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Communicating the value of any personalization program within your organization can be a daunting task. Yes, you’re looking for buy-in from the C-suite. Yet you must also manage expectations around what your team can deliver. That’s not to mention the countless data points that practitioners sift through on a daily basis, which may or may not prove useful to senior executives—especially since they don’t necessarily speak (or even comprehend) the language of personalization.

So how do you cross the communication barrier and get everyone on the same page?

To find the answer, I spoke with Doron Taub, Director of
Customer Success, who joined Dynamic Yield when personalization technology was still considered a “nice to have.” Over her 10-year tenure, she’s seen how personalization has significantly transformed consumer expectations. Doron has also helped teams grow and scale to meet these expectations—be it through delivering executive-level reporting and communication strategies or making personalization an integral part of an organization’s culture. This is what she had to say.

JR: In your experience, what is the biggest misconception about personalization at the C-suite level? 

Doron: It’s that personalization is just plug and play. Personalization requires time and resources to achieve its full, competitive advantage-defining potential. Sure, when you first introduce personalization to your marketing strategies, you’ll often see a significant impact on your KPIs. This often is due to the novelty and immediate relevance of the changes. (For example, you’ll get more engagement if something that has said “Hey, you” in the past suddenly says “Hey, JR” and addresses you by name.)

However, over time, the impact tends to stabilize. As the novelty wears off, the growth rate may level out. Rather than pull resources, this is where it becomes imperative to continually introduce new initiatives. Organizations must invest the resources, time, and effort into constant analysis and iterations after the initial surge because this is where the data really becomes unique to your customers. Measuring personalization’s impact over a longer period of time means you’re able to separate what truly affects your customers—their wants and needs—beyond macro changes like economic trends, societal shifts, or major events.

Many executives have already come to embrace the benefits and required investment with A/B testing. Still, personalization offers a greater level of granularity which is better able to capture the full spectrum of behaviors that define who customers are. Combining the approaches offers exponential benefits businesses don’t want to miss out on.

Why specifically does senior leadership and above often misunderstand this? 

Unlike other business units that often have dedicated teams with defined roles and responsibilities, many organizations have added personalization as a secondary responsibility for marketers or technicians. Often, personalization is seen as a “sidekick” to other initiatives. This lack of focus and structure often means it’s challenging for these practitioners to gain a broader perspective on the impact of their personalization programs and communicate it effectively.

In working with hundreds of teams over the past decade or so, I’ve found that the easiest way to jump over this hurdle is to define clear KPIs that are aligned with the overall business objectives. For example, if an organization’s goal is to increase revenue by 10% for the year, those who work on personalization can measure the impact of their campaigns in overall revenue. Since “value” is open for interpretation, eliminate assumptions and align on what “value” means for senior executives. Reporting on success the same way the rest of the company does makes it easier to grab executive attention and gain their buy-in. With more aligned visibility, I’ve seen teams grow relatively quickly, securing clear ownership over personalization and gaining the needed headcount and resources to successfully mature the program.

Okay—let’s say all the personalization owners come together and define KPIs. What are the best ways to actually get this in front of the C-suite? 

I’ve found the best thing teams can do is regularly report on how personalization campaigns and initiatives are impacting KPIs. Adhering to a process for regularly circulating test results with executive leadership is a signal of advanced personalization maturity. This is true any way you splice the data: By industry, region, company-size, etc.

A monthly executive reporting cadence usually works. This can be via a newsletter or a standing meeting. All you really need to share is what you’re doing (test results, use cases, other initiatives) and how they impact the defined KPIs. Two or three key insights and the next step for each will usually do the trick.

How are you supposed to help senior executives understand that personalization takes time and resources when you’re only sharing the high-level, exciting stats? 

Many teams tend to under-communicate in the beginning. They think executives need to better understand personalization before they can share results. I’d caution against this: First, you need overall buy-in, then it’s time to educate and manage expectations. Without buy-in, you won’t realize the value of a program. Doubts about the impact of personalization will grow within the business, and you won’t secure resources. Without resources, there is no opportunity to make an impact.

So, I’d say don’t worry about oversimplifying in the beginning: Executive reporting usually leads to at least one sponsor who is interested in the program and can help secure the needed resources. Their increased interest often leads to more collaboration or oversight, rather than just high-level visibility, and you’ll all discover the nuances together. This support and understanding becomes crucial when test-results become less impressive numbers-wise but more meaningful to the company overall, because they’ll often advocate for and help educate about personalization throughout the organization.

Ok: So, what’s the easiest way to compile these insights and next steps?

The best thing you can do is define a clear owner for communicating these efforts. One person maintaining a high level of visibility on the program makes it easy to put together these key insights on a monthly cadence, and then leadership also knows exactly who to go to if they have questions or want to further discuss in detail.

Knowing that this is a hurdle for some teams, Dynamic Yield recently released Executive Spotlight to help many teams come up with these concise bullet points. The tool provides auto-generated, bite-sized insights about your personalization program including product usage, program health, and the business impact for your C-suite. It’s easily visible to the entire team and lives directly in the main dashboard of Experience OS. (It’s also cool because it uses AI to uncover new opportunities, checking for usage, best practices, and performance signifiers!)

Communication Is Crucial to Securing Executive Buy-in

Demonstrating the value of any personalization program comes down to being proactive, consistent, and clear about your goals—and how you intend to achieve them. Thankfully, marketers have access to executive reporting tools that allow them to sort through virtual truckloads of data, and report on the insights that truly matter to senior leadership. By doing so, they stand to gain the resources crucial to realizing their personalization program’s potential.