Relevant Marketing Beats Personalisation: Google's New Data

So today an email from Google had hit my inbox, and I think we need to talk about it, because they’ve conducted some research that shows that customers care far less about personalisation, seeing their name in your email or the email subject line, they care far less about that than you might actually think. What they actually care about is what’s called content relevance.

So on today’s podcast, what I want to share is this brand new data that Google have released, and it really does challenge our ideas about marketing personalisation. So today we’re going to learn why Google is pushing that relevance is now outperforming personalisation, and also how they created a fictional brand that they then used in its testing, and the testing actually showed that fictional brand took a 41% market share by using relevant messaging. We’ll also share some practical ways of how you can actually leverage some of these learnings into your own marketing strategy as well.

If we haven’t met before, my name is Jordan McFadyen. Welcome again to the Marketing Mindset podcast. This podcast, of course, is designed to help you navigate this cluttered world of marketing in this AI-driven world, and help for you to challenge to move away from random acts of marketing towards planning and intentional marketing strategy.

And this one is actually pretty good news for business owners and marketing teams, because what it means is that we don’t necessarily need really sophisticated personalisation technology to actually win customers. So instead, what this data and this research is telling us today is that all we need to do is actually just become more relevant than our competition: relevant to your customers’ problems, their pain points, their desires that they have. How is your content, your messaging, your offer relevant to your customer at the time that they see your message?

Now, I’ve discussed in previous blogs and previous podcasts around how the traditional marketing funnel, that linear marketing funnel, is dead. It’s no way near as linear as once we thought it might have been, because today’s customers, the journey that they do now resembles much more of a chaotic web rather than that straight line. Google call this the messy middle. But this new data sits on top of the messy middle, and it adds a new layer that I think we need to consider today.

But how I want to start is, let’s start right back at marketing personalisation. Because for years we have poured a lot of resources. There’s been a lot of articles around personalising every single customer interaction, and how that’s going to increase sales. Like the “Hello, first name” emails and the birthday offers that quickly became standard practice. But at the same time, I feel as though they’re just getting a bit too old and outdated now as well. And this new data suggests this as well.

And this is research that I’ve been analysing that has been done from both Google and also a research company. They’re called The Behavioural Architects. And the research has shown me some interesting aspects that I think we need to consider when we look at our personalisation. So here are the numbers that flip some of these conventional marketing wisdom straight on its head.

The first one is that only 18% of consumers actually care about seeing their name on a product recommendation. Only 21% of people actually find value in birthday emails from brands. When if we have a look, 27% of the people researched actually value product recommendations based on things that they’d previously viewed or purchased. And 35% of those people appreciate notifications or communications or emails about sales with brands that they actually care about, actually give a shit about.

So essentially those first-name emails that we’re talking about, the personalisation emails where we wish our customers a happy birthday, that’s out. And what’s in is really segmenting your audience to send and communicate relevance to their pain point, their frustration, their desire. That is what is in right now.

But this insight, like I said right at the start in the intro, it only really becomes more powerful when we connect it to what we already know about what Google have coined the messy middle. I’ve spoken about this. We’ve got a full podcast which breaks down what the messy middle is and how to navigate that. You can go back and have a look into that in the archives, or go back to our website and have a read over that.

But for the purpose of this podcast, I will take you through it really quickly, about the purchase journey in those four key phases, just so you get a bit of an understanding. That first one in the messy middle is the trigger: that initial spark of interest, or that need recognition, so that the customer, they realise that they’ve got this need that they need to fill, this pain point that they’ve got to fill. Then they enter what we call the exploration phase. In this phase, they’re gathering information, they’re discovering new options, they’re expanding the possibilities.

Then when they’re in the exploration phase, and you can probably picture yourself in this as well, you then move into that evaluation phase. So then you’re actually getting more in-depth, you’re comparing different options, you’re checking reviews, for example, you’re narrowing down your choices. And then you finally get to that purchase stage, which is obviously finally making a decision.

But the messy middle gets messy because most customers aren’t going to move through that linear funnel as, like, you’ve seen the graphs before, and what we’ve been made to believe. Instead, what they are doing, and the data shows us, is they are looping back and forth. And they’re mainly looping back and forth between the exploration and the evaluation stage. And they’re doing this multiple times. And this right there, that is why relevance matters more than what personalisation does.

Because when people are in that exploration phase, they’re gathering the information, they’re discovering all their different options. When they get to the evaluation phase, that’s when they’re actually checking out your business. They’re comparing your business alongside others. And we want them to be in the evaluation phase. And for our messaging and the way that we convey our business, we want that to be able to get them into that purchase stage. We do not want them to go back into the exploration phase.

We don’t want them to be in the evaluation and go, actually, maybe these businesses that I’m looking at, they don’t actually feel that pain point. They don’t feel that desire. I’m going to go back and exploring. I found another tangent that I want to have a look at first. We don’t want that. We want them to go from finding you, the way that they’ve explored, evaluating your product or your service, and then making that purchase. That’s what we want. We don’t want them to bounce between that exploration and that evaluation.

But what’s going to help cut through that noise, like I say, is not just seeing their name somewhere in an email. It’s seeing that a brand or a business or a product or a service genuinely can solve, and demonstrate that they can solve, their problem, or satisfy their desires at that right time.

So what I want to do as well is I want to take another example that this report, this data, has suggested, which also shows that relevance, and nailing that relevance, can also help businesses who potentially have a smaller market share right now as well. So according to this research, what they did was they created this brand new fictional airline. So they called it Opal Air. And during testing, what they did is Opal Air, this fictional airline, was actually able to capture 41% market share from some of the established competitors. And they were able to do it by using relevant, timely messaging based on first-party customer data, like the customer interests, the customer needs.

So to step through how they did this, before people took part in the experiment, they were asked a number of questions about who they were, specifically what they were shopping for, their brand preferences, past interactions with different brands in the category of air travel, for this particular example. Then what they did was they used those, the respondents and the people in the survey, they used their personal answers to actually create tailored messaging. Tailored messaging that they then saw in the advert simulations. And they tested different offers and messaging from the first-choice brand, which are like the big brands, against the offers from the brand that they created, that Opal Air.

And they were able to help participants actually make the right choice for their unique needs, based on the messaging provided in the test, which then meant that a quarter of the respondents, or just under a quarter of the respondents, selected the imaginary Opal Air brand over those original first-choice brands. So this data is incredible. It’s telling us that we might not need that massive brand recognition of, like, the Air New Zealand’s or the Qantas’s to be able to win customers. All we need to truly understand is, we truly need to know what our customers, their pain points, what’s important to them, so that we can become more relevant than our competition in those areas, to be able to capture a piece of the market.

So let’s do a whole nother example as well. You’re a local accountancy firm. Instead of focusing on email communications that celebrate a client’s birthday or a milestone with your business, instead think about factoring in information and communications that, I don’t know, provide relevant, timely tax updates specific to a real specific client industry sector, specific to the challenges that sector may be facing at any given time, or announcing services or products to help them further. So instead of just doing that birthday wish or that email personalisation, actually taking it one step further and building a relevant communication that actually means something to them.

And that accountancy firm, when they’re acquiring new customers, trying to truly understand, using that first-party data, your positioning and what your offer is, and why your target market should choose you, instead of playing against those big brands and those big budgets that can afford to reach a wider market. So the thing is, what are the differences that you can offer, and how can you use first-party data, like we’ve just gone over, to actually deliver this message to your prospective audience?

So the key here, I’ve said it a few times now, so I’ll explain. First-party data, it’s right there. This is where a lot of businesses also, well, firstly become a little bit uncomfortable with, but also kind of glaze over. But I want you to try and think that this could potentially be the key for unlocking for you: collecting data from your customers. Now, first-party data, this is data that they give you. Remember, we’re moving past cookies and things like that. We need to think about how we collect data from our customers.

Because this research is telling us as well, if you are feeling a bit uncomfortable about this, the research is telling us another critical insight, which was that customers are actually getting much more comfortable with sharing data. 53% of the people in this research were comfortable sharing personal data if it would lead to a more tailored experience. 53% of those people. 68% of the people surveyed find that over-personalised communications from an unfamiliar company is really intrusive. So those two pieces of the stats are really interesting as well.

And that data is pretty clear that customers, they want businesses, they’re happy to give businesses their data, but they want that data to be used in a real helpful way, and not a way to fake intimacy, not to try be best mates with them. They’re willing to share information if it will create genuine value, but they feel really uncomfortable when a business tries to take that data and act like they’re best mates.

So for small, medium, mid-level businesses, this simplifies things for us amazingly. And what it’s telling us is that we don’t necessarily need to pretend to have this personal best-mate relationship with every single customer or client. You just need to be consistently thinking about how can you be helpful and relevant. Relevance is the key: to the customer’s pain, to their problems that they’re facing, or the desires that they have as well.

So that’s the research, and that’s what we’ve learned. But I guess then we need to think about, okay, what are some actual ways that we can apply all these learnings to our everyday marketing strategies, to refine what we do, improve? The 1% is always trying to take baby steps and move forward and improve things over time.

So the first thing I would be suggesting for you to do is thinking about your messaging, and stopping over-obsessing about including names in your subject lines, and actually start solving problems. So instead of crafting clever, personalised greetings, focus on understanding what problems your customers are trying to solve at any given time. So this is your sign to skip the “Happy birthday, Sarah” emails and focus on what Sarah truly wants to see. Focus on “Sarah, you need to pay your provisional tax” instead. Something really tangible and relevant to them at that given time. Using first-party data. Don’t be afraid of it. Segment your audience and send timely, relevant communications and messaging.

And then make those recommendations truly helpful. So this is the next thing I’ll do: think about using purchase history to recommend products or services that complement what the customers have already bought, or services that they’ve already used. And you can use that data to continue to be truly helpful, and offer more solutions and more products that they potentially could need. And then you can learn from what your customers are reacting to. Use those learnings to even help power your cold marketing ad campaigns, your cold outreach. Use all of that data as much as possible.

And I’ve said it a few times about first-party data, and that’s my third tip. I think you need to rethink that data collection as well. And try and think about, firstly, if you’re not collecting data, try and collect data. Collect more data. But only collect information that’s going to help you deliver a better, relevant and helpful experience for your clients, your customers, or your future clients and customers in the future. So instead of asking them for a birth date so you can send out that clever birthday email you’ve got, ask about different things, like preferences, interests, problems that they’re facing, problems that they want to be able to solve with you and your business as well.

So as an example, a real-life example, let’s say you’re running a boutique gym. You want to collect first-party data. So when they’re signing up for a lead magnet on your website, or when they’re signing up as a new client, ask some details about their fitness preferences, their preferred workout times, the style of fitness that they like. So that when timely information is released from your business, or updated, you can send relevant communication to those people at that right time.

For example, you’ve got a client who likes early morning cardio classes. And when there’s an update about an early morning cardio class, it can be sent to only those that have really shown preference to cardio workouts, with their best availability in the morning, instead of boring your entire audience with information that may not matter to them. So sending relevant communications, instead of expecting that simply personalising emails is going to be able to win clients and continue to grow your business.

So where to from here? We know that AI is changing how customers are finding and interacting with our businesses. And I’ve been saying this for months now. And this is what that messy middle concept is also telling us. But this research that we’ve discussed today is confirming something else that I’ve been saying about the future of customer discovery. And that is that we need to be focusing on building more trust and building better relevant communications, demonstrating to our audience that we know exactly who they are, the problems that they’re facing, and that your unique product, your unique service, your business, you are the ones to help solve that.

So collecting first-party data is going to continue to be the key, and really being able to solve real customer problems at the moment that they need that solution. Because this concept of the messy middle that we’ve discussed already, it is not disappearing. If anything, AI is making it even more complex. But with the data that we’re talking about here, we know now that guiding customers through the messy middle isn’t just about using basic personalisation tactics. We are past that now. It’s about genuinely helpful and relevant content. How can you and your business be genuinely helpful and relevant?

So I want you to take another look at your marketing. Are you focusing on shallow personalisation, or are you actually creating truly relevant experiences for your clients, for your customers, or your prospects? Because the data clearly shows us which approach is actually going to drive business results in 2025 and beyond.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. And if you have, I’d love for you to give us a rating wherever you are listening to this podcast. If you’re feeling extra generous, leave a review; that would be even better for us. You can, of course, go back and listen or share or read any of our past content on our website, donebynine.com/podcast. And if you want to chat about your strategy with our talented team here, you can also get in contact with us online. You can hear how we can actually support you and your business and your business’s marketing goals in this AI-driven era as well. Find all the details at donebynine.com.

And the other thing is, if you have got any value out of this podcast or this article today, please share it with someone else who you think could actually get some great value out of it. Again, that does wonderful things for us, and it really makes it worth us taking the time to do the research, and not only just keeping that research for ourselves, but actually sharing that out to as many people as possible as well, so that we can all start to be able to navigate these tricky times with this AI-driven era that we’re focusing on here.

Again, thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Marketing Mindset podcast, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.