Don't get distracted by "vanity" metrics like opens and clicks - they may be indicators of engagement but are not a substitute for KPIs like sales and opportunities.

Email personalisation isn't a one-size-fits-all affair - it's more of a tailored approach that addresses each recipient's unique interests and behaviors. If your objective is to boost open rates, personalising the subject line can significantly influence the recipient's decision to open the email. If your goal is to increase click-through rates, personalised content that directly caters to the recipient's needs or interests is key. Should your aim be sales increase, offering personalised product recommendations or promotions can be a game changer. For customer retention, consider personalised customer service emails that show appreciation and recognition of the customer.

Engagement data is the best foundation for personalization because the data is inherently personal but it's also the most difficult to scale at a 1:1 level. Many enterprise tools exist today that can leverage Machine Learning and AI in order to power these 1:1 experiences - these tactics are no longer exclusive to teams with vast data engineers and scientists. With a little code and planning, these tools can be implemented relatively quickly.

You could split your audience based on their activity status. Active users who frequently engage may be more interested in new product updates or features, while inactive users may respond better to re-engagement campaigns or special offers. Segmenting based on purchase history can provide insights into individual customer's preferences, allowing you to make recommendations. Geographic segmentation is also a valuable approach, allowing for targeted messages based on location-specific events, language preferences, or cultural nuances.

Unless you have multiple 1000's of people in your mailing list, this is going to be difficult to do and get reliable results.

Segmenting your email list by industry or title has enormous benefit because you can really hit the mark when your email messaging addresses real problems they struggle with every day. Researching a single industry or job title and how your service/product offering applies to it is an invaluable tool for keying in your sales email messaging, even if hyper-customization isn't ideal for large email campaigns.

The use of dashboards, reports, or metrics to track email personalisation KPIs is key to email marketing! The data generated from these tools provides quantifiable evidence of success or failure, making the results concrete rather than abstract. It offers a real-time, or near real-time, snapshot of your progress, providing instant feedback that can be used to adjust strategies as needed. For example, if the open rate is high but the click-through rate is low, it could suggest that while the email subject line is attractive, the content is not engaging or relevant enough. Alternatively, a high bounce rate could indicate that the email list needs cleaning or that the email design is not mobile-friendly.

Unless it is covered in an alternative article, there is one key piece missing from this one. Do you have the data to be able to personalise the emails? Also, is it in a format that will allow you to use the merge fields to pull the data in so that your emails read well. For example, having the formal company name in a field is one thing, but how often would you expect someone emailing you to use the full company name? My company is officially SME Needs Limited, but I would only really expect to see SME Needs in a personalised email. Think carefully about the data before you start getting complicated with your personalisation.