How To Utilize Data Better For Effective Email Personalization?

Everyone talks about email personalization, and for good reasons.

96% of marketers say personalized experiences boost sales. Meanwhile, 80% of customers are more likely to buy after a personalized experience.

Yet, the 2024 State of Email Survey shows that 56% of marketers personalize less than 25% of their emails.

Why the gap? What prevents marketers from seizing the chance to provide great customer experiences?

The answer lies in email personalization data.

Data collection and organization are major hurdles for 25% of marketers wanting to personalize emails. This is the very basis of personalization.

Said another way: Demand for personalization is rising, but companies struggle to find the right email personalization data. 

With 55% of marketers aiming to enhance their personalization efforts, a lack of data shouldn’t stop you from using advanced personalization in your emails.

The good news is you can achieve a lot of personalization without needing a big data platform or bothering your data science team.

In this blog, we will explore types of data and how to use them for insights that enhance personalization.

Types of Data You Need For Effective Email Personalization

With Google's plan to phase out third-party cookies by 2025 and Apple Mail Privacy Protection hiding IP addresses, marketers must rethink their data strategies.

Even though Google recently paused the phasing out of third-party cookies, the need for reliable, privacy-compliant data remains. This data provides deep insights without risking user trust.

And honestly, why would someone use there-is-there-is-not-type data to personalize emails when they are sitting on a reliable data goldmine? It’s this email personalization data that is reliable, accurate, and under your control. 

Let’s stop mourning the loss of third-party data and focus on using the personalizable data we already have. This way, your next customizable interactive email template can truly shine.

1. Zero-party Data

Your audience shares this personal-level information with you through the data collection process. When someone provides their name, employer, title, location, age, or birthday in exchange for content or offers? That's zero-party data.

Zero-party data stands essential for your company. That’s because you cannot acquire this information through purchase or inference from other data sources. This type of email personalization data belongs exclusively to your business operations. 

Plus, the zero-party data collection establishes a valuable trade between the customer and the company. When you ask customers about their preferences, they feel valued – and that's good for business. 

Brands can collect zero-party data through simple inquiries that cover friendly questions about communication choices, shopping habits, as well as required information needs. Most of your customers will offer personal information to you when they see how it benefits them. 

Better yet, collecting zero-party data does not require sophisticated technology. We have some simple recommendations for first-party data collection: 

• Create captivating opt-in forms to gather essential information depending on the context.
• Embed interactive content like quizzes, star ratings, surveys, and interest signals. 
• Find out more about your subscribers using email preference centers. 
• Play with transactional emails as tools to gather additional insights.
• Leverage polls (interactive or otherwise) for quick preference capture. 

2. First-party Data

First-party data is individual-level information collected directly from your audience on the channels you operate. As in through website interactions, purchase history, social media engagement, content performance metrics, or intelligence from your sales teams.

While zero-party data shows what customers say they want, first-party data reveals what they actually do. Both types share a key trait: the person voluntarily provided this information.So there is no room for assumptions. 

The best feature of first-party data is that businesses maintain complete ownership of their information assets. No third-party dependencies. No privacy concerns. This makes it easier to use these insights for authentic email personalization.

3. Second-party Data

Second-party data comes from purchasing information about your subscribers from a trusted partner. This is essentially their first-party data that you have permission to use. It gives context and scale to your first-party information.

Important >> This is not equivalent to buying email lists, which we don't advocate. That’s because buying an email list often involves purchasing data from a third-party data broker, which may not have a direct relationship with the data source and could be of lower quality. 

Anyway, you can obtain second-party data for email personalization through competitive analysis, consumer trends, or reviews from platforms like Google or Tripadvisor. Obtaining these details takes various forms: co-marketing efforts, customer reviews on products and services, or external loyalty programs are some starting points.

How to Use Data for More Advanced Personalization

You have identified valuable email personalization data under your hood. This means that it is ready to be utilized to personalize your email content. 

However, remember that 36% of marketers already use subject line personalization. Your subscribers have seen their first name in a subject line so much that they hardly notice it anymore.

You can do so much better than this. Fortunately, advanced email personalization tactics have got your back: 

• Feature popular products using CRM data. Show subscribers what others in their segment are purchasing or viewing to create social proof and relevance.
• Combine personal details with contextual elements. Pair name personalization with weather-targeted images that reflect the subscriber's current conditions.
• Implement geolocation targeting. Use CRM location data to include the address of the nearest stores or venues to make your message immediately actionable.
• Deploy countdown timers. These dynamic elements use email open time to display the remaining time for sales, offers, or registrations, creating urgency.
• Utilize real-time weather data. Change content based on the subscriber's local weather conditions at the moment they open the email.
• Follow up on shopping behavior. Send targeted messages about items viewed or abandoned in shopping carts to complete the purchase journey.

Wrapping Up

Getting your hands on clean customer data and figuring out what you do with that data brings your email personalization strategy to life. Execute it thoughtfully, and it will add that little extra spark that encourages subscribers to engage with your emails on a “personal” level.