Against an ever-shifting backdrop of rising interest rates and costs, growing competition, channel proliferation and astonishing advancements in technology, marketers must find ways to meaningfully connect with customers.

Better segmentation, targeting and deep customer understanding are top priorities – all of which will help deliver the personalization that is vital to building brand loyalty.

That’s why Reuters Events, in partnership with HCL Unica, has released our latest marketing report ‘Personalization and Precision in the Age of AI.’

Informed by interviews with some of the world’s most influential CMOs and senior marketing leaders, from brands including eBay, Vanguard, K18, Miss Universe, Super, and Discover Puerto Rico, this 11-page report explores how established companies and innovative startups are winning customer attention and loyalty.

Broken up into three parts, you’ll leave with key learnings on how to make sense of the fragmented martech jungle, leverage generative AI to personalize with precision, and move beyond segmentation by creating real-time products, services or experiences that are targeted at the individual level.

Access the full report here for more information.

Section 1: Making Sense of the Fragmented Martech Jungle

“With the changes in technology and privacy, new vendors are emerging all the time, as well as different approaches of the big publishers. Navigating the martech stack has always been confusing, and it continues to be,” says eBay’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, Adrian Fung.

Choosing the right martech stack that is fully integrated, is vital to achieving high-level personalization. At eBay, which has the advantage of first-party data, personalization is a critical objective and that means starting with the customer experience. “Today it’s not just about traditional communications through individual marketing channels but how a brand shows up through the entire journey of a customer experience,” Fung says.

It’s all about channel optimization, leveraging data to meet customers where they are, and consolidating the stack to maximize efficiency.

Section 2: Personalizing with Precision and Use Cases for Gen AI

Creating personalized real-time products, services, or experiences that are targeted at the individual level may sound simple, but it isn’t. The reality is that personalization means different things to different brands, and few are achieving little more than segmentation in a world where consumers are already drowning in marketing messages.

At Super, the goal is to achieve right person, right message, right time personalization by Q4. Super’s CMO, Radhika Duggal, knows that precise targeting requires “real data science,” however, when driving revenue and creating brand loyalty from owned channels, she believes the art of marketing remains important.

Of course, generative AI is only one smaller corner of the personalization puzzle, which requires precision, scale, super-advances segmentation and flexibility. In other words, says Tom Hannigan, Unica Global Practice Leader, HCL Software, “what’s needed is the Swiss army knife of Martech.”

New capabilities with Generative AI will drive content creation and automation, accelerate customer care, and scale personalization efforts.

Section 3: Optimize the Journey Prepare for Continuous Change

Having access to complete and accurate real-time and historic datasets will help brands respond to signals that drive customer engagement, ensuring that models become more personalized over time.

Although many organizations are overhauling their data systems, shifting to agile systems, accessing the right data, remains a work in progress for the majority.

Marketers are tasked with pulling out and understanding mass data sets, providing customer segments with the most relevant products and services, whilst not overloading the customer with too much information. “The last thing we are going to do is say, ‘Hey, we just saw you were on the website, is that why you’re calling in?” says Sam Anaokar, Head of IIG Strategy, Partnerships & Operations, Vanguard.

Looking to the future, uncertainty prevails and there are many challenges for marketers – everything from supply chain bottlenecks, inflationary pressures, cookie deprecation, consumer anxiety to increasing competition. Marketers know that delivering customer value, overcoming gaps in their Martech strategy, and evolving with new technologies is required to thrive.  

This report highlights what consumers are engaged with right now, why it has their attention, and how to navigate the martech stack to compete effectively.

If you’d like to learn more about ‘Personalization and Precision in the Age of AI’ you can access the full report here.