Personalization is no longer a luxury—it's an absolute necessity. Today’s shoppers expect their favorite brands to understand their preferences for products and offer tailored discounts to encourage them to complete a purchase. This expectation becomes significantly more important during the holiday season when brands compete for limited customer attention. Personalized touch points throughout the customer journey can be the difference between a sale and an abandoned checkout.

By grouping customers based on behavior and preferences, brands can deliver more relevant and targeted offers. This is the first step toward optimizing personalization efforts. However, segmentation is just the beginning. In a future article, we’ll explore advanced segmentation and how AI models can move brands beyond basic segments to deliver truly personalized 1:1 experiences at scale.

In the meantime, Monocle can help you drive results through personalized email, personalized SMS and tailored offers that enhance customer engagement and boost conversions.

Why Personalization Matters More Than Ever in Ecommerce

Let’s think about why online shopping has become as big of an industry as it has. When you walk into a big box retailer in person, you’re greeted with wall to wall options with no guide. Personalization simply does not exist and retailers are limited in their ability to highlight specific products or offers that resonate more with each customer.

Online, the experience is (or should be) different. Data gathered about individual shoppers allows brands to create meaningful connections, offering them products and content tailored to their preferences. This not only boosts customer engagement but also has a direct impact on average order value and lifetime value.

According to industry reports, businesses that personalize their messaging can see up to a 20% increase in sales during the holiday rush. With shoppers overwhelmed by endless promotions, not to mention popups and privacy notifications, it’s the brands that deliver timely, relevant offers that have the best chance at earning the customer’s hard earned attention.

Now that we’ve covered the value of personalization, let’s think through the path to implementation.

Practical Steps for Getting Started with Personalization

The stress of implementing personalization efforts might seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few practical steps to get started:

Start with Customer Data

In order to deliver effective personalization at scale, gathering and analyzing customer data is the starting point. Every data point throughout the customer journey is relevant and plays a critical role in understanding your customers better. This includes tracking previous purchases, website browsing behavior, and engagement with previous campaigns. With a solid data foundation, analyzing certain patterns and preferences will inform where personalization can be the most impactful.

Segment Your Audience

Once you have your data cleaned and analyzed, it’s possible to segment your customers. How should segmentation work? Depending on what you’re trying to personalize, you can segment an infinite number of ways. However segments including user behavior (completed a purchase or clicked on a landing page) and preferences (colors or flavors) or channel of acquisition are simple and straightforward options. Dividing your audience into smaller, more focused segments allows you to tailor your personalized offers and messaging for each segment, ensuring that your marketing campaigns are targeted and relevant.

Leverage Personalized Email and SMS

Now that the data is organized and segmented, you can craft personalized email and SMS campaigns for each individual segment. Personalization truly shines when an sms message to customers who have purchased a product in the last 30 days is uniquely different from an email to a first time customer sourced from a Tik Tok campaign. Writing unique copy with engaging offers combined with that message being delivered at the right moment will engage customers most effectively.

Focus on Retention

Now the hard work is complete and you can start optimizing for certain KPIs your brand wants to focus on. Personalization plays a critical role in retention efforts by creating experiences that keep customers coming back. Personalized follow-ups, special offers for your most loyal customers, or targeted SMS or emails will make your customers feel much more valued than a one-size-fits-all messaging approach.

Using Monocle to Maximize Your KPIs

Depending on the goal of each campaign, brands may prioritize different key performance indicators (KPIs). A one-size-fits-all approach to metrics tracking doesn’t exist, what matters most is alignment with your brand's current objectives.

For some brands, conversion rate is a top priority—focusing on maximizing the number of visitors who make a purchase. Others may prioritize average revenue per user (ARPU), aiming to increase the amount spent per customer, which can be critical for driving profitability during peak seasons.

Alternatively, some brands focus on preserving brand equity, choosing to maintain premium pricing or exclusive offers to ensure long-term customer loyalty. Still, other brands may prioritize increasing margins, particularly if they’re in a price-competitive market where keeping costs low and optimizing discounts is crucial.

Whatever KPIs your brand prioritizes, it’s crucial to track and analyze the results to optimize future campaigns. By continuously measuring performance, whether it's conversion rate, ARPU, or brand equity, you can fine-tune your strategies and ensure long-term success.

Winning with AI-Driven Personalization This Holiday Season

Monocle’s AI-driven tools make ecommerce personalization accessible, even for brands with limited resources or expertise. By analyzing customer data and automating the delivery of personalized experiences, Monocle can help your brand optimize its holiday campaigns and drive customer retention for long-term success.

Stay tuned for a future blog post where we’ll explore advanced personalization strategies. While segmentation and tailored offers are a great start, user-level personalization takes it further by delivering hyper-targeted 1:1 experiences that respond to individual behaviors in real time showing how these advanced techniques can significantly improve customer retention and drive even greater revenue.