Personalized digital experiences, pre-purchase, are key driver for new customers according to millions of customer interactions and survey of nearly 900 digital marketers

A new report released today, “The Value of Pre-Purchase Personalization,” finds that 78 percent of digital marketers rank personalization as one of the most critical tools for improving customer engagement, acquisition, and retention. The art of tailoring experiences to individual shoppers in real-time, before a purchase, is an increasingly critical element to 58 percent as 2024 approaches.

Conducted by Centerfield, a premier outcome-based marketing service for digital customer acquisition, the report found that personalizing the buyer journey from pre-purchase can improve conversion rates by as much as 37 percent. While a driver of transformative outcomes for brands, the practice presents challenges as 51 percent say insufficient resources, including budget, time and personnel are hurdles to drive personalization successfully at scale.

“The most important moments for converting a shopper into a customer occur between the initial interaction with digital assets and their first purchase,” said John Busby, chief marketing officer of Centerfield. “Experiences tailored in the moment, based on customer intent and context, very clearly lower costs and improve sales results.”

Based on hundreds of millions of first-party consumer engagements across every major marketing channel and a survey of nearly 900 digital marketers, the report identifies key insights including:

• Investment Surge: More than half of senior marketers – 58 percent – plan to invest in pre-purchase personalization in 2024; nearly eight-in-10 (78 percent) rank personalization very important.
• Adoption Barriers: Skill gaps hinder wider adoption as nearly half – 42 percent – cite lack of necessary data analysis and tech skills; 51 percent of marketers challenged by limited budget, time and personnel for personalization.
• Attributable Payoff: Marketers see multiple benefits to pre-purchase personalization with 87 percent of marketers convinced that personalization substantially decreases the CPA, while accurately quantifying ROI through rigorous measurement and optimization.
• Tangible Benefits: There is an attributable payoff for businesses utilizing personalization. First-party tests reveal improvements in sales-per-visitor by up to 40 percent, echoing McKinsey’s data that the fastest-growing companies in a sector receive 40 percent more sales from personalization.