4 ways to add personalization to your emails right now

Why are marketers still struggling with email personalization? The biggest reason: Only 25% of them say they have all the data they need to personalize their campaigns. Email marketers in this boat are severely curtailed in optimizing growth opportunities no matter their industry. Ecommerce and CPG brands staring into the mosh pit of the holiday rush are doubly so.

From my experience running campaigns, the issue is often not their data or email tech stack but actually using what they have to full capability.

Yes, it’s getting late in the Q4 game, but there’s still time to execute some email personalization that will make a difference. In this article, I’ll tackle these four initiatives — with recommended first steps to help you get traction:

• Abandonment campaigns.
• Upsell campaigns.
• CPG segmentation.
• Loyalty campaigns.

Abandonment email campaigns

Assuming your site and buying experience are integrated with your email service provider (ESP), you’ve got lots of ways to automate emails to re-engage visitors if they fall into the categories of site abandonment — browse abandonment (e.g., they hit a product page) or cart abandonment. The more of these you can button up by Black Friday, the stronger the impact it’ll have on your revenue.

Think of these as hints and reminders (and possible deals) to entice customers who may have gotten distracted or need a little push. Many technical pieces are required, but I’ve worked with many clients who have all the set-up in place (or almost in place) and still aren’t leveraging abandonment campaigns. 

If your brand is open to discounts, offering them (free shipping, $10 off, etc.) with abandonment emails, especially for Black Friday/Cyber Monday can be highly effective. Many users get their carts ready to go and hope things turn out on sale.

If your brand is being cautious, try a simple reminder with the first email and then (if they don’t purchase) a discount in the second. Be strategic and run a few tests to pinpoint where the discount works hardest for you.

The first step. Start with setting up emails for cart abandonment. That API is easier to set up than site or browse abandonment. Evaluate your ESP and tech documentation and work with your tech team to set up an API call and build your email sequence.

Dig deeper: 5 tips for an effective holiday browse-abandonment program

Upsell email campaigns

This is more than just a “you might like {related product}” push. It’s the email equivalent of merchandising and understanding which complementary or accessory products would naturally fit for purchase. (Think: accent-color shoelaces with a new pair of sneakers or a seat with a toilet that doesn’t come with one.) This approach showcases customer and product understanding and is a potentially easy source of quick revenue wins.

It can be daunting to consider an approach with a vast catalog of products. If you’re in this boat, isolate your top products (three, five or 10 to start) and assess whether they have naturally complementary products to include in upsell campaigns. Even if your website’s product pages feature these as recommended products, emails can be an effective reminder and a way to expand on the reason to consider the extra purchase.

The first step. Start with one or two of your top products and set up a one-email follow-up as part of the post-purchase sequence. If you see promise, consider scaling to a wider set of products.

CPG audience segmentation

In email planning for our CPG clients, we’ve found the biggest key to success is good segmentation, whether it’s lifestyle segments (like a bachelor, family, mom on the go, etc.) or demographic-based segments. We have one dental-focused client for whom the easiest segment is whether or not they have kids; if they do, content tailored to dental health for kids’ and kids’ products works extremely well.

Regardless if the brand is CPG-only or a combination of CPG and ecommerce, segmentation is based on understanding your consumers: who they are and what they care about. If ecommerce is part of the picture, your job in email goes one step further than product discovery or education. You also have to provide an easy path to purchase.  

The first step: Identify your most fundamental audience segments. Aim for 3-4 audience groups to start. If you don’t have this information yet, consider sending a survey to your CRM base to gather information and, for new records, update your signup forms to capture information on the topics they’re most interested in.

Dig deeper: 6 key email programs to optimize before Q4

Loyalty email campaigns

Loyalty is relatively untapped territory in email campaigns. Many brands do loyalty well, but translating it into email has gaps. In email campaigns, test ideas like aligning a possible free product with their purchase history. Send reminders of refill products.

For instance, if you know a product generally needs a refill in three months, send a personalized email with a reminder. Even a reminder email when someone’s close to getting a discount (i.e., “You’re so close”) can work. Starbucks does a particularly good job with this. 

The first step. If you have a loyalty program in place, evaluate how you’re featuring it in email. Ensure there’s a signup path or a path to go to the app and feature the user’s loyalty status within the email header.

Dig deeper: Email marketers: Get more creative with customer data

Getting started

The first step is often the hardest one to take, but getting a toehold in email personalization will show immediate benefits and give you momentum to go further.

Get some initiatives rolling now, and I’m guessing you’ll be encouraged enough by the results to be a true personalization whiz by the time the 2024 holidays come around.