Personalized marketing is the key to consumer's wallets

Sending out generic marketing emails and scatter-gun coupon offers is no longer enough to attract the attention of consumers and can in fact have the opposite effect.

Predictive marketing company AgilOne has released the results of a survey which shows that online shoppers appreciate personalized communication -- as long as it's done right.

The survey asked more than 3,000 adult online shoppers about what information they expected companies to know about them and what personalized experiences they appreciate. The results indicate that while consumers appreciate and even expect brands' efforts to personalize the buying experience, the preferred methods for that personalization vary greatly across demographic groups.

Key findings are that 79 percent of US consumers and 70 percent of UK consumers expect some sort of personalization from their brands. Also more than half of consumers in both the US and UK expect e-commerce sites to remember their past purchases.

Among the most popular personalized experiences are emails offering discounts on products shoppers have previously viewed, alerts when products they like are on sale and VIP customer appreciation rewards.

The millennial generation is more likely to appreciate almost all forms personalization. For example 52 percent of those aged 18 to 24 expect brands to remember their birthday as compared to 21 percent of shoppers aged 65 and over.

Interestingly whilst email targeting is popular, with 66 percent of US and 57 percent of UK consumers welcoming it, web targeting is much less so. Only 24 percent of US and 17 percent of UK consumers liked web-based targeting such as on-site pop-ups for particular products.

You can see more of the report's findings in infographic form below.

Image Credit: iQoncept / Shutterstock