Beyond the first name: Rethinking personalization for your email strategy

This article is based on Natalie Jackson’s presentation at the Email Marketing Summit. RMA members can enjoy the complete recording here.

Email is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolkit. It’s cost-effective, customizable, and great for building relationships. No wonder we’ve come to rely on it so heavily.

But take a second to think – how many marketing emails hit your inbox every week? 50? 100? More?

Personally, if I ignore my Gmail promotions tab for a day, I instantly regret it. There are emails I genuinely want to read, but they’re buried under a pile of repetitive, one-size-fits-all messages. Why? Because too many marketers think quantity trumps quality.

Personalization is how we cut through the noise, but it’s not just about using someone’s first name. So, how can we rethink personalization to make email more relevant, more effective – and a little less overwhelming?

In this article, we’ll explore:

• How the email landscape is changing
• Four key things you need to get right before you can personalize emails at scale
• How to map your data landscape for effective personalization
• Creative, low-lift ways to make your emails feel more human

Let’s dive in.

The changing email landscape

In recent years, behaviors around inbox management, new data privacy legislation, and the entire email ecosystem itself have all been shifting toward prioritizing recipient experiences.

For instance, Gmail and Yahoo have been making significant changes to ensure inboxes remain active. They're focusing heavily on deliverability as a key metric – making sure that emails have low spam complaint rates, ensuring authentication, and emphasizing recipient engagement. Simply put, these platforms want to see who's genuinely interested in receiving your emails.

Meanwhile, iOS 18 groups and summarizes emails from the same sender, helping users skim their inboxes more easily. It's great for recipients but creates new challenges for email marketers.

Deliverability metrics have shifted, too. We used to worry about spam keywords (remember panicking about using "free" in subject lines?). Now, engagement metrics matter more, highlighting how many recipients genuinely interact with your content.

Lastly, looming in the US – and already a reality in Europe – is the potential for new national data privacy laws. These could significantly impact the data we collect and use for email personalization.

In short, the email industry is moving away from high-volume sending toward prioritizing recipient desire and meaningful engagement – focusing on what your audience wants rather than simply what brands choose to send.

Recipients are feeling email fatigue

Recipient behavior mirrors this shift toward meaningful engagement. This chart from Mailgun’s Email and the customer experience 2024 survey highlights how many people unsubscribe simply because they're overwhelmed by the volume of emails they're getting from brands. They're essentially saying, "I can't keep up."

I caught myself reflecting on this during the last holiday shopping season. Throughout December, I was receiving daily emails – sometimes several of them – from the same brand. Even after I bought something, I'd receive more messages urging me to buy again. 

Not only are these huge server loads bad for the environment, but receiving so many emails is also frustrating as a customer. It becomes hard to find the emails I want when they're buried under similar messages from ten other brands doing the exact same thing.

If sheer volume is our primary strategy, we're not effectively making our way into recipients' inboxes. Instead, we're increasing the risk of high spam complaints and opt-outs, ultimately damaging our chances to build the successful customer relationships we really want.

Getting set up for effective email personalization

So, what can we do about all this? As you’ve probably guessed, the answer is personalization. 

If your email personalization strategy currently stops at inserting someone's first name or basic data points like company name (for B2B marketers) or subscription dates, that's relatively simple and straightforward.

However, to truly leverage the potential of personalization, you've got to step back and tackle some essential prep work. An effective personalization strategy combines four key components: 

1. Data
2. Integrations
3. Journeys
4. Content

Let's unpack each of these, starting with data.

Step one: Get granular with your data

First, consider your data. Where is it coming from, where does it live, and how is it being updated? 

If you're pulling first names from a CRM integration, for example, how confident are you in the accuracy of that data? Is someone consistently entering “Natalie Jackson,” or could there be entries like “Nat Jackson”? You need to anticipate potential problems and examine your data fields carefully, especially if you plan to scale your personalization efforts.

Another critical aspect is distinguishing structured data from unstructured data – this is a personal soapbox of mine. Structured data means using fields with standardized options rather than allowing free-form entries. 

It's challenging (if not impossible) to deliver effective personalization at scale when data entries vary widely or have no standard format. Ideally, you want clearly defined pick-list values that let you easily apply logic – if A, then show B; if C, then show D, and so on. Structured, standardized data is your friend in building a scalable, personalized email program.

Step two: Understanding your integrations

Once you understand the data you're personalizing with, the next step is tackling integrations. This includes integrations you already have, as well as potential ones that could enhance your personalization capabilities.

First, think strategically. What kinds of personalizations are you looking to create? Maybe it's behavior-based triggers – where an action in one tool prompts an email in another. For that to work, you'll need integrations that clearly map data points across systems. 

Or, if you're personalizing around someone's favorite color, can you seamlessly pull that data from one system into your email platform, or is some sort of translation process necessary?

Also, consider how data points enter your system. If they come through integrations, look closely for potential bugs. If they're entered by people, watch out for gaps. Will you include optional fields? A personalization strategy that relies on optional fields raises the question of how to manage any missing data.

Mapping out exactly what you’re personalizing and ensuring data reliability at this stage is crucial.

Step three: Evaluating your customer journeys

Marketers today have access to tons of data – from buyer intent data to enriched information from tools like ZoomInfo or Dun & Bradstreet. Beyond the legal considerations, it's critical to pause and ask yourself if using this data might seem creepy to your recipients.

You might know a lot about a person, but make sure you're not crossing boundaries that make someone uncomfortable. Data privacy laws exist precisely because consumers are wary of how marketers gather and use their information. Always evaluate what data recipients have willingly provided and whether you're transparently communicating how you've collected it.