Personalization in Marketing: What It Is and How to Start
A practical guide to marketing personalization: segmenting customers, the data you need, sample messages, and privacy under PDPA.
Think of the coffee shop near your office where the staff remember you order a less-sweet latte every morning. When new beans arrive, they suggest you try them without pushing. You feel the shop knows you. Personalization in marketing tries to create that feeling for many customers through data and digital tools, without making customers feel watched.
What personalization is
Personalization means adjusting messages, offers or experiences to each customer group or individual based on what you know about them, such as past purchases, interests or life stage. The goal is not putting the customer's name in an email subject line, but sending what fits their needs at the right time.
Levels of personalization
Level 1: Segmentation
Split customers into broad groups, such as new customers, regulars and lapsed customers, and send each group a different message. Small teams can do this right away with LINE OA or a standard email tool.
Level 2: Behaviour-based
Send messages based on what customers do, such as adding to cart without paying, viewing the same category repeatedly, or reaching the usual repurchase time for a regular item. You need a system that tracks behaviour and supports automation.
Level 3: Real-time individual
The website or app shows different products and content to each person, usually with recommendation systems or AI. It needs a lot of data and more investment, and is not necessary for every business.
The data you need
- Data customers give you: such as birthday, interests and preferred channel, through forms or surveys
- Purchase data: what they buy, how often and when they last bought
- Behaviour data: pages viewed, messages opened, links clicked
Start with data you already have. Most online shops have enough purchase data to segment immediately; they just have not used it yet.
Sample personalized messages
- New customer after a first purchase: Thank you for ordering our sunscreen. We recommend applying it a little before going out in the sun. If you have questions about using it, just message us.
- Customer due to repurchase a regular item: The coffee beans you ordered last time are probably running low. Would you like us to send a new batch?
- Lapsed customer: It has been a while. We have new items in the category you liked; take a look at this link.
Notice that every message is useful to the customer before it sells anything, rather than just adding a discount.
Skills marketers need for personalization
This work needs more than creativity. You need to read customer data, segment from an Excel file or CRM system, write several message versions while keeping the brand voice, and set up A/B tests to see which message really works. If you are job hunting in marketing, a sample campaign where you segmented customers and measured results makes a far better interview story than saying you managed a page.
Good personalization makes customers feel cared for, not followed.
Cautions
- Privacy: collecting and using personal data must follow Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). State your purpose clearly and ask for consent where needed. For legal details, consult a professional
- Knowing too much: messages that reference behaviour in too much detail make customers uncomfortable
- Wrong data: sending a new-customer promotion to loyal customers hurts goodwill, so check your segments before every send
- Too complex for the team: a system nobody maintains will keep sending outdated messages
How a small team can start
- Pull your customer list and split it into 3 groups: new, regular and lapsed
- Write one message per group that genuinely addresses that group's needs
- Send through channels customers already use, such as LINE OA or email
- Measure against a single message sent to everyone, for example open rates and repeat purchases
- Once it works, add behaviour-based messages one at a time
To understand customers before segmenting, read building a customer persona and CRM for marketers. If you want to learn digital marketing systematically, browse partner courses.