45 stats on why personalization is important in digital marketing

Netflix, Amazon, Stripe, and Segment are just some of the companies that use personalization today to drive business results. Consumers and B2B customers both already expect personalized marketing. Here's 45 statistics on why personalization is important in marketing.

These stats will help you get started if you're considering making your business more personal. They will also help you champion personalization in your organization. Companies that do ignore personalization risk becoming obsolete fast in the changing markets. 

While many of the statistics here are from B2C markets, it's important to keep in mind that the buyer expectations have carried over to B2B markets because a consumer doesn't forget that they work for a company when they go home.

"Personalization plays a critical role across the full customer lifecycle—acquisition, customer engagement, basket size, frequency of purchase, cross-sell, and/or churn prevention, among other things" ─Julien Boudet, McKinsey

Personalization in B2C and B2B digital marketing

Prioritization and investment

• 95% of retailers state personalization as top strategic priority (64% saying it's a TOP 3 priority).  ─McKinsey
• 36% of retailers state that personalization is necessary just to keep up with industry changes. ─McKinsey
• Only 15% of CMOs believe their company is on the right track with personalization ─McKinsey
• 89% of digital businesses are investing in personalization ─Forrester
• 2/3 of marketers expect investments in personalization to show results in less than a year. ─Gartner
• 42% of B2B marketers report their marketing efforts are not fully personalized. ─Folloze
• 39% of B2B marketers say their personalized marketing strategy is only somewhat advanced, while 15% say their personalization strategy is not at all advanced.

Revenue impact

• 15% of retailers saw 100-300% increase in new customer conversions. 41% of retailers saw 50-100% increase in cross-selling revenue. ─McKinsey
• Companies that personalize their content can increase revenue 10% or more in retail. ─McKinsey
• Offering helpful messages requires a depth of customer insight that can increase brand intent, purchase and repurchase rates, and cart size up to 20%. ─Gartner
• 44% of consumers say they are likely to do repeat purchases after a personalized shopping experience. ─Segment
• 49% of shoppers have bought a product they initially didn't intend to buy after a personalized recommendation. Meanwhile, 40% say they bought something more expensive because of a personalized experience. ─Segment
• Personalizing web experiences creates a 19% uplift in sales. ─Instapage
• 87% of marketers report a measureable lift from personalization, while 54% of marketers report a lift of more than 10%, and 13% report more than 30%. ─Evergage
• 21% of retailers saw customer traffic double, while 59% saw traffic increase 25-50%. ─McKinsey

Customer experience and brand

• "74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized." ─Instapage
• Consumer expectations drive personalization efforts in retail and 46% of retailers see personalization as a way to be more customer-centric. ─McKinsey
• 71% of consumers feel frustrated by the lack of personalization when shopping. ─Segment
• 78% of customers experience mass marketing as frustrating. ─McKinsey
• 52% of consumers and 65% of business buyers are likely to switch brands/vendors if a company doesn't personalize their communications to them. ─Salesforce
• 54% of B2B buyers want personalized recommendations across all interactions with a company. ─Accenture and SAP
• 74% of millenials are frustrated with brands that send irrelevant and generic emails. ─SmarterHQ
• 55% of marketers say increased visitor engagement and customer experience are the top benefits of personalization. ─Evergage
• 98% of marketers afree personalization helps them create a better customer relationship. 74% saying it has strong or extreme impact. ─Evergage

Budget efficiency and cost-effectiveness

• 10% of retailers believe personalized marketing can also help them achieve higher marketing budget efficiency. ─McKinsey
• According to McKinsey, personalization can create 5-8x improvement in return on marketing spend. ─McKinsey
• Personalization can make marketing 10-20% more efficient by saving costs. ─McKinsey
• "Personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%" ─McKinsey
• Account-based marketing (ABM) ─ a subcategory of personalized marketing ─ has been reported to have somewhat higher or much higher ROI than any other marketing initiatives. ─Alterra Group
• Personalization can increase marketing spend effiency by 30%. ─Adweek

Challenges

• 67% of retailers state gathering, integrating, and synthesizing data needed for personalization as the greatest challenge. ─McKinsey
• 41% of retailers state delivering personalized marketing was hindered by finding the right solutions parner. ─McKinsey
• Consumer brands risk losing 38% of their customers to poor personalization that feels "creepy", meaning the message is too personal. ─Gartner
• Marketing leaders also report that 78% of them struggle to scale personalization, partly due to a lack of key competencies in the organization. ─Gartner
  • These competencies include understanding consumers' microbehaviors (data analysis and empathy) and producing versioned content (content creation), and sharing made decisions with other stakeholders (cross-discipline communication).
• 65% of marketers also "feel overwhelmed by the need to create more content to support personalization".  ─Gartner
• 54% of B2B marketers believe personalization is harder for B2B than B2C. ─Folloze