WHAT IS HYPER-PERSONALIZATION?

Hyper-personalization hits on the extreme customization of products, services, and communication to meet individual customer needs, preferences, and interests. It takes personalization to more granular, nuanced levels based on in-depth data insights. The goal is to provide ultra-tailored experiences that resonate most with each distinct customer.

The concept of hyper-personalization has emerged in recent years due to the exponential growth of data creation and the advancement of analytics. Technologies like AI allow for more precise consumer understanding from consolidated data across channels. It could span purchase behaviors, browsing history, stated preferences, demographics, location—any datapoint that offers a peek into customers’ unique likes, dislikes, behaviors, and changing needs in the moment. Brands can then use these rich customer profiles to deeply segment audiences and serve finely-tuned offerings in real-time.

For example, hyper-personalization may power an ecommerce site to showcase products uniquely suited to each shopper as soon as they login based on past purchase patterns and predictive modeling. Or customers at a quick-service restaurant could get personalized meal combo recommendations on an interactive screen menu when they walk in the door thanks to mobile geo-location and saved order history.

Hyper-personalization also applies to tailored communication like personalized emails or push notifications with customized messaging, offers, content and product suggestions for the individual. Creative formats, timing and channel can also vary between customers for optimal relevance and engagement at the individual level.

The depth of customization reaches new heights with hyper-personalization. Traditional customization was more generalized based on broader segments like demographics. Hyper-personalization reflects granularity with niche segments of one. The aim is to provide each customer with exactly what they want and need—and when and how they want it. With more maturity of enabling technologies like AI, machine learning and 5G, hyper-personalization stands to increasingly reshape the future customer experience across sectors. By offering unrivaled personal meaning at every touchpoint, companies can foster greater satisfaction, loyalty and lifetime value.