Personalization
Definition
Tailoring marketing messages and website experiences to individual users based on their behavior and preferences.
Example Use Case
An e-commerce site recommends products based on a customer's past purchases.
Personalization adapts a message or experience to what is known about the recipient, rather than showing everyone the same thing. Even simple versions — using a first name, showing content related to what someone just read, or recognising a returning customer — measurably improve relevance.
The signals available range from coarse to fine: declared preferences, past purchases, browsing behaviour, and the context of the current visit. Which to use depends on what the decision requires. Recommending a product from browsing history is straightforward; adapting pricing or offers to inferred intent is a much heavier decision that invites scrutiny.
Done badly it is worse than no personalisation at all. Wrong assumptions, repeated messaging based on a single interaction, and personalisation that feels like surveillance all erode trust. Let people see why they are being shown something, make the default sensible, and treat the whole area as one where restraint is a feature. See hyper-personalization and dynamic content.
