Index for the fifth year in a row.

Sephora understands that cosmetics are extremely unique to the individual using them, customers have different skin tones and hair types, both of which affect what products they’re interested in. And the more Sephora can put relevant product offerings in front of their customers, the more their customers buy.

That’s why Sephora uses quizzes to gain pertinent information on what their customers are interested in. Combined with predictive analytics, Sephora is able to provide an extremely customized, tailored experience for its customers.

But Sephora also excels with their loyalty reward program: Sephora’s Beauty Insider club. This program offers personalized rewards for loyalty members, such as reward points that can be used to buy products, special deals, and even a free birthday gift each year!

Starbucks Fostered Customer Loyalty with its Rewards Program

As one the largest coffee company in the world, Starbucks already has a large, loyal customer base. And that isn’t by accident; Starbucks has used Ecommerce personalization strategies to make sure their customers don’t look elsewhere.

The Starbucks loyalty program is one of the best on the market—not just in their niche market. Their app offers a seamless, customized experience, making it extremely easy for customers to place orders and track their rewards points. And the gamification and personalization that Starbucks has added to this experience has only increased engagement and customer lifetime value.

And the numbers reflect this success. By October of 2022, Starbucks had 28.7 million active rewards members, 16% higher than the previous year. And these rewards members were responsible for 55% of Starbucks revenue in the last quarter of 2022.

Lifestyle Orchestrated the Customer Journey from Beginning to End

Despite having more than 1 million app installations, Lifestyle was struggling to establish an active user base of more than 15,000 users. Instead, they were seeing significant drop-offs during the purchase stage and a general lack of user activity.

To clamp down on this, Lifestyle developed an end-to-end customer engagement strategy that would keep customers in the purchase-funnel. Deep customer insights allowed them to identify opportunities to drive retention with two specific customer segments: price-sensitive customers and loyal customers. 

These groups were then further segmented based on how far they were in the purchase funnel, which allowed Lifestyle to determine the best retention strategy to deploy for each customer segment.

Personalized omnichannel messaging empowered Lifestyle to keep customers on their shopping journey, leading to a 4x increase in conversions, a 20% decline in cart abandonment, and a 30% increase in retention rates.

“MoEngage powers our end-to-end strategies for customer engagement, retention, and user journey mapping. It has helped us to reduce our cart abandonment by 20% and improved the retention rate by 30%.” – Joydeep Das, Lead Digital Marketing, Lifestyle

Cocomelody Recaptured Lost Orders with Personalized Abandonment Campaigns

After experiencing steep customer abandonment rates throughout the purchasing journey, Cocomelody was looking to mitigate these drop-offs.

To solve this, Cocomelody first identified who their abandoned customers were and what products they had left abandoned. Customers were segmented based on their purchased intent using a variety of LTV and behavioral data. An omnichannel marketing strategy that leveraged personalized email, SMS, and web push notification messaging brought abandoned customers back into the purchase funnel.

Specifically, they were able to identify that wishlisted items—despite being abandoned—had extremely high purchase intent (95%), and were able to focus their retargeting on this customer segment, increasing their repurchase rate by 27%.

“MoEngage is the best data -centralized CRM system and the best multi-channel marketing tool we’ve found. Using MoEngage, we can add as many attributes and custom events as we like to profiles, then filter customers for various campaigns and offers. It is very easy to unify data, engage and analyze our results.” – James Chen, Operations Director, Cocomelody

Building an Effective Ecommerce Personalization Strategy

Ad hoc personalization is rarely effective. It takes a deliberate, concerted effort. It needs to be well thought out to have maximum impact.

To integrate personalized marketing into your Ecommerce strategy, you’ll need to first take a step back. You will want to have an idea of what personalization efforts you’d like to employ, but you’ll need an open mind—instead allowing historical data to guide your decisions moving forward.

Below, we look at how you can integrate personalization into your Ecommerce marketing strategy.

1. Map Out Your Customer Journey Pathways

Map out each individual customer journey pathway, and analyze performance metrics around each funnel you’re currently operating. Analyze where customer engagement drops off, and at what point in the journey the customer abandons their cart. Identify where there is opportunity for personalization.

2. Consolidate Customer Data for Deeper Insights

Collect and consolidate customer purchase and behavior data to get a deeper understanding of your customers. Build customer profiles and unify data to create informative, intuitive visualizations that empower analysis and lead to meaningful insights about their buying patterns.

3. Segment Customers and Strategize Targeting

Segment customers based on their demographics, shopping behavior, and engagement patterns. Then develop targeted marketing strategies that are more likely to foster interaction, drive brand loyalty, and convert.

4. Choose the Right Personalization Strategies for the Job

The whole point of Ecommerce personalization is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to marketing. And in the same vein, the effectiveness of personalization techniques will vary based on each individual customer and scenario. Companies will need to choose the right personalization strategies (such as product recommendations, website personalization, or abandonment campaigns) to foster engagement with their customers.

5. Monitor Performance and Adapt Your Strategy

Without proper analytics on the performance of your personalization efforts, it will be impossible to know what is and isn’t working. Measure all of your operations so you can analyze and compare the impact of different campaigns and tactics, and adapt your strategy accordingly to improve retention and engagement, as well as reduce costs.

Mastering Ecommerce Personalization with MoEngage

Personalization has become a crucial aspect of the Ecommerce industry, driving conversion rates, retention, and loyalty. MoEngage’s Customer Engagement Platform empowers teams to deliver highly personalized messaging through analytics-driven campaigns that are designed to engage customers, driving clicks and conversions.

Gather customer data that powers deep insights and guides customer journey modeling. Follow—and guide—customers along the conversion funnel by providing omnichannel marketing that makes your message clear no matter how your customer interacts with you. Retarget and remarket to dropped customers and improve funnel generation at the stages that need it most by optimizing the timing, content, and channel for your messages.

Schedule a demo to learn how MoEngage can help you drill down on successful segments and design personalized campaigns that drive engagement, loyalty, and ROI.

The Scoop

According to Google, 90% of leading marketers say personalisation significantly contributes to business profitability.

And 71% of customers want businesses to provide personalized experiences. However, 76% are frustrated when this does not occur.

Today, we’re plunging head-first into a topic that’s stirring up major buzz among all Australian consumer brands: Privacy vs. Personalisation in the realm of customer experiences. This debate, as multifaceted and animated as a fiercely contested Ashes series, has marketers and consumers alike on the edge of their seats. Recently, I had the pleasure of delving into a couple of exciting panel discussions hosted by MoEngage in Australia, featuring a lineup of experts from various industries and diverse backgrounds, each bringing a wealth of knowledge and perspective to the table.

Actionable Insights from Industry Experts

• Guillaume Papillon, Head of Marketing, Mable
• Sarah Miles, Ex Chief Privacy Officer, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
• David Fodor, Head of Strategy – FSI, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Raj Shah – National Key Account Manager, Vonage
• Nick Eshkenazi – Ex Chief Digital Officer, Prezzee
• Chris Brinkworth – Managing Partner, Civic Data
• Richard Knott – General Manager, Infosum
• Sathya Upadhyaya – Chief MarTech Officer, Lution
• Michael Ricciardone – Country Manager – ANZ, MoEngage

Understanding the Personalisation Paradox

Guillaume Papillon from Mable (a bit like the Uber of the disability and healthcare sector), a platform that connects folks with disabilities, older Australians, etc., to support workers, highlighted the critical role of personalisation. He painted a picture of personalisation not just as a marketing tool or method but to use engagement touch-points (signals) throughout their customers’ journey. They then optimised their channels with the right messages for both (online and offline) to better cater to their customers’ needs and experience.

They also segmented their customers on these signal-focused cohorts to ensure that personalisation is leveraged correctly and simply delivers better results.

According to a McKinsey study, companies that thrive at personalisation earn 40% more money from these activities than their competitors.

Imagine traversing the dense Daintree Rainforest with its lush canopies and hidden wonders. Personalisation is like having a seasoned guide who not only knows the trails but also understands your pace, interests, and fears. This guide is adept at reading subtle cues, ensuring the journey is enlightening and respectful of your boundaries. When executed with finesse, personalisation enhances customer experience just as a skilled guide enhances your rainforest exploration.

The Privacy Shield: Navigating Legal and Ethical Boundaries

Sarah Miles, representing ABC, highlighted the importance of data governance and regulatory compliance. You can liken it to the rules of cricket – you need to know them to play the game right. In the digital world, these rules are the privacy laws and ethical standards businesses must adhere to. Like a cricketer respects the game’s laws, companies must respect these boundaries to maintain customer trust.

The Role of Informed Consent

90% of customers are open to disclosing their behavioural data in exchange for extra perks that make purchasing cheaper or more straightforward. But that doesn’t mean customers shouldn’t be informed about the behavioural data they are handing over to brands. 

A significant takeaway from the discussion was the significance of informed consent in data collection and usage. Brands are encouraged to have a transparent dialogue with their legal teams to understand the implications of privacy laws on their marketing strategies. This transparency also extends to the consumer level, where customers should be clearly informed about how their data is being used. This increases trust between the customer and the brand, boosting your retention, loyalty, and customer lifetime value.

Transparency: The Heart of Trust

Transparency in data handling is as crucial as honesty in a game of Two-Up. It builds trust when brands clearly understand why they collect data and how it benefits the customer. It’s about being as transparent as a pristine Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Customers appreciate knowing what’s happening with their data, much like a snorkeler enjoys clear waters to view the marine life below.

Tackling Fraud and Ensuring Data Security

A McKinsey study found that 87% of customers would not do business with an organisation if concerns were raised about its security policies.

Raj Shah from Vonage underscored the importance of security in customer data handling, especially in the banking sector. He highlighted innovative measures like location-based data validation and multi-factor authentication to combat fraud. This approach reflects a growing trend in the industry towards leveraging advanced technology to enhance data security.

The Future of Data Handling: Tokenisation and Minimisation

David Fodor from AWS brought an interesting perspective on the future of data handling. He suggested a shift towards tokenisation, where data is not stored by third parties but accessed via tokens issued by the data owner. This approach significantly reduces the risk of data breaches and aligns with the principles of consumer data rights.

Balancing Personalisation with Privacy in Financial Services

David points out that the financial services sector is relatively advanced in balancing data privacy with personalisation. The industry’s inherent risk management nature means it has long been adept at using data responsibly. However, there’s an ongoing need for improvement in explicit and implied consent areas.

Transparency in targeted advertising can increase revenue by 38%.

Preparing for the Inevitable: Data Breaches

Insights from UK-based analysts Juniper Research estimated that Australian businesses had lost at least $US 1.97 billion to ad fraud in early 2023 (estimated to be tripled by the end of  2023), far surpassing the $US 1.32 billion defrauded in 2022.

Data breaches are the thunderstorms of the digital world – often unexpected and potentially destructive. Sarah Miles stressed the need for a robust plan to handle these crises. Like preparing for a bushfire season, businesses must be ready to act swiftly to minimize damage, protect their customers, and restore normalcy as quickly as possible.

On the flip side, Sathya Upadhyaya  says “data management and security technology are evolving rapidly” with particular importance on the following:

• To be future-ready
• Investment in data clean rooms
• Identity resolution
• Profile unification
• Effective management and disposal of data

The brands that can firmly establish themselves with the aforementioned criteria and processes are the ones that will thrive and achieve personalisation-led growth. 

Distinguishing Security from Privacy

Richard Knott of Infosum shed light on differentiating security from privacy. It’s like comparing Rugby League to Rugby Union – related but distinct. Security is the how, and privacy is the what. It’s essential to have strategies for both, like different game plans for each sport.

The Evolving Role of AI and Machine Learning

Nick Eshkenazi from Prezzee addressed the role of AI and ML in this balancing act. He warned against jumping on the AI bandwagon without understanding the basics of data management. It’s akin to using advanced cricketing gear without mastering the basics of the game. AI and ML can be game-changers for your brand, but only when used on a solid foundation of data integrity.

Future Trends and Predictions

What does the future hold for privacy and personalisation as we look toward the horizon? 

It’s evident that Australian brands must adapt to a new landscape where privacy is not just a compliance requirement but a core aspect of customer trust and brand reputation. This adaptation requires a deep understanding of new privacy laws, a commitment to transparent data practices, and a willingness to innovate in personalisation techniques that respect customer privacy.

When it comes down to it, it’s all about how much data your customers are willing to share to have a personalised experience. Your brand’s perception and trust among customers can show you how much data your customers are willing to share. MoEngage, as your friendly neighbourhood personalisation expert, can help you strike the right balance.

What Next for Australian Consumer Brands?

Wrapping up this topic, it’s clear that privacy and personalisation are two sides of the same coin. They’re like a well-cooked Pavlova – needing the right balance of crispness (privacy) and softness (personalisation) to be perfect. Businesses must navigate this landscape with care, transparency, and a focus on customer needs. 

More importantly, Aussie brands are now realizing and leveraging the importance of agile customer engagement platforms (CEPs), where all the privacy and personalisation standards have been set in place, gaining customer trust. This partnership ensures they can walk the privacy vs. personalisation tightrope with balance, never constantly looking down or back at past challenges. Cheers to mastering this balance!

Talk to a MoEngage personalisation expert today!

Q1. The Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry seems to be growing at a good pace in the US and Canada. Do you think QSR brands need to up their customer engagement game? If so, why?

Customer engagement is a pivotal conduit for Quick-Service Restaurant (QSR) brands seeking to enhance the frequency of orders and bolster the average order value. Among the array of strategies available, loyalty and rewards programs emerge as potent tools, leveraging direct incentives to spur growth among the most fervent brand advocates. Yet, while these programs forge a deep connection with loyal patrons, messaging and engagement initiatives wield a broader reach, empowering brands to connect with a diverse audience through targeted and personally relevant communications.

These engagement programs serve as a multifaceted gateway for brands. They transcend the limitations of loyalty-centric approaches by interfacing with customers more individually. Whether or not it directly ties into a loyalty program, these initiatives weave a web of personalized communication that resonates deeply with each recipient. By tailoring messages to suit specific preferences, purchase histories, or behaviors, brands can establish a more profound and resonant connection. This can include promotional updates, personalized recommendations, or interactive content, all aimed at fostering a sense of belonging and relevance for the customer.

Such tailored engagement nurtures brand loyalty and cultivates a sense of inclusivity and understanding. It fosters a dynamic conversation between brand and customer, amplifying the potential for increased order frequency and higher average order values while fortifying brand resonance within the market landscape.

Q2. What are the top 3 emerging trends for customer engagement in the QSR space?

1) Best-of-breed 

The transition from an “all-in-one” to a “best-of-breed” approach in marketing tools denotes a significant change in how businesses optimize their strategies. The former involves using a single comprehensive tool encompassing various functionalities, while the latter employs specialized tools for specific functions or aspects of a strategy.

This shift is driven by technological advancements, which have led to the emergence of specialized tools excelling in distinct areas like analytics, engagement, social media management, and customer relationship management. 

Understanding this shift is crucial as it signifies a move towards a more strategic and nuanced marketing approach. It also highlights the importance of adaptability, integration capabilities, and a deeper understanding of how various tools complement each other within a marketing ecosystem to drive better outcomes. 

Ultimately, the “best-of-breed” approach allows marketers to optimize campaigns more effectively, harnessing the strengths of specialized tools to elevate their overall marketing performance and achieve superior results across multiple channels.

2) Personalized Experiences

In the fast-paced realm of dining, the modern restaurant patron is a mobile-centric individual seeking seamless, time-sensitive encounters with their chosen QSR brand. The expectation isn’t just for a single meal but for a tailored, consistent experience. Meal delivery, curbside pickup, and real-time order updates have become the benchmarks of this immediacy-driven dining landscape.

To thrive in this ecosystem, QSR brands must pivot from traditional approaches and embrace technological evolution. By integrating advanced technology, QSRs can navigate the intricacies of these time-based experiences, ensuring that every customer interaction is swift, personalized, and location-aware.

The cornerstone of this shift lies in orchestrating personalized messages and experiences across multiple channels. This isn’t merely a matter of conveying information; it’s about crafting tailored engagements that resonate with individual preferences and behaviors. It involves leveraging data to understand customer habits, preferences, and context—allowing for the delivery of timely and relevant communications. Whether through mobile apps, social media, or in-person interactions, the goal is to synchronize these touchpoints, providing a cohesive and responsive journey for the on-the-go customer.

QSR brands that adapt to these evolving expectations position themselves as proactive, customer-centric entities. They cater not just to hunger but to the demand for seamless, immediate, and personalized experiences—a testament to their commitment to meeting the dynamic needs of today’s diners.

3) Omnichannel Marketing 

QSR brands are shifting from conventional advertising tactics to omnichannel strategies to meet the demands of modern diners. The transition to an omnichannel approach acknowledges the diverse ways customers engage with QSR brands and underscores the need for a seamless integration of online platforms, mobile apps, social media, and in-person experiences. This entails using data-driven insights to customize communications and channels based on individual preferences, purchase history, and real-time location. 

The investment in technology isn’t solely about operational efficiency; it’s about meeting elevated expectations for seamless customer experiences. By embracing omnichannel strategies, these brands position themselves not only to attract but also to retain customers by delivering timely, personalized experiences that align with the fast-paced lifestyle of today’s consumers.

Q3. It is clear from the emerging trends that QSR brands need to focus on understanding customer preferences more deeply and offer personalized engagement. How would you suggest they change their data/insights and customer engagement strategy?

Today’s customers expect top-notch service in record time from every service in their lives, including quick-service restaurants. Creating the kinds of experiences that will keep guests coming back for more requires QSRs to create better, more personalized experiences in and out of the store, only made possible by using a customer data layer.

Here are four data-driven strategies QSR brands can adopt to enhance engagement and create personalized experiences:

1) Centralized Customer Data Management:

Establishing a centralized data repository, a Customer Data Platform or a unified data system allows QSR brands to gather and integrate customer information from various touchpoints. This includes online orders, mobile app interactions, loyalty programs, and in-store purchases. Unifying this data provides a comprehensive view of customer behavior and preferences, enabling QSRs to create more accurate customer profiles.

2) Customer Segmentation and Personalization:

Leveraging the collected data, QSR brands can segment their customer base into distinct groups based on behavior, preferences, order history, or demographics. This segmentation allows for tailored and targeted marketing campaigns. By personalizing messaging, promotions, and offers, QSRs can enhance engagement and create more meaningful interactions, driving customer loyalty and repeat visits.

3) Experimentation of Omnichannel Engagement:

Experimenting with different communication channels and message formats can be vital. Whether through SMS, mobile apps, social media, or email, QSR brands can analyze which channels resonate best with specific customer segments. This experimentation helps optimize outreach strategies and deliver messages at the right time and through the preferred channels of their audience.

4) Real-Time Engagement and Feedback:

Implementing real-time engagement strategies, such as instant order updates, personalized recommendations during ordering, or timely feedback collection after a visit, helps QSR brands create a more interactive and responsive experience for their customers. 

Gathering feedback and adapting in real-time based on customer preferences or complaints demonstrates a commitment to enhancing their experience, fostering loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. By implementing these data-centric strategies, QSR brands can improve their understanding of customers and enhance engagement by delivering personalized, timely, and relevant experiences both within and outside the store environment. This customer-centric approach is pivotal in retaining customers and fostering a deeper connection, increasing satisfaction and repeated patronage.

Q4. When should a QSR brand consider adding tools like a Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) in its MarTech Stack?

Establishing and optimizing a customer data and engagement strategy requires the right people, internal processes, and technology platforms. Before considering an investment in any vendor’s toolset, the brand should ensure the right people and processes are available to support it.   

As an organization’s growth objectives evolve to include more advanced personalization and engagement strategies, the team should consider the full marketing, loyalty, paid ad, analytics, and other martech stack roadmaps. 

If a more capable CEP will help the brand meet its needs over the near-medium term, then a CDP may not be a required investment in the near term. 

But, if the brand anticipates running a CEP alongside a loyalty program in a different system, or if it intends to invest in a sophisticated analytics program, then it might be worth prioritizing a CDP that can handle real-time data exchange across a more complex marketing technology stack. This is especially true if the brand uses first-party data to guide paid media targeting or to personalize digital products in real-time. 

Q4. Why should a QSR brand integrate its Customer Data Platform and Customer Engagement Platform?

Integrating a QSR brand’s CDP and CEP is pivotal for creating a seamless, holistic approach to customer engagement.

Here are some top use cases illustrating the significance of this integration:

1) Unified Customer Profiles:

Integration ensures that customer data collected through various touchpoints—such as mobile apps, online orders, loyalty programs, and in-store interactions—flows seamlessly between the CDP and CEP. This unification creates comprehensive and updated customer profiles. A unified profile allows QSR brands to gain a 360-degree view of customers, including preferences, behaviors, purchase history, and engagement patterns.

2) Personalized Marketing Campaigns:

With integrated platforms, QSRs can leverage enriched customer profiles to create highly personalized marketing campaigns. The CEP can deploy targeted messages, promotions, and offers through various channels by accessing detailed customer insights from the CDP. This personalization enhances customer engagement, increases the relevance of marketing efforts, and drives higher conversion rates.

3) Real-Time Engagement and Feedback Loop:

Integration facilitates real-time interactions with customers. For instance, if a customer places an order via a mobile app, the integrated system can immediately update the CDP with this transaction data. The CEP can then trigger personalized messages, like order confirmations or estimated delivery times. Moreover, integrating feedback mechanisms allows for prompt collection of customer opinions, enabling quick adjustments and improvements in services.

4) Operational Efficiency and Consistency:

Integrating the CDP and CEP streamlines processes and ensures consistency in messaging across various channels. This alignment reduces manual efforts in synchronizing data and campaigns between platforms. It also minimizes the risk of delivering conflicting or duplicate messages to customers, enhancing overall operational efficiency.

5) Enhanced Customer Experience:

Ultimately, the integration of these platforms enables QSR brands to provide a more cohesive and delightful customer experience. By leveraging a unified view of customers and deploying personalized, timely engagements, QSRs can exceed customer expectations, foster loyalty, and differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market.

Nothing personal, but personalisation may only sometimes be the right strategy to engage with your customers effectively and retain them. Simply put, personalisation is pointless unless it’s solving a problem or meeting a desire. But how do you determine whether personalisation is solving a problem for your brand?

This was the question Gianfranco Cuzziol had the attendees of his #GROWTH Summit session ponder over. However, before getting into what his session covered, let’s look at Gianfranco’s journey with customer engagement and personalisation.

Meet the Personalisation Pioneer: Gianfranco Cuzziol

Gianfranco is an engaging individual who has traversed the agency-client side divide. Experienced CRM, Data, and Business Transformation expert with a track record of setting and delivering customer strategy with customer and business objectives at the centre.

Four years ago, an opportunity arose for him to delve into the world of customer relationship management (CRM) alongside some incredible brands. His journey began as the Global Head of CRM at Leop, where he embarked on an enriching experience that transformed how the brand engaged with customers beyond the physical store.

The challenge was to extend the conversation post-store visits, ensuring an ongoing remarkable experience by replicating the in-store ambiance digitally. This led to fascinating dialogues from a digital standpoint, establishing connections and carrying forward the brand ethos.

He has worked with various platforms and brands throughout his professional tenure, from spearheading CRM for a new marketing platform to contributing expertise to ESOP Avon and The Body Shop. In the past nine months, his focus has centered on collaborating with Avon to enhance their CRM, personalisation vision, technological adoption, and organisational growth.

The Roots of Basketball and Its Unforeseen Evolution

Gian transported attendees back to December 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Dr. James Naismith faced the challenge of keeping 18 young men fit during the harsh cold. He ingeniously crafted a game using a soccer ball, peach baskets, and a gym, birthing the sport of basketball.

The early version involved splitting teams, placing baskets at either end of the gym, and scoring by putting the ball in the opponent’s basket. But there was a snag – retrieving the ball after each score proved cumbersome until a hole was introduced at the basket’s bottom.

Interestingly, the sport’s evolution ties in with player height. If we examine basketball history from the 1950s onwards, there’s a noticeable trend: players grew taller, barring a dip around the 1980s. This surprising shift stems from an alteration in scoring rule.

A Game-Changing Shift: From Two Points to Three

Around the 1980s, a rule change occurred in basketball – introducing a three-point line, approximately 22 feet from the hoop. Scoring from this line would yield three points instead of the traditional two. This modification revolutionised the game and, unexpectedly, impacted player heights.

Analysing shooting accuracy, there’s a marginal 5-10% drop in accuracy beyond the 20-foot mark. Despite this decline, players strategically step back, trading a slight accuracy reduction for a significant points increase.

Applying Basketball Insights to Personalised Customer Engagement 

Parallels emerge between basketball’s evolution and customer relationship strategies. Just as basketball players traded in accuracy reduction for a higher return, marketers should do the same when it comes to personalisation.

When designing loyalty programs or personalised interactions, aligning with the brand’s ethos and understanding customer journeys is crucial. Personalisation doesn’t always necessitate hyper-segmentation; sometimes, authenticity resonates more profoundly with customers.

Key Pillars of Effective Personalisation

Three fundamental pillars underpin effective personalisation strategies: understanding the customer, building trust, and reinforcing brand identity. Technology plays a supporting role, not the lead, in this journey.

1. The Customer

Customer-centricity is vital to a brand’s sustainable growth. Think about what your customer is trying to do, the motivation behind them taking specific actions, and the obstacles they face in their journey with you. Let in-depth customer data and analytics be your guide here.

Your aim should be to make the journey frictionless for them and to meet them wherever they are. Be it WhatsApp, Email, In-App or any other.

2. The Brand

While talking about Aesop, Gian mentioned that they didn’t personalise communication too much to stay true to the brand. Because the brand became much more authentic to the customer when they spoke about their brand values and culture. This resulted in better returns compared to what a highly segmented and personalised campaign might have given.

Understand the true essence of your brand, then ask yourself if you should personalise.

3. The Trust

Think about ethics and privacy from a customer point of view. Get your board involved here, ask them to think about the quality of the data they’d like to collect, get them to ponder over what ethically collected data could do for your brand perception and value.

Gianfranco’s rich but actionable session impressed attendees and keyed up for the next session, the fireside chat with Liz Earle!

Want to hear more from Gianfranco and his take on how “Personalisation without purpose is pointless?” check out his webinar here!

Lessons Learned and Strategies Defined

My experiences have crystallised into guiding principles for successful customer engagement. Balancing technological advancements with customer needs, understanding the evolving customer journey, and aligning loyalty programs with brand values remain paramount.

In conclusion, just as basketball continually refines its rules, customer engagement strategies must adapt to unforeseen shifts. The essence lies not in a singular approach but in a dynamic, adaptable methodology tailored to brand identity and customer aspirations.

Understanding, trust, and authenticity will perennially be the cornerstones of effective customer relationship management, resonating across the ever-evolving landscape of business and customer interactions.

Read more session recaps from other exciting discussions at our #GROWTH Summits 🚀:

• Liz Earle MBE Shares Success Story and Advice at #GROWTH Summit London 2023

• Customer Journey to Nowhere: The Funny Side of Customer Engagement With Marketoonist

• Driving Customer Engagement With Hyper-Personalization and Automation

• Building the Modern Martech Stack: The Ins and Outs, and Role AI Will Play

• The #GROWTH Story of Poshmark

The media and entertainment industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years. From traditional outlets to digital media and online streaming services, the increasing number of channels has resulted in more viewership and screen time. According to projections, the total revenue in the entertainment segment was to reach US$27.86bn in 2022. Expectations are that the industry will show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2022-2027) of 10.50%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$48.76bn by 2027.

Consumers, too, now have an ever-growing number of connected devices. They have a constant proliferation of channels and platforms to a point where experts have coined the term “ATAWAD,” which stands for “Any Time, Anywhere, Any Device,” to describe the consumption of content today. Consumers are gaining more control over how and when they experience media and the content itself.

However, as content consumption becomes increasingly complex and rapidly evolving, media and entertainment companies are faced with highly competitive and uncertain markets. As a result, brands are seeking ways to reduce operating costs while generating more revenue from content delivery.

‘Personalization’ has become the new tool for media and entertainment companies to provide more specific content to their customers. The results have been incredible too, with personalization programs exceeding targets and expectations internally across customer lifetime value, cost savings, and revenue (72% each). Customers seem to align with this strategy as well, as long as firms effectively address privacy needs.

MoEngage’s website personalization provides media and entertainment companies with a tailored customer experience for each individual customer, resulting in increased engagement, revenue, and customer retention. This is achieved through personalized content recommendations, specific promotions and offers, and insights into customer behavior and preferences.

Learn how Airtel Wynk Music reactivated 44% of dormant customers using insights-led engagement here.

Here is how MoEngage’s website personalization can benefit media and entertainment companies:

• Personalized content recommendations: MoEngage’s personalization algorithms analyze each customer’s behavior on the website to recommend content that is most likely to interest them. This helps media and entertainment companies promote new content to their audience, resulting in increased engagement and views
• Customized promotions and offers: MoEngage can help companies create personalized promotions and offers according to each customer’s interests and past behavior on the website. This helps increase conversions and revenue for the company
• Improved customer retention: By providing a personalized experience, media and entertainment companies can increase customer loyalty and retention. MoEngage’s personalization can help identify customers who are at risk of churning and provide customized offers and recommendations to keep them engaged
• Better customer insights: MoEngage’s personalization algorithms can provide media and entertainment companies with insights into customer behavior and preferences. Companies can make data-driven decisions about content creation and promotion

Let’s have a detailed look at some of the business use cases of MoEngage’s personalization offerings for the media and entertainment industry.

Website Personalization Use-cases For Media and Entertainment Brands

Free trial to a paid subscription

Journey Stage: Acquisition and onboarding

Goal: To engage the customers and demonstrate the value of a paid subscription. Nudge them with personalized web messaging enticing them to subscribe

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

• By tailoring pricing and promotions to each individual customer’s behavior and interests, media companies can increase the likelihood of a customer converting to a paid subscription
• Personalized nudges can help companies keep customers engaged and interested in their content, which can lead to increased customer retention and loyalty

Subscription Retention and Subscription Reactivation

Journey Stage: Growth and upsell

Goal: Increase renewal rates among existing subscribers and increase re-subscribers.

Scenarios and solutions

Benefits

• Long-term renewal discounts can also incentivize customers to renew their subscriptions for a longer period, which can increase customer lifetime value and revenue for the media company
• Personalized recommendations will improve customer engagement and retention in the long run

Learn how BookMyShow achieves hockey-stick growth on its OTT Platform through insights-led engagement here.

Subscription Upgrade/ Add-on Pack Upsell

Journey Stage: Retain and grow

Goal: Upgrade subscription tier. purchase add-on packs

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

• By engaging customers with personalized offers and discounts on add-on packs, companies can improve customer engagement and loyalty
• Provide a more enjoyable and personalized experience to your customers as well as get additional revenue with higher subscription fees

Improve Content Consumption

Journey Stage: Retain and grow

Goal:

– Bring the customers back into the funnel and improve engagement
– Act on drop-offs and help customers get the most out of their content experience

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

• By showing that they understand their customers’ viewing habits and preferences, media companies can improve customer retention and ensure lower drop-offs
• Continuous and timely nudges mean improved engagement from the customer

Content Recommendations

Journey Stage: Post-purchase

Goal: Improve customer experience, LifeTime Value (LTV), and loyalty

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

•  More views and watch time leading to improved Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
• Increased repurchase rate with more relevant recommendations
• Better customer experience with improved content recommendations

Experiment With Personalized Content and Offers

Journey Stage: Acquisition, retention, and growth

Goal: To run experiments and arrive at the best-performing page variations, pricing strategies, etc, for different customer segments

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

• In-depth customer insights and analytics
• Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of different marketing tactics
• Improved future decisions backed by data

Personalize Website Experiences for Customers Based on In-session Attributes

Journey Stage: Retain and grow

Goal: Create context-rich experiences that translate into higher retention and conversion

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

• Showcasing different content at different times of the day can help optimize the website for maximum engagement and conversion rates
• More website visits with localized content recommendation
• Helps increase engagement and retention by providing customers with a personalized experience that aligns with their interests and daily routine

Dynamic Pricing

Journey Stage: Acquisition and conversion

Goal: To improve website conversions

Scenario and solutions

Benefits

• Fewer drop-offs with more suitably priced subscription options
• Personalized pricing helps create sharper marketing campaigns, increasing the effectiveness of the marketing efforts and improving ROI
• Customers appreciate receiving tailored offers and pricing that match their preferences and needs, leading to higher satisfaction levels

Conclusion

The media and entertainment industry has grown tremendously in recent years, providing consumers with an ever-growing number of connected devices and channels to access content. Personalization has become an effective tool for media companies to provide more well-directed content to their customers and create a differentiating factor.

MoEngage’s website personalization algorithms provide a tailored customer experience for each individual customer. It provides personalized content recommendations, specific promotions and offers, insights into customer behavior and preferences, and better customer retention.

MoEngage can help media and entertainment companies with:

• Tailored website banners that display offers to upgrade subscriptions, specific to subscribers’ location
• A suggestion of content depending on a visitor’s previous listening activity, related items, or the most preferred category.
• Customers with different subscription plans, such as premium subscribers and lower-tier subscribers, can receive tailored website banners displaying customized offers that are specific to their subscription level
• Visual no-code editor to easily and quickly modify the layout of your website, including Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons, to display suggested banners and shows

MoEngage Personalize empowers you to achieve these objectives in a fast and efficient manner without the need for any coding. Do you want to explore how your brand can integrate Web Personalization? If you are an existing customer, please get in touch with your preferred customer success manager. If you are new to MoEngage, you can seek guidance from our experts here.

Bonus Reads

• Website Personalization Examples: How Are Leading Brands Doing It?
• Insight-Led Engagement: How Can Media & Entertainment Brands Engage and Retain Millions of Users Efficiently
• MoEngage Flows: Create Personalized Experiences With An Enterprise-Ready Automated Customer Journey Builder
• A-Z Guide on Media and Entertainment Mobile Marketing: Your Go-To Resource for Acquisition, Engagement, and Retention
• Implementing Website Personalization in 2023: Strategies, Use Cases, and Best Practices

Internet banking and electronic payments have become increasingly popular lately. 73% of consumers globally use online banking at least once a month. 38.4% of smartphone consumers make in-store payments at least twice a year. The total number of global online banking customers will exceed 3.6 billion by 2024.

Online banking has become popular because consumers love convenience, security, and the wide range of financial services available on their computers and smartphones. The adoption of digital forms of banking is now widespread, peaking in some northern European countries where the adoption is close to 100%.

Here are some of the key reasons why customers are increasingly preferring internet banking:

• Security Assured: Online banking is highly secure, as banks use encryption to protect client information and prevent security breaches
• Easy Access: Online banking allows for transactions anytime from the comfort of home, without the need to physically visit the bank
• No Hidden Fees: Making online transactions is convenient and does not involve hidden fees, only a nominal transaction convenience charge
• Convenience Guaranteed: Online banking eliminates the need to wait in long queues at the bank, making banking highly convenient

With digital finance on the rise, companies seek a differentiating factor to improve the customer experience and engagement on the apps/websites. To facilitate more digital transactions, focusing on one key differentiating factor, website personalization for BFSI brands, is critical.

Let’s read more about it and how MoEngage can supercharge these for you.

Website Personalization For BFSI Brands Based On Personalized Customer Experiences

Website personalization for BFSI brands entails improving the onboarding completion rates and minimizing drop-offs by welcoming customers and guiding them through the setup process is essential in building long-term customer relationships. Personalized messages allow the conversation to continue on other channels to bring back customers who dropped off.

For BFSI brands, this includes sending personalized messages such as bill payment notifications, and loan qualifications, or finding a nearby branch location based on previous transactions and browsing history, location, and using personalization best practices to win back your inactive or lost customers, boost customer engagement, and conversions.

A great way to do this is by letting an AI-powered platform, such as MoEngage through personalized offers, help provide predictive recommendations to stimulate upsells or cross-sells, and much more!

The Advantages Of Website Personalization With MoEngage For BFSI Brands

• Develop integrated reporting, evaluate customer actions, and respond immediately, all in one place
• Generate customer experiences that are customized and captivating
• Anticipate and stop customers from leaving your website or app
• Enhance customer involvement and boost the customer lifetime value

Let’s take a deep dive into the various use cases the MoEngage empowers for BFSI brands.

Website Personalization Use-cases For BFSI Brands

Onboarding and KYC

Benefits: 

• Personalization can help reduce friction in the sign-up process by pre-filling forms with known information
• Customized messages and offering help in improving app install rates and sign-ups

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Onboarding

Goal: To help new and existing customers complete their KYC / onboarding quickly

Scenarios and Solutions: 

Nudge Customers Towards First-use With Personalization

Benefits:

• More transactions mean more in-app engagement and an improved Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• Customized offers result in more visits and transactions on the company’s website/app
• Encourages first-time consumers to complete their KYC process and start transacting on your app/website

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Onboarding

Goal: Nudge customers toward activation

Scenario and Solution:

Create Tailored Experiences Based On Traffic Source

Benefits: 

• Targeted advertisements and relevant messaging on the landing page will improve on-site engagement and experience
• Pre-filled application details and exclusive offers can improve conversion rates

Below, is an example how Tata AIG personalizes their homepage based on UTM parameters. Depending on the user source, Tata AIG wants to changes the message on their homepage (for example – utm_source as google).

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Engagement and retention

Goal: Improve customer experience and create symmetric experiences

Scenarios and Solutions:

Engage Returning Visitors With Personalized Content

Benefits: 

• Offers and discounts on a particular offering can improve conversion rates on the app/website
• Offering free educational content will improve customer experience and boost overall engagement

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Engagement and retention

Goal: Improve customer experiences. Nudge towards activation/transaction

Scenarios and Solutions:

Encourage Existing Engagement With Website Personalization

Benefits: 

• Ongoing engagement can help nurture leads and build stronger relationships with potential customers, resulting in the final process of the loan
• Regular engagement can help keep your brand top of mind and encourage visitors to return to your site or app

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: ​​Reactivation

Goal: Complete purchase / submit the application

Scenarios and Solutions:

Upsell And Cross-sell Based On Customer Tier

Nudge customers to upgrade their accounts, apply for a higher-tier credit card, share exclusive loan offers, and check their credit scores.

Benefits: 

• Personalized offers will result in more visits and more conversions on the website
• Customers availing exclusive discounts might result in increased repurchase rates from the same card

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Retain and grow

Goal: To get customers to purchase additional products and services from the bank and encourage them to use their cards

Scenarios and Solutions:

Personalize Based On User Attributes

Benefits: 

• A more personalized experience enhances the visitor’s perception of your brand and builds loyalty over time
• Personalized communication based on specific groups and their intentions will increase engagement on your website

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Upsell, retain, grow

Goal: To get customers to find what they are looking for and get them to purchase additional products and services

Scenarios and Solutions:

Reduce Conversion Funnel Abandonment With Real-time Messaging

Benefits: 

• Continuous nudges and assistance will likely result in reduced drop-offs from your website/app
• Additional information and offers will improve on-site conversion

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Acquisition and retention

Goal: Improve on-site conversion and reduce site drop-offs

Scenarios and Solutions:

Product Recommendations

Create personalized product recommendations based on intent, account information, previous transactions, and the current context.

Benefits: 

• Tailor-made recommendation to new users helps improve conversion rates and reduces the Cost of Acquisition (CAC)
• By providing existing customers with favorable offers, organizations can increase the LifeTime Value (LTV) of customers

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Acquisition, upsell

Goals:

– Acquire new customers

– Upsell/cross-sell to existing customers

Scenarios and Solutions:

Self-Segmentation Surveys

Benefits: 

• Understanding the preferences of the customer helps organizations improve their website experience, thus increasing customer engagement
• Providing relevant offers means more conversions and reduced Cost of Acquisition (CAC)

How To Do It With MoEngage

Journey stage: Acquisition, onboarding

Goal: Improve customer acquisition and onboarding experience

Scenario and Solution:

Website personalization for BFSI brands is becoming increasingly important as it provides a way to tailor customer experiences, increase engagement, and improve customer satisfaction. Advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms enable financial institutions to anticipate the needs of their customers and provide them with relevant products and services.

With website personalization, banks and financial institutions can also improve their customer retention rates by predicting and preventing customer churn, ultimately driving increased customer lifetime value (LTV). Website personalization for BFSI brands is now a key differentiator for brands looking to stand out in a competitive marketplace and deliver superior customer experiences.

About MoEngage

MoEngage’s AI-driven, personalized messages include bill payment notifications, loan qualifications, and finding a nearby branch location. The platform helps banks to nudge new and existing customers towards activation, improve customer experience, and create symmetric experiences based on the traffic source.

Moreover, you can create highly targeted segments of customers that share a similar app or web behavior, such as completing an onboarding campaign or a bank transfer within the last week. We help you schedule and automate campaigns to reach your customers at the right time and right channel to drive optimal value and results.

To help you with this, MoEngage User Paths helps visualize how your customers interact with every brand touch point, from onboarding through engagement and growth. This helps you to spot friction areas and optimize your campaign’s performance and results.

MoEngage Personalize enables you to accomplish these goals quickly and efficiently without requiring any coding. Are you eager to discover how your brand can incorporate website personalization? If you’re a customer, please reach out to your favorite customer success manager. If you’re new to MoEngage, you can consult with our specialist here.

Bonus Reads

• What Is Conversational Commerce and How Can It Help Your Business?
• Website Personalization Examples: How Are Leading Brands Doing It?
• Personalization: Missing Ingredient of a Great Customer Experience Strategy
• MoEngage Flows: Create Personalized Experiences With An Enterprise-Ready Automated Customer Journey Builder
• [Customer Spotlight] How GIVA Recorded 120% Uplift in Conversions Using MoEngage’s Newly Launched Smart Recommendations!