• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, December 23, 2015

According to SAP Hybris, presenting the findings of a study conducted by Forrester incorporating the evolution of personalization from push messaging to one-to-one personal customer experiences, there is a distinct gap between consumers’ expectations of personalized marketing and what marketers are actually delivering.

61% of consumers are less likely to make future purchases following less-than-satisfactory personalized experiences. 91% of marketers are prioritizing personalization but only 16% have the ability to deliver real-time, behavior-based marketing across channels, says the report.

In summary, the study findings reveal:

• While 66% of marketers rate their efforts at personalization as “very good” or “excellent,” just 31% of consumers report companies are consistently delivering personalized, cross-channel experiences
• 40% of consumers say most promotions don’t deliver anything of interest
• 44% of consumers say they receive too many offers and promotions
• 37% of consumers say they delete most email offers and promotions without reading them
• 40% of consumers have unsubscribed or opted-out because they feel overwhelmed
• Among those consumers reporting less-than-satisfactory personalized experiences, 61% said they were “somewhat” or “much less likely” to take advantage of future offers

Because consumers are sharing so much personal data with brands, they expect transactional perks and improved customer experience in return, says the report. While most marketers seek to improve personalized customer experiences from this customer data, their strategies are ineffective. According to the study:

• 70% of consumers surveyed said they are aware that companies use personal information to send them targeted offers
• 74% of consumers are “somewhat” or “very comfortable” with companies using data about them to provide personalized experiences
• While 66% of marketers use demographics to create targeted content offers and 44% say they use demographic categories to create at least some level of personalization for unidentified prospective customers, just half are using more sophisticated methods, such as leveraging data extracted from loyalty programs (52%) or behavior-based data (48%)
• 91% of marketers surveyed are prioritizing improving customer experience through personalization over the next year

Charles Nicholls, SVP Product Strategy, Marketing Solutions at SAP Hybris, says “…consumers today are bombarded with… marketing messages… the vast majority… are irrelevant… break through the noise and engage with customers on a one-to-one basis… leverage real-time signals of customer… “

Despite the challenges marketers face in delivering contextual experiences, some are beginning to see signs of success. The key has been in centralizing customer data to capture real-time customer intent. The study findings support this approach.

• While only 16% of marketers surveyed currently have the capability to capture customer intent and deliver real-time, behavior-based marketing across all channels, an emerging set of more sophisticated marketers are starting to get it right when it comes to contextualized marketing efforts
• Of the 22% of marketers surveyed who each have a single customer database, 70% reported the data they collected was “very useful” in creating a single view of the customer, compared with just 52% of those without a unified database

Armed with this valuable data across the customer journey, these marketers are 16 to 30% more likely to incorporate real-time marketing across multiple channels

For additional information from SAP Hybris, please visit here.