Majority of CMOs will abandon personalisation efforts by 2025 - report

Some marketers’ ambitions have backfired, as consumers both directly and indirectly reject brands’ overtures, cautions Gartner

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Consumers have developed an increasingly jaundiced eye toward marketers’ efforts to embrace them

Charles Golvin, Gartner

By 2025, 80 per cent of marketers who have invested in personalisation will abandon their efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both, predicts Gartner.

The analyst firm says over a quarter - up to 27 per cent - of marketers believe data is the key obstacle to personalisation - revealing their weaknesses in data collection, integration and protection.

“Personal data has long been the fuel that fires marketing at every stage of the customer journey, and the drive to find new forms of fuel and devise new ways to leverage them seems to be boundless,” says Charles Golvin, senior director analyst in the Gartner for Marketers practice. “

“However, this quest has failed to meet marketers’ ambitions and, in some cases, has backfired, as consumers both directly and indirectly reject brands’ overtures,” says Golvin.

Marketers face other impediments to personalisation success including the continuing decline in consumer trust, increased scrutiny by regulators and tracking barriers erected by tech companies.

While personalisation comprises 14 per cent of the marketing budget, more than one in four marketing leaders cite technology as a major hurdle to personalisation.

“Consumers have developed an increasingly jaundiced eye toward marketers’ efforts to embrace them,” says Golvin.

“Their increasingly cluttered email inboxes and mobile phone notification centers may lead them to ignore even the most carefully personalised and contextualised message. Marketers must really adopt the basics when it comes to test and learn before investing in personalisation technology and new tactics.”

Gartner has a number of recommendations for marketing leaders evaluating their personalisation efforts.

One of these is to leverage a pilot or proof of concept (POC) with a vendor before investing in a personalisation tool.

Go back to the basics and test tailored recommendations at the segment level to avoid unnecessary or premature investment in a personalisation engine, it further advises.

A third of all brand public relations disasters will result from data ethics failures

“Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align personalisation efforts and increase momentum,” says Gartner. “Sharing control of personalisation efforts can lead to shared insight and expand collective impact and ROI.”

Gartner also calls on CMOs to plan for these possibilities:

By 2023, chief marketing officer (CMO) budget allocation on influencer marketing will decrease by a third as consumers continue to lose trust in brands and entities they don’t personally know.
By 2024, artificial intelligence identification of emotions will influence more than half of the online advertisements you see.
By 2022, 25 per cent of marketing departments will have a dedicated behavioural scientist or ethnographer as part of their full-time staff.
In 2023, one-third of all brand public relations disasters will result from data ethics failures.