40+ Stats and Benchmarks on the Business Impact of Personalization

Personalization might well be the most impactful approach to customer interaction, driving business objectives from lead generation, conversions / sales, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and also marketing efficiency. There is vast empirical evidence on the business case for Personalization across industries, and this blog article will collect recent stats and benchmarks on a continuous basis. You will find, that those benchmarks have a wide range. This is to be expected, as the impact is highly dependent on baseline and progressiveness (e.g. the employment of state-of-the art predictive analytics and machine learning capabilities) as well as comprehensiveness of Personalization (to get the full picture on what comprehensive Personalization should entail, please check my previous blog post on the 8 Facets of Personalization) approach used. The list of benchmarks lets you pick the ones that are relevant for your case. All give the relative uplift, and they are ordered by KPI category with industry (if stated) in bold:

Leads

• 70% more opt-ins on marketing messages through "full-scale real time personalization", accomplished by Telco Telefonica Vivo (IBM 2017)
• 42% more leads through personalized call to actions on webpage (HubSpot 2013)
• 41% higher unique click rates on average by personalized promotional mailings (Marketingland 2014)
• 27% more mortgage quotes through next best offer approach for a Bank (evergage 2016)
• 18% lift on unique click rates on average by kinetic emails (Experian 2016)

Conversions

• 6x higher transaction rates on average by personalized emails (Marketingland 2014)
• 219% lift through personalized website content (unnamed case study, Venturebeat 2015)
• 74% increase by optimized landing pages for car rental company Avis (House of Kaizen 2016)
• 56% more through personalized quote funnel for Mercury Insurance (Oracle 2016)
• 40% more for Lenovo using personalized landing pages (Bain 2016)
• 15-30% increase through next best offer analytics in Banking (derbankblog 2016)
• 18% lift through personalized benefits communication during checkout for an Electronics Retailer (konversionskraft 2017)
• 13% lift on conversions by personalizing emails based on location achieved by US sports article retailer Spartan Race (NiftyImages 2016)
• 10% lift by personalized campaigns for a German DIY retailer (akanoo 2017)

Sales and Revenues

• 50% revenue increase by emails based on next best offer analytics, achieved in pilot project with toys and sustainable products retailer Triaz group (Dastani Consulting 2017)
• 27% more direct sales in first year after implementing personalization methods for a Hospitality client (Accenture 2016)
• 20% more revenues will companies who invested "in all types of personalization" (Gartner 2015)
• 19% uplift in sales from brands that personalize website experience (onespot 2017) 
• 15-20% boost on average by "data-activated marketing based on a person’s real-time needs, interests, and behaviors" (McKinsey 2017)
• 6-10% revenue increase by retailers "that create personalized experiences by integrating advanced digital technologies and propietary data for customers" (BCG 2017)
• 8% revenue increase by emails with personalized send time for each subscriber achieved by retailer BustedTees (MarketingSherpa 2013)
• 7% annual revenue increase from personalization (SmartFocus 2016)
• 3-5% incremental improvement in total annual revenue through machine learning approach to running personalized campaigns for telco operators (telecoms.com 2015)

Retention / Loyalty

• 30% loyalty increase for financial institutions that have invested in personalization (evergage 2016)
• 20% higher satisfaction at OCBC bank through communicating on personal lifetime events (evry 2016)
• 20% reduction in churn rate through personalized videos in Banking (thefinancialbrand.com 2013)
• Significant relationship between Swedish Banks' level of personalization and customer loyalty (2011, Multimedia University Malaysia)

Efficiency

• 20-30% productivity gain for an Indian Corporate Bank enabling their relationship managers with next best offer analystics (BCG 2016)
• 20% year on year lift by companies employing real time personalization (Aberdeen Group 2017)
• 13% decline in contact volumes through personalized online self service option for Canadian Telco Rogers (Deloitte 2016)
• 10-30% average higher efficiency on marketing spend through personalization (McKinsey 2016)
• Up to 9% higher revenue generation efficiency through digital transformation initiatives driving personalization (Capgemini 2012)

ROI and Profits

• 292% ROI for consumer goods companies employing IBM's marketing solution for real time personalization (Forrester 2016)
• 60% increase for Nuffield Health Club by optimized landing pages designed to meet the specific expectations of visitors from each traffic source  (House of Kaizen 2016)
• 50%-100% higher returns on average through targeting on Facebook Ads (McKinsey 2017)
• 29% year on year lift on ROI by companies employing real time personalization (Aberdeen Group 2017)
• 20% uplift in marketing ROI "for brands who put data-driven personalization at the center" (onespot 2017) 
• Up to 15% increase in profits by 2020 for insurance companies employing smart personalization engines (Gartner 2017) 
• 15% - 20% higher marketing return on investment for companies "that put data at the heart of marketing and sales decisions" (Forbes 2013)

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