Why is Personalization in Email Marketing So Important?
Let’s start with a basic principle: a generic email risks being ignored, while a tailor-made message can capture attention and create a deeper connection with the recipient, helping us achieve our business goals.
When our users receive an email, we have very little time to grab their attention and convince them to open it. If we succeed, we need to ensure they take the desired action.
Personalization in email marketing becomes a powerful ally because it allows us to create a more meaningful and engaging user experience, increasing the chances of our campaign’s success. By leveraging first-party data—information we’ve gathered through tracking and interaction with our content—we can achieve truly impactful personalization.
By using demographic, behavioral, and purchase data, we can send targeted messages that directly address the recipient’s interests and needs. This not only increases the chances of opens and clicks but also helps build trust and loyalty between the brand and the customer.
A personalized email marketing strategy improves not just campaign effectiveness but also customer satisfaction, making them feel special and leading to more sustainable results over time.
Here are the six strategies I use most often for personalization in email marketing:
Use the First Name Strategically
When thinking of personalization in email marketing, the first idea that often comes to mind is adding the recipient’s first name in the subject line or the opening of the email. However, if every email is built the same way, it can have the opposite effect—they’ll all look the same and lack true personalization.
Play around with the recipient’s name: sometimes place it at the beginning of a sentence, other times in the middle or at the end, or skip it altogether. This applies to both the subject and the email body.
Here’s an example where we tested the name at the beginning of the subject, the end of the preview, and the end of a sentence in the email:
Personalized Birthday Flow
Birthdate is another key data point for personalization in email marketing. It’s one of the most common strategies, but it’s often used in repetitive ways. Almost everyone receives discounts or promotions on their birthday, so why not stand out and use this data more creatively?
Try sending emails not just on the birthday but before or after it. For example, a clothing ecommerce could send an email a few days before suggesting an outfit for the birthday celebration:
Or how about an email arriving a week after, with the subject “Still celebrating?”
The element of surprise is sure to make an impact!
Leverage Locations in Your Emails
If your business hosts events, you can create targeted segments and send personalized emails based on where the events will take place. But there’s more: you can personalize the copy by using the recipient’s location to increase the level of personalization further.
For example, a subject line could be:
“{{ first_name|default:””}}, your fragrance will turn heads in {{ person.city }}.”
And if you don’t know the city? Here’s a script that accounts for that:
{% if person.city %}
{{ first_name|default:””}}, your fragrance will turn heads in {{ person.city }}!
{% else %}
{{ first_name|default:””}}, your fragrance will turn heads everywhere!
{% endif %}
Test it out and show me some examples by commenting on the post.
Behavioral Data: Powerful Allies for Personalization
Behavioral data refers to how users behave on the website: product categories viewed, items clicked, or added to the cart. Many email marketing tools allow you to create abandoned cart and checkout flows using these data points, but you can take it even further.
Use this data to create custom flows. One example could be a discovery kit flow, where I built a specific flow on Klaviyo to communicate the product better than with a standard abandoned checkout.
Another strategic way to use behavioral data is to incorporate it into the subject line of the first email in the browse-abandoned flow. This trick is useful because it allows you to vary the subject line with each send, making it always feel fresh.
Event Data and Promo Codes
Each user, as they join our email list, is at a different stage in their purchasing journey.
An example is promo codes: some users might have just received a welcome discount code, others might have already made a purchase and received a coupon for their next order, and others may have a coupon from an abandoned cart flow.
Save the last coupon the user received in a property and use this information to send personalized emails from customer care.
Personalized Emails Based on Purchases
Thanks to purchase data, you can offer related products based on customer preferences, creating highly personalized cross-sell opportunities. You can use this data immediately to suggest items the customer hasn’t considered or over time to improve the customer’s lifetime value by offering replenishments, especially for fast-consumable products.
Here are a few examples:
Conclusion
Personalization in email marketing is no longer just an option but a key factor in making email marketing truly effective.
With the strategies shared, you can improve your email open rates and conversions by offering your audience relevant, tailored content.
Have you already tried personalization techniques in your email marketing? Share your strategies in the comments, and let’s explore how to optimize our campaigns even further!