Dear {!CONTACT.FIRSTNAME}, Remember when personalization was a nifty trick to make your mass emails seem friendlier? We’ve come a long way since then.

Today, personalization is a multifaceted practice that is fundamentally transforming advertising, marketing, and online user experience. By serving up the right content at the right moment for the right audience, businesses are experiencing higher lead conversions and creating stronger relationships with customers (who, btw, now say they expect a personalized experience).

But in 2019, many marketers still feel daunted by personalization. They don’t know where to start or how to execute a strategy: While 98% of surveyed marketers agree that personalization helps advance customer relationships, only 32% believe that marketers are getting it right, and only 16% are “very” or “extremely” satisfied with the level of personalization in their marketing efforts, according to Evergage’s 2019 Trends in Personalization report.

“When it comes to personalization, I always tell clients that you need to crawl before you walk and walk before you run,” says Tendo’s own Lindy Roux, Vice President and Managing Director. “Start slow with a focused exercise, then test and optimize to get it right before expanding your efforts.

“At the outset, you also need to develop clear, audience-focused goals for what you want to accomplish with personalization,” adds Roux, “and establish the right taxonomy and data sources, being realistic about how many ways you can personalize and deliver content.”

How Is Website Personalization Evolving in 2019?

We’ve compiled a “Tendo Roundup” of recent articles that capture the best current insights and conversations about B2B marketing personalization. Read on to take your personalization to the next level or just get up to speed on the fundamentals.

Is Your Personalization for Your Visitors…Or for You? (B2B Marketing Zone)
This entertaining (and short) read reinforces the key to successful personalization—always start with audience goals—and explains some of the key terminology for beginners, like “behavior-based personalization” and the difference between implicit and explicit data.

Well-Designed Taxonomy Drives Effective Content Personalization (True Influence)
Another great foundational article to read. At Tendo we love developing taxonomies and always stress their importance. Here, Janet Rubio makes a compelling case for personalization and shares spot-on tips for how to create and use your own taxonomy. “A taxonomy goes well beyond marketing copy,” she says. “It is an enterprise-wide method for describing your entire business.”

Website Personalization 101: How to Define Your Strategy with AI (Coveo Blog)
Rachel Schultz at Coveo defines what personalization means in 2019 and explores the connections between personalization and AI (since martech tools are a major ingredient). You’ll also find great tips on how to personalize your website by understanding your content gaps and your users’ context and behaviors.

Why Personalization Efforts Fail (CMSWire)
Avoid personalization pitfalls, from a lack of dynamic content to lingering data siloes and a fragmented view of the customer. Phil Brett distills the key takeaways from recent Forrester and Gartner surveys on personalization to help you avoid missteps.

How to Make Your Content Personalized but Not Creepy (Content Marketing Institute)
Welcome to the personalization paradox: While people say they want personalized experiences, they’re (understandably) wary of data privacy issues. Larry Lubin explores the importance of transparency, disclosure, and consent.

6 Personalization Techniques That Will Boost Your Conversion Rate (The Daily Egg)
Ready to dive into detailed personalization tactics? This in-depth article explains how to put personalization to work based on referral source, time of visit, number of visits, and geolocation.

The Future of Personalization—And How to Get Ready for It  (McKinsey) McKinsey analysts provide the dessert in our roundup. While this article is more focused on B2C commerce and in-store personalization, it’s worth a read. The takeaway: Start investing now in better ways to capture customer data and analytics.

Catch Tendo’s Lindy Roux at the Taxonomy Boot Camp

Curious to know more about the relationship between taxonomy and personalization? Lindy will present a session on the topic at Taxonomy Boot Camp, Nov. 4–5, 2019 in Washington, DC. Hope to see you there!