Beyond personalization: How hyper-targeting fuels business success 

Today’s customers don’t want at all to be bombarded with irrelevant marketing messages or generic emails from brands. They demand tailor-made interactions to address their pain points and provide relevant solutions. According to our Generational Messaging Trends Report, 83% of Gen Zs treat brand relationships like personal relationships. 

As you know, personalization is not new; brands have been practicing it for many years. You may have received emails from shopping brands addressing you by your name with product suggestions based on previous purchases. This is an example of traditional personalization. Usually, existing customer data from the CRM system is used to create a personalized campaign.  

However, traditional personalization is no longer 100% result-oriented for brands, as today’s customers demand more relevant interaction, which hyper-personalization can only provide.  

In this blog, we’ll dive deep into hyper-personalization and explore why it’s rapidly gaining momentum across the APAC region. 

What is hyper-personalization?

Hyper-personalization is the evolution of traditional personalization to intelligent, context-aware conversations that resonate with each customer. It goes beyond addressing a customer by his name and sending a birthday offer, which can be a product discount. Hyper-personalization is about creating a personal and engaging experience for your customers from initial interaction to final purchase.  

In customer experience (CX), hyper-personalization is the process of using artificial intelligence (AI), advanced data analytics, and real-time customer insights to customize the customer journey in a way that feels personal and relevant.

What is the difference between traditional personalization and hyper-personalization?

In the table below, you can see how traditional personalization and hyper-personalization differ across key aspects like the type of data used, level of customization, technology involved, practical examples, and overall business impact.

Key drivers of hyper-personalization  

Hyper-personalization is an advanced approach that requires some key elements for its success as a strategy. Here are some key drivers of hyper-personalization that businesses must build to deliver meaningful, one-to-one engagement at scale. 

Data-driven insights 

By analyzing interactions such as browsing behavior, likes & dislikes, and purchasing habits, you can understand what your customers expect from your brand. This will help you tailor campaigns accordingly.  

Omnichannel strategy 

Go for an omnichannel strategy, choosing customer-preferred channels such as chatbots, social media, messaging apps, SMS, or in-store interactions to drive higher engagement.  

AI-powered analysis 

Leverage the power of Generative AI to predict your customers’ needs and drive your campaigns and communication accordingly to meet their expectations.  

Context-aware communication 

Keep your messages relevant through real-time triggers that adapt to a user’s location, context, and recent interactions. 

Benefits of hyper-personalization for brands and customers 

Hyper-personalization is gaining traction across the APAC region as it provides a win-win approach for both brands and their customers. Here are some of the benefits of hyper-personalization for both brands and their end users.  

Benefits for brands 

• Brands can drive higher conversion and repeat purchases by personalizing offers based on past purchasing activities. 
• It helps drive long-term brand loyalty and greater lifetime spending through hyper-relevant interactions.   
• Fosters emotional connection by anticipating individual preferences, strengthening brand affinity, and reducing churn. 
• Creating personalized journey brands can improve customer experience, which helps them drive stronger brand advocacy.  

Benefits for customers  

• Receiving assistance from brands becomes hassle-free as AI-driven chatbots and voice assistance make services faster and more accurate.  
• With personalized recommendations, customers need to invest less time in discovering products that are suited to their needs. 
• Better experience for customers as they are no longer bombarded with irrelevant messages. 

Hyper-personalization has a positive impact on customer experiences across the APAC region. Our report in collaboration with IDC shows hyper-personalization impacting key metrics for brands in countries such as Australia, China, India, Indonesia, and more. 

Challenges to opportunities: Role of CPaaS, AI, and data 

Although hyper-personalization is an effective business strategy, it comes with some challenges in the implementation process. Here are some of the key challenges of hyper-personalization. 

Compliance with data privacy regulations 

To make hyper-personalization successful, businesses must leverage customer data, which requires adhering to data privacy laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). Achieving this requires robust transparency, governance, and opt-in frameworks, which are not only time-consuming but also require additional expertise.  

Maintaining documentation for AI training data 

To deliver an effective tailored experience, businesses must ensure the accuracy of AI models, which demand maintaining well-structured, comprehensive documentation for AI training data and updating it at regular intervals.  

Maintaining balance automation and human touch 

AI is not a replacement for humans but helps to increase work efficiency. Although AI is the core element of hyper-personalization, the importance of humans cannot be underestimated. Today’s customers still expect a human approach to complex interactions. Specifically, manual interventions are often required to resolve complex queries.  

Managing data silos is vital 

Scattered data across various departments and the absence of unified systems like customer data platforms pose a significant challenge for hyper-personalization for many businesses across APAC.  

According to the IDC report, only 32% of organizations in Asia-Pacific have implemented a centralized CDP, which means most businesses still face challenges related to data fragmentation. 

Role of CDP and CPaaS to drive hyper-personalization 

When it comes to implementing hyper-personalization, Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Communication Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) complement each other. Both are crucial elements in mitigating challenges businesses face in creating hyper-personalized experiences. 

Reshaping customer experience across sectors  

Hyper-personalization is redefining customer experience across multiple sectors, helping brands create meaningful customer interactions.  

Telecom 

Hyper-personalization enables telco organizations to better understand their customers’ behavior and show them the most relevant offers. These can be data plans or roaming packages based on usage patterns. This hyper-relevant experience allows brands to boost their renewal rates, reduce customer loss, and maximize chances for upgrades.  

Finance 

With increasing competition in the financial sector, banks and financial institutions need to customize their offerings, such as loans and credit card offers based on the spending behavior of customers. This advanced level of personalization helps increase the lifetime value of customers. Hyper-personalization also helps banks to deliver real-time fraud alerts and personalized security recommendations based on customer financial activities.  

Retail and eCommerce 

Hyper-personalization strongly impacts the retail sector, allowing brands to adopt multiple strategies, such as personalizing discounts based on purchasing history and offering AI-driven product recommendations on channels like WhatsApp, RCS, Viber, and more. Other application areas include AI-powered in-store assistants that provide product recommendations, guide shoppers, manage transactions, and ensure smooth returns. 

Adopting a hyper-personalization strategy for retail & eCommerce brands can increase conversion and drive customer retention.  

Healthcare 

The combination of AI and data has been a game changer for brands operating within the healthcare domain. Hyper-personalization, such as personalized wellness plans based on a patient’s medical history, AI-driven targeted recommendations, and doctor appointment reminders on patients’ preferred channels, improves the experience. For brands, it helps reduce the workload of caregivers as everything is automated.  

Creating a winning hyper-personalization strategy 

Hyper-personalization involves several elements, from data and AI to CPaaS, so you should adopt a structured approach to ensure success. Here is a step-by-step process for creating a powerful brand strategy.  

Centralize customer data for a 360-degree view 

Leverage a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to unify fragmented data, including transaction records, behavioral patterns, predictive analytics, and third-party data. Integrate interactions from all cross-functional teams such as marketing, sales, and customer support into the CDP for a single customer view.  

Use AI and automation to personalize at scale 

Drive automation using AI tools such as churn prediction models, recommendation engines, and next-best-offer solutions to analyze your customer behavior, anticipate future requirements and communicate accordingly.  

Create seamless, consistent experiences across channels 

While using omnichannel communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Viber, SMS, Email, and more, ensure you communicate the same message to the same customers.

Track performance and optimize continuously 

Analyze the performance of your hyper-personalization activities by keeping a close eye on the success metrics such as customer satisfaction, retention rate, and conversion. You also need to optimize your strategy from time to time using AI models to enhance your customer experience. 

Defining success in a hyper-personalized campaign 

Analyzing the success of a hyper-personalization campaign is important to plan your future strategy and justify your investments. The success of hyper-personalization is defined by how effectively it was able to enhance customer experience and attain the desired goals, which can be conversion, sales, or customer satisfaction.  

According to the IDC report, 41% of businesses across Asia-Pacific note customer satisfaction (CSAT) and customer retention rate as the top metrics for measuring the success of a hyper-personalization campaign. 

Choosing the right technology partner for your hyper-personalization goals 

As customer expectations evolve, so must the technologies that power personalized experiences. With so many technologies and vendors, selecting the right partner that provides complete and efficient solutions that align with your business and technological goals is often a tedious task.  

At Infobip, we have helped brands create the next level of personalization by leveraging data, AI-driven solutions and CPaaS. Our Customer Data Platform, People CDP, is being used by global brands to create a seamless customer experience by utilizing data and insights. We understand that hyper-personalization is not a single or multichannel approach; it’s an omnichannel strategy which involves creating impactful communication analyzing customer behavior through AI-driven models.  

Considering this, we enable brands to leverage the power of AI and GenAI to create a hyper-personalized customer experience through communication channels such as WhatsApp, RCS, Viber, and more.