By James Hill, CCO, EXTE
Personalisation has been a hot topic in digital advertising for a number of years, but it’s perhaps become more important than ever. Consumers have become accustomed to tailored experiences and now demand they be met with relevance. For brands, meeting consumers with personalised content means fostering deeper connections and ensuring a better return on ad spend.
However, advertisers face several challenges when it comes to personalisation.
Despite the progress that’s been made in digital advertising over the years, research has found that 56% of consumers continue to see ads that aren’t relevant, with just a fifth noticing an improvement in personalisation. Couple this with consumer concerns about how businesses retain and utilise their data, and advertisers face a real uphill battle to deliver personalisation while remaining privacy-conscious.
All is not lost though – there’s plenty that brands can do to strike a balance between hyper-personalisation and prioritising consumer privacy.
Too personal
Consumers want to receive relevant, personalised content. That doesn’t mean they wish to see content leveraging their personal data. Over-personalisation can be equally as damaging as, if not worse than, taking a broad-brush approach to digital advertising.
Too much personalisation, particularly if ads reference personal details the consumer didn’t explicitly share, creates discomfort for the individual and erodes any trust that may have been in place for the brand.
What’s more, advertisers have to make sure their campaigns aren’t “too keen.” There’s no need for somebody to be targeted with an ad immediately after browsing for a product or, worse still, after having already made the purchase. Consumers don’t appreciate the feeling of being surveilled.
The key to building consumer trust—and ultimately convincing them to make a purchase from the brand—is moving away from the belief that all data must be used and that this usage must happen in real time. A “target at all costs” mindset should be replaced with one that approaches personalisation with empathy and a commitment to the safety and respect of consumers.
Ads should exist to enhance the consumer’s experience, presenting how a product or service would be beneficial to them. That doesn’t require an excessive number of ads, or knowing the street they grew up on. Any content served by an advertiser should make the consumer feel like they are being assisted instead of harassed.
Keeping it respectful
Today, advertisers must be far more conscious of the data they choose to use and how they leverage it. As such, contextual advertising—which relies on no personal data at all—has grown in popularity.
Harnessing the power of real-time context enables brands to serve ads that resonate with the consumer in that very moment, without needing to know any details about the individual. Thanks to the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), the actual sentiment of a page can be analysed to serve hyper-relevant ads to consumers.
These ads can be even more personalised while respecting consumers’ wishes via first-party data. Information around purchase history or website activity can be leveraged to segment audiences based on their behaviours and deliver personalised experiences directly from previous interactions the brand has had with those consumers.
It’s also important that advertisers leverage the data they have to ensure their personalised messaging is culturally and emotionally sensitive and inclusive. In particular, brands should try to avoid stereotypes or anything deemed disrespectful.
If a brand wishes to utilise this data, it must be upfront with the consumer about its intentions. Digital marketing should be based entirely on trust between the parties. Of course, various privacy regulations in different markets must also be adhered to, and evidence of this adherence should be available to the public.
Staying within bounds
Even as third-party signals continue to disappear, brands must find ways to deliver personalised content to audiences. A transition to AI-backed cookieless solutions, such as contextual targeting and leveraging consented first-party data, is the key to achieving that.
Hyper-personalisation remains possible without having to follow consumers around the web. Their demands around relevant content and data privacy can be balanced in a way that is beneficial for both the brand and the consumer.
Serving consumers deeply personalised content has never been problematic; the issue has historically been the execution. Going forward, brands that get the execution right will benefit from the best outcomes.
Personalisation should be built on trust, respect, and value creation. The consumer must be free to make the choice on how they wish for their data to be used, and the brand needs to be transparent about its intentions.
Hyper-personalisation should exist to enhance the user experience, but brands need to be wary of how close they are to crossing the line.
