Consumer expectations are changing, with over 80% of customers expecting personalized marketing recommendations from brands. Logically enough, most marketers see increased personalization as their top priority, followed closely by increasing automation. Paradoxical as it may seem at first, there is no real contradiction between the two – personalization and automation can work together, but only as long as marketers strike the right balance.
Relying on automation alone compromises customer experience, and alienates leads from brands. Lack of automation slows the processes down and increases the chances of human error. At the same time, personalization is key to successful marketing campaigns. Over 70% of consumers indicate that businesses they deal with must recognize their interests.
In contrast to that, over half of consumers still feel that brands treat them like numbers rather than individuals. The trend is most clearly seen in sensitive areas like customer support but is also quite evident in irrelevant marketing materials that alienate leads and decrease ROI. In some cases, overreliance on robotic, non-tailored interactions can cost brands their existing clients. At the same time, too much personalization can give off a stalking vibe, especially if leads do not fully understand how their data is collected, stored, and managed.
So, finding that golden balance between automation and personalization is the key to successfully promoting a business and building genuine trust with your audience. Several strategies have already proven effective in that, so let’s discuss them in more detail below.
Segment Your Audience and Personalize Content
All successful marketing campaigns start with audience segmentation. By now, it should be clear that sending the same automated message to everyone does not work. While it’s all right to have more or less identical email flows (welcome email, thank you for purchase, abandoned cart, etc.), most email marketing materials must be tailored to each user’s demographics and behavioral data. Based on different estimates, segmented emails get up to 65% higher open rate.
Still, automation plays a crucial part in this process. Even while email contents should be based on behavioral data, i.e., purchase or browsing history, regular automated sequences are designed with lead nurturing in mind.
Here’s how Blinklist, an app offering short book summaries, urges new users to go premium – by offering them weekly freebies based on their previous reading history.
Similarly, any e-commerce business might set up an automated email sequence for previous customers with a gentle “we miss you” note and a customized product selection based on their past purchases or browsing history. Both can be automated, but the actual messaging is personalized to different recipient groups. Segmentation prevents the classic automation mistake of treating all customers the same – and the trick is to create as many narrowly segmented groups as possible.
Leverage AI for Scalable Personalization
Creating carefully segmented recipient groups used to be a challenge a few years back, but today, AI successfully copes with the task. AI-driven tools can help deliver quality personalization to complement marketing automation. AI works great with inserting personalized product recommendations, content, or offers into email workflows. Besides, AI can analyze a visitor’s browsing behavior and automatically show relevant products or create personalized email subject lines.
Additionally, AI can be beneficial with A/B testing and optimizing send times for each user. Both are designed to make campaigns more personal and context-aware – even though the actual campaigns remain fully automated. AI integration ensures that each customer receives different, customized messages that look and feel hand-picked.
Maintain Human Touchpoints Where It Matters
Not every interaction should be automated. Identify key moments in your customer journey where a human touch can make a big difference, and intentionally keep those personal. For example, for a high-value lead, an automated email sequence might trigger an alert for a sales rep to call or send a one-on-one message personally.
In customer support, it makes sense to have a live agent if an AI chatbot fails to resolve an issue. Many customers still crave human empathy – recall that 59% of consumers already feel that businesses are over-relying on AI and are losing the human touch. To address this, blend automation with humanity: use automation to handle the initial, simple sequences, like welcome and thank you emails, as well as standard seasonal offers. Here is a perfectly acceptable example from a trip operator – it reminds all the recipients that spring could be an excellent time for a new trip, even a short one.
It’s also ok to rely on AI for collecting and analyzing info because modern algorithms have grown very good at structuring largely unstructured data. Still, involving human staff for complex or sensitive cases is a must for any business that wants to keep it ‘human.’ Small touches like a personalized note from a sales rep or a thank-you call post-purchase can turn an automated process into a warm experience. The idea is to let automation handle the heavy lifting while humans provide oversight and personal care when needed.
Use Data to Personalize (but Don’t Get Creepy)
By now, it should be clear that effective personalization depends on quality data. However, one should always comply with data privacy laws in your area – any collection of customer data should be open, transparent, and ethical. Similarly, customers who agree to receive your promo materials must always be able to unsubscribe and delete all previously collected data.
Once the ethical basics are covered, marketers can (and should) use the behavioral data in their automated workflows. For example, tracking what content a user engages with can help adjust future messages. This practice is often called adaptive or triggered automation. Suppose a subscriber never clicks on your newsletter sections about Topic A but often clicks on Topic B. In that case, your email automation can start featuring Topic B more often, perhaps even discarding Topic A altogether.
This kind of data-driven personalization makes customers feel understood without overstepping boundaries. This way, customers understand why they receive the messages they receive, so the privacy norms are not violated. Besides, it’s a bright example of an automation that feels helpful rather than invasive. Back in 2022, the vast majority of customers wanted to understand how their data is collected, and according to the same report by McKinsey, people welcome recommendations from brands when these recommendations are tailored to their specific needs and interests. In the last few years, this trend has become even more obvious.
So, using factual data like client preferences and purchase history to customize communications is a win-win strategy for both. The more your automation is fueled by accurate customer insights, the more “human” and relevant it will appear.
Test, Monitor & Refine the Balance
Achieving the right mix of automation and personalization is not a one-and-done task; this process requires constant adjustment. Monitor customer feedback and engagement metrics to see if your campaigns are hitting the mark. High unsubscribe rates or low engagement might indicate your automated content isn’t personalized enough (or is sent too frequently). At the same time, overly manual processes slow down lead progress through the marketing funnel or, worse, let them slip through the funnel cracks.
So, run regular A/B tests using various levels of personalization in different campaigns. For example, test a personalized email against a more generic one and measure the difference in response. Don’t overlook this step because many companies have already found that they have overestimated how personal their marketing felt. Curiously, around 85% of businesses think they’re providing a personalized experience, but only 60% of customers agree with that statement.
Ideally, marketers should take nothing for granted. The goal is to ask: does this automated message feel like it was meant for this lead? If not, tweak it. Small businesses can also solicit direct feedback via surveys or personal outreach and then use that input to fine-tune their automation rules. In fact, even corporate giants rely on customer surveys to complement their AI-powered data-collecting efforts. Here is just one of the recent examples from Amazon:
At first, surveys may seem like a lot of work. But you can also treat this strategy as an investment: use analytics to find data AI cannot collect and leverage it in your further marketing efforts.
Conclusion
By combining these strategies, marketers can leverage the benefits of both approaches. The main purpose of automation is to ensure effortless campaign scalability and quick distribution of customized messages to relevant user groups. Personalization, on the other hand, can ensure customers no longer feel like numbers. The main idea is to keep the processes automated but ensure the feeling email campaigns deliver are personal.
Striking this balance leads to what every business seeks: stronger relationships and increased customer loyalty. Companies that get it right achieve higher ROI and boost their chances of building genuine loyalty – something we already discussed in more detail in this blog post. Read it for more email retention strategies, and stay tuned for more industry updates on our blog.
