Why context matters as much as data in personalization

Personalization is often treated like a data problem. Do you have enough attributes? Are your segments sophisticated enough? Is your tech stack capable of supporting it?

While those questions matter, the secret sauce is understanding the context behind a person’s interaction with your brand at a given moment. A frequent traveler might visit an airline’s website one day to research a family vacation. The next time they see, they might be booking a flight for work. Their attitudinal profile hasn’t changed, but what their context — and therefore what they want from you — has.

The real work of personalization begins when you marry behavioral segments with specific contexts. We call these scenarios, and they’re the bridge between knowing your customer and actually serving them.

Scenario-based design amplifying personalized experiences

Scenarios connect behavioral segments with specific, real-world contexts, describing a clear situation, what someone is trying to do and what’s likely to happen next. They’re intentionally specific and deterministic, mapping decision points and potential pathways.

In a retail example, a business might focus on a customer trying to return an online purchase in-store, mapping out two paths — one before the brand’s return window has technically closed and another after the return window has closed. Regardless of segment, the intended result is the same because the context is the same. 

In both scenarios, you want to think about how each of your behavioral segments would react and what information they’d need to feel comfortable moving forward. The goal is to design a path to the intended result that’s as frictionless as possible. The way each moment is delivered — or, perhaps, even how many moments there are — changes based on the segment.

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On an operations level, each scenario branch has the potential to introduce the need for new processes, new content and sometimes new channels or tools. These are mapped and documented. They become part of the holistic design.

Dig deeper: AI’s personalization magic starts with the data you can’t see

From theory to practice: Running a scenario workshop

How do you actually build these scenarios? In my work, I start with workshops that bring together a cross-functional team that understands your business, your customers and your operational realities. My team creates 5-10 strawman scenarios and brings them to the workshop. Together, we walk through each one, evaluating accuracy, frequency and impact.

Some scenarios get refined. Others get cut entirely. The goal isn’t to cover everything. It’s about focusing on the moments that will have a real impact on your customers and your business. Ultimately, you have to prioritize. Select no more than three to start. Then the real work begins.

Here’s a simple view of the process:

• Start mapping: For each scenario, you blueprint the as-is experience, the default way things work today. You document every step from the customer’s perspective. What do they see? What do they do? Where do they get stuck and why?
• Identify opportunities within the current experience: Where are the gaps? Where does the experience break down? Where could you add value, remove friction or anticipate a need before the customer even realizes it?
• Design the to-be experience: Start with the ideal foundational experience — the default. Once you have the default experience, start layering in your segments. Within any given scenario, different segments will need other things.
• Stress test it: You don’t just design in a vacuum. You prototype, interview customers by segment and validate your assumptions against real behavior. You’re looking for proof that the experience you’re designing actually resonates.

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Don’t boil the ocean: Prioritize the moments that matter 

Not every scenario can launch at once. Once you’ve mapped out your to-be experiences, you need to prioritize. What’s internally feasible immediately vs down the road? What level of effort is required? What’s the timeline? And, critically, what’s the consumer appetite for this change?

You also need to define success. How will you know this scenario-based personalization is working? If your call center is fielding 100 calls a day from customers who can’t figure out how to return something in-store, maybe the goal is to cut that to 50.

You build your success metrics around real outcomes, not vanity metrics. Did they engage with the message about return policies? Did they complete the return without needing support? Did they come back and buy again? Any of those outcomes can be deemed a success, depending on the goal.

Customers engaged via active, context-driven personalization are 2.3 times more likely to confidently complete critical purchase decisions, according to Gartner research. That kind of improvement translates directly to customer satisfaction and marketing ROI. 

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The operational reality of personalization at scale 

Here’s where it can get hard. When you’re talking about hundreds of scenarios and five or more segments per scenario, you’re building a complex system. That system requires real operational muscle.

On the content side, you need to shift tone, messaging and visuals to match different segments and scenarios, which isn’t a small lift. It might also require operational changes beyond marketing. Maybe you’ve never allowed online orders to be returned in stores, so now you need to change a policy. You need to train staff to facilitate those returns. You need to update your point-of-sale system.

You might discover that, to deliver personalized experiences at this level, you need technical infrastructure you don’t currently have. Real-time data becomes critical. You might need a customer data platform to unify information across systems. You might need SMS capabilities or sentiment listening technology for your call center. Some segments or scenarios might surface needs that are entirely specific to them, including new data sources, integrations or tools.

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Personalization isn’t a marketing exercise. It touches operations, technology, data management, training, policy and more. It requires cross-functional collaboration and a willingness to change how your business actually works, not just how it talks to customers.

McKinsey research shows that personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs by up to 50%, lift revenues by 5 to 15% and increase marketing ROI by 10 to 30%. But the key stat is this: Companies with faster growth rates derive 40% more of their revenue from personalization than their slower-growing counterparts. The difference isn’t just doing personalization but doing it right, at scale, with the operational and technical infrastructure to support it.

Why it’s worth the effort 

I know this sounds like a lot. It is. The good news is that we now have AI and machine learning that can help pattern match, test, iterate and respond more quickly and with greater accuracy. Research from Forrester shows that journey-centric organizations are now managing journeys at scale, using AI-enabled tools to assess impact, prioritize scenarios and aid in scenario planning. And, of course, AI will play a critical role in the content supply chain to help create and vet variations of message and content. These gaps were previously barriers to even attempting this type of personalization.

But as I’ve said before, you still need intelligent humans and a plan. Even with AI, there’s real work to be done. The alternative is to continue treating personalization as a surface-level tactic, swapping out a name in an email subject line and calling it a day. That approach doesn’t build trust. It doesn’t create loyalty. And increasingly, it doesn’t drive results.

When you design for context, when you build experiences around scenarios that reflect the reality of your customers’ lives, you’re doing something fundamentally different. You’re showing them that you see them, that you understand the complications, trade-offs and messiness of their experience. That creates emotional connection and drives long-term value.

Behavioral segmentation gets you to the door. Scenarios open it and invite your customer in. Together, they transform personalization from a buzzword into a business advantage.

Dig deeper: The overlooked infrastructure problem holding personalization back