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Think about it: when was the last time you received an email that truly spoke to you? Not just your name slapped on the subject line, but content crafted specifically with your interests, preferences, and behaviors in mind. One that left you feeling like: hey, this truly is for me.

Perhaps it was a recommendation for your next favorite book, a reminder about an abandoned shopping cart, or an exclusive offer tailored to your past purchases. Whatever it was, it made you pause, engage, and maybe even convert.

Personalization is no longer a buzzword; it’s the cornerstone of modern email marketing strategy. But here’s the kicker: many marketers still struggle to unlock its full potential.

Personalized email isn’t just about increasing open rates or boosting sales (though it certainly does that). It’s about forging genuine connections with your audience, demonstrating that you understand their needs and preferences on a deeper level. It’s about turning one-size-fits-all messaging into a bespoke experience that leaves a lasting impression.

Ahead, we’ll look at how to get started with personalized email programs and some of the best ways to implement them throughout the customer journey, from that awareness stage all the way to engaged subscriber or repeat customer. Let’s dive in!

How to get started with email personalization

No matter where you are with applying email personalization, it’s not a set it and forget it strategy.

Carin Slater, email and content growth marketing manager at Litmus acknowledges the thoroughness and patience required to execute an email personalization strategy. But it’s well worth the effort.

“If the point of email is to help create and foster a relationship with your subscribers, there’s no way to do that without including email personalization. An email without personalization is like limiting a conversation to small talk – ‘how’s the weather? How about them [local sports team]?’ This is fine and dandy if you’re not that invested in the conversation, but if someone is in the middle of experiencing a hurricane or doesn’t like sports, you’ve stuck your foot in your mouth and made it harder to build a relationship with them.”

– Carin Slater, email and content growth marketing manager at Litmus

Email personalization may, at first, feel daunting.

Consumers’ habits, preferences, and purchase paths are constantly changing the way you analyze what’s working and where you can make adjustments.

Add to it the constant challenge of finding and understanding the right data to deliver great personalized email experiences, and there’s no shortage of steps to take in your path to effective personalization.

Thankfully, there are a number of resources and tools available, including Litmus Personalize, to help you easily implement a personalized email strategy and delight your subscribers at each part of the customer journey.

Before we look at how to use email personalization at each stage of the customer journey, here are three ways to build your email personalization roadmap.

1. Finding and analyzing subscriber data

Personalization requires data.

Take time to think about your data sources and what kind of information you have available. This will help you scope your email personalization strategy and identify gaps in your data.

Recent developments, including the end of third-party cookies data means it will be more important to begin using email personalization strategies like dynamic and live email content to help in your data collection efforts.

For example, implementing an interaction like live polls or interest signals (which we’ll cover later) are great ways to invite audience participation while also providing you insight into subscriber preferences.

Next, consider ways you can collect more information through your email preference center or by asking subscribers directly in future email campaigns. Remember, 83% of customers are willing to share their information for a more personalized experience. Be transparent about what you want to collect and how people will benefit for the best response.

2. Map the data to your customer journey

Think carefully about where customers are when they receive your message and where you want to take them at each step of the journey. Start by pinpointing places personalization adds value and increases engagement.

Be strategic about what types of content your email program will include for your audiences, whether they’re brand new subscribers, long-time customers, or somewhere in between.

Document what content you want to include within your emails for each stage. Read ahead on our recommendations here. Then, implement them into your email program. You can even use templates to easily build out different types of personalized emails based on the audience depending on where they are in their journey.

3. Analyze personalization effort versus results

Analyze the personalization you are doing, or want to do, and consult the data to see if it moves the needle for engagement, conversions, and return on investment (ROI).

Is your personalization making an impact on engagement and conversions or is it just visually appealing? Look for ways you can score quick wins that require minimal effort and maximum results. Then build out personalization plans for the future.

Now that you have this three-step process for starting email personalization and keeping it in rhythm, let’s dive into the different tactics and types of dynamic content to leverage.

Email personalization journey step: new subscribers

At the earlier stages of the customer journey, emails that entice participation are powerful ways to elicit engagement and allow you to bring in more data about consumer preferences. What works particularly well here are personalized emails with a sense of urgency or create the feeling of FOMO.

Interest Signals: social signals that showcase live interactions with a product or service (through the live number of “likes”). Available in Litmus Personalize, Interest Signals displays the engagement, adding real social proof to emails and encourages more openers to click through.

Countdown timers: reflect the time left for a sale, special offer, or countdown to purchase tickets for events. They refresh every time an email is opened and continue to create urgency to take action.

Scratch-offs: allow subscribers to “scratch off” or reveal a promo or promo code. Email scratch-offs are now available in Litmus Personalize.

Bottom line: for new subscribers, you’re looking for personalized email elements that supercharge engagement, so prioritize those interactive moments in your emails.

Email personalization journey step: engaged subscribers

When subscribers become more engaged, keep prioritizing interactions with the above tactics, but also add these elements to keep up the momentum:

Live Polls: allow recipients to see what products are popular, and vote on what they like. This encourages continued engagement as recipients come back to see the results

Social feeds: include social feeds like a live Instagram feed in your email. If you partner your email strategy with your social strategy you can see which social posts in the emails are encouraging people to click and use that data for future personalization as well.

Bottom line: for engaged subscribers, we want to keep learning more about them as well as give them ample paths to connect with us on other channels.

Email personalization journey step: new customers

For those who’ve made a purchase, we have more insight into their behavior, preferences and buying habits. Include these email personalization tactics:

Personalized images: provide dynamic images that update based on who the subscriber is. As we have a little more data on customers from their purchases, we can create more personalized/custom content to serve in emails to them.

Add to calendar: make it easy for subscribers to add events or sales to their calendar live from the email. This also works great for B2B brands to follow up with their customers and offer time on a calendar for customer service reps to meet up and answer questions and send an email to add to calendar after subscribers sign up. If you host regular webinars, add-to-calendar is also a great personalization feature.

Geolocation: targeting delivers live content based on the location of the recipient at the time they open the email. You can highlight store locations that make shopping easy and convenient

Weather: displays hyper-relevant messaging and products based on the weather in the customers’ current location

Bottom line: subscribers who become customers have provided important clues about their journey meaning you can serve them up even more personalized visuals and invite them to get more engaged.

Email personalization journey step: frequent/ongoing customers or product subscribers

Once you have repeat customers, this is where email personalization shines. Go wild! Some ideas:

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Personalized images: use customer data to provide personalized images using conditional images or personalized images of content that these subscribers might like.

Live Polls: use polls to help you further define subscriber’s interests instead of pigeon holing them into receiving specific content (you’re subscriber might love vintage clothing, but they might also love reading and board games and baking. We’re all multi-dimensional.)

Countdown timers and scratch-offs: can be used to highlight customer only content, sales, and incentives.

Bottom line: most email personalization tactics work extremely well at the repeat customer stage. Feel free to implement most any strategy you want to keep them engaged and coming back for more. Keep a close eye on data to see what resonates most.

Now that we’ve covered email personalization each stage of the customer journey, here’s a reference guide to keep handy:

Optimizing your email personalization strategy

Once you have a reliable roadmap (and plans to reevaluate on a regular basis), you can use the tools and tactics available to you to level up your email personalization strategy.

Taking a crawl, walk, run approach, here are some considerations:

When first starting out: email personalization essentials

Personalization is good, no matter the level of sophistication. Some personalized email tactics are lighter lifts than others. Here are simple tactics to incorporate email personalization that appeals to all audiences.

• Countdown timers
• Geolocation
• Weather-based content
• Live polling
• Social signals

Advanced tactic: Incorporating CRM data

A better email personalization approach requires data from your CRM. Connecting with subscribers personally by considering their preferences makes them feel valued and keeps them engaged longer.

Here are ways to use CRM information to create personalization in the email customer journey.

• Personalized images are an easy and effective way to make emails feel tailor-made. It can be as simple as adding a name to your header image.
• Customized birthday emails are a fun and engaging way to show subscribers they aren’t just a number on your mailing list. You can send an email on their actual birthday (or even according to their zodiac symbol!).
• Product suggestions based on real-time engagement creates meaningful connections and allows you to include products you know the subscriber is likely to engage with, driving them closer to purchase.
• Addressing in-app loyalty behaviors through email personalization is a great way to prompt people to come back for more! Providing customized incentives to get subscribers to boost their in-app activity or rewarding those with higher in-app engagement makes them feel connected with your brand.

Power user tactic: leveraging automation to drive personalization

Delivering personalized emails at scale through content automation can be done by harnessing the power of dynamic content. By relying on more sophisticated data, you can generate endless email variations from a single HTML.

With the right tools in place and data available, these are ways to level up your email personalization.

• Rely on predictive product recommendations based on purchase history to show items frequently bought together to catch the reader’s attention and shorten the sales cycle.
• Include your most current inventory and pricing by tapping into your Google Shopping Feed to dynamically display products without any manual updates.

Conclusion: start perfecting the art of personalized email

In a world where consumers are inundated with a deluge of emails daily, standing out in the inbox has become an art form. Email personalization, and the dynamic content that often coincides with it, offer the best opportunity to forge those deep connections with your subscribers and customers.

But personalizing for personalization’s sake isn’t enough. You must take the time to understand your unique audience and the journey you want them to take.

Effective email personalization throughout the email customer journey is about understanding how to deliver highly relevant content that adds value to the subscriber experience and cultivates a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship beyond conversions.

Personalization doesn’t have to be complicated to be impactful; it just needs to be strategic and intentional to add to the customer experience along the way.

With a documented strategy, and tools like Litmus Personalize, you can be well-equipped with the resources, strategies, and insights you need to implement personalized email throughout the customer journey like a seasoned pro.