How to Choose the Right Personalization Tool for Your Business in 2024

The internet is evolving.

We live in a world where the majority of people use the internet and smart devices to browse, buy, and research products and services.

No matter what you do, there is no escaping the fact that personalization is an integral part of marketing in the digital age.

89% of businesses are investing in personalization as a critical strategy for their current and future success.

Personalization has become an important component of every business's marketing strategy because it gives consumers what they want: tailored content based on their needs and interests.

It's not just about being able to target your audience more efficiently – it goes beyond that! Personalized content also provides a better user experience for your website visitors and can help increase conversion rates.

The major benefits of personalization:

• better customer experience

• increase in customer loyalty

• higher average order value

• increase in conversion rates

• decrease in cart abandonments

But with so many different tools out there promising they have the answer, how do you know which one to use?

The answer depends on who you ask, but there's no denying that personalized content is here to stay. As technology advances, so does our ability to create more accurate profiles of users with each passing year.

In this post, we will discuss some important points for choosing the right personalization tool for your website and digital channels.

Understanding Your Personalization Maturity Level

Personalization platforms come in different shapes and sizes, depending on the sophistication level of personalization you need.

The personalization maturity model is a way of understanding the different levels of personalization strategies. As you advance up in the personalization maturity levels, you go from simple segmentation to hyper-segmentation with predictive personalization via product recommendations, dynamic pricing, smart social proofs, and so on.

For example, an entry-level platform may suit someone who is just starting out and looking to build up their audience without too many technical requirements. At the same time, enterprise-level solutions can accommodate large corporations with sophisticated personalization tools.

That's why it is crucial to understand how mature your brand is for personalization before implementing personalization into your marketing campaigns.

As Ninetailed, we've created a Personalization Maturity Assessment so you can see where your team and company stand and what improvements you need to make. Therefore, you can make more informed decisions when choosing a platform that fits your company best.

The assessment takes only 5 minutes to complete, and it will provide an overview of your current state based on key areas:

Personalization Maturity Assessment

5 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Personalization Tool

While it might seem that a personalization tool is a simple, straightforward purchase, there are many factors to consider when choosing which one will best fit your company's needs.

Not all personalization tools are created equal; some offer more functionality than others and may be better suited for your business goals.

So how do you know which one to choose?

After understanding your personalization maturity level, it's time to evaluate other factors.

In order to find the right personalization tool for your business, you have to look at five key factors:

1. Personal Requirements

2. Scope of the Project

3. Time to Market

4. Scalability

5. Security

1. Personal Requirements

In order to choose the best technology for your business, you need to know what type of problem it is that needs solving.

What is your goal?

What do you want to accomplish?

Which problems do you want to solve?

It's crucial firstly to identify your personal requirements before choosing the personalization platform.

For instance, some companies are working better with one software language than another, and it's crucial to find this type of synergy between technologies since every company has its own unique requirements.

Whatever tool you choose, be sure that the personalization tool is compatible with your requirements in terms of:

• omni & cross channel personalization capabilities

• customer segmentation (firmographic, behavioral, technographic, psychographic, demographic, geographic, etc.)

• easy and seamless

• real-time personalization and optimization

• testing and experimentation

• predictive and rule-based personalization opportunities

• customer data management

2. Scope of the Project

The next step is defining the project scope in terms of size, complexity, and business goals.

Each project requires different resources and features from a specific tool. That's why it's crucial to describe the scope of the project:

Small Projects: The implementation of these projects often requires less sophisticated personalization and/or segmentation technologies and can be delivered faster.

Mid-Size Projects: In general, mid-size projects require a higher level of technological commitment. They have the added requirement to provide more sophisticated and diverse functionalities as well as integrations with other platforms or languages depending on what's being requested from the project.

Complex Projects: This one is more complicated than mid-sized ones because you need several functions, integrations, and sophistication. Thus your tech stack needs to be at an advanced level too.

3. Time to Market

Personalization tools will vary in terms of how long it takes from a product being conceived until it's available for users. Some tools may be used immediately, while others take several months to implement them through coding and design processes.

In today's competitive market, it's crucial that companies implement personalization quickly because of the competitive pressures and not to get left behind by their competitors.

To remain competitive in today's market, it is imperative that the personalization tool you use on your channels has to have a short 'time to market' period. No matter how brilliant your idea may be or what ultimately results from all of this work - if it takes too long to bring the plan into fruition then keep in mind that there are other companies outside who can beat you.

4. Scalability

It takes more than just a good idea for something to become successful.

You need the right resources, too - and that includes technology stacks capable of scaling quickly in order to maintain growth rates and keep up with changing market demands.

If you plan for rapid growth, make sure the personalization technology stack has the potential to scale.

So that they can handle increasing demand and implement new features without getting out of date quickly, which would reduce costs in development time as well as future upgrades because no one wants obsolete software on their site.

5. Security

When it comes to selecting a personalization tool, we often talk about the ability to personalize a customer experience.

But what about security?

Security is another factor that should be considered when choosing a personalization tool.

Some consider this topic to be an afterthought in comparison to other priorities. However, with the rise of data-driven marketing and GDPR, organizations are being held more accountable for protecting customer information from unauthorized access or disclosure.

The type of personalization features offered by different tools can significantly impact the organization's cyber security posture.

As the personalization market continues to grow, it is important to know what you are getting into before committing to one platform.

Prioritizing the Factors

It is not easy finding the perfect personalization tool for your brand. There are so many to choose from, and each of them has its own set of features that you will want to use.

You should keep in mind that you don't need a platform that does everything.

You just have to identify what your business needs in terms of:

• business requirements

• project scope

• time to market

• security

• scalability

for success and then choose a provider with those capabilities based on how much value they provide.

After identifying your business needs, you can categorize them based on their priority before choosing the best tool for your brand:

• Must Haves (Non-Negotiable)

• Should Haves (Strong Preference)

• Could Haves (Nice to Haves)

• No Need

The Bottom Line

Choosing the right personalization tool is not easy.

There are so many different tools out there, and it's not easy to know which one is best for you.

Choosing the right tool for your needs might seem like an impossible task. For this reason, we've put together this guide to help you find the best personalization tool for you.

Still don't know where to start?