As we have noted before (see 1, 2, 3), customer personalization is an important tactic for retailers — both online and offline.

Recently, Neustar (a data-driven intelligence firm) published an interesting report on customer personalization:

“Customers expect it. Technology enables it. Brands who can deliver it are generating huge increases in ROI. Personalization has gone way beyond simply adding a customer’s name to a communication. Customers increasingly expect highly relevant content in the right channel at the right time, whether they’re on a brand’s Web site, a social network, or in their E-mail inbox. For brands, delivering this one-to-one experience at scale – to thousands, or hundreds of thousands of prospects and current customers – requires leveraging sophisticated data sets, processes, and platforms.”

“It’s no surprise that many marketers are struggling. In a recent survey by Digiday and Neustar of 100 digital media and marketing executives, more than half (53%) reported ‘always’ or ‘often’ struggling to personalize their marketing at scale. Marketers know they need to make their marketing personal, but aren’t sure how to do it at a scale that makes it cost-efficient. The challenges include data quality, difficulty of activation across online and offline channels, and a lack of understanding of the components of the process. [Our] A–Z deals with the latter.”

Click the image to download Neustar’s report.