The added value of personalising a message

Personalisation is more than inserting a first name into a subject line. Done well, it makes every email feel like it was written for the specific person receiving it, and that feeling translates directly into higher open rates, more clicks, and stronger long-term relationships with your audience.

Why personalisation works

Your contacts receive dozens of emails every day. Most of them are generic broadcasts. An email that references something specific about the reader, their name, their location, their purchase history, their expressed interests, stands out immediately. It signals that you've paid attention. That's rare, and it's valued.

Research consistently shows personalised emails generate higher open rates, higher click rates, and lower unsubscribe rates than non-personalised equivalents. The more relevant the personalisation, the stronger the effect.

Levels of personalisation

Basic: name and greeting

Using a contact's first name in the subject line or greeting is the simplest form of personalisation. It adds a human touch without requiring much data. The effect is modest but consistent, and it takes less than a minute to set up with the #firstname# placeholder.

Intermediate: interest-based content

Using dynamic content to show different sections of an email to different interest groups is more impactful. A contact who's shown interest in product category A sees different content than one interested in category B, even though you send one campaign. This requires a bit more setup but dramatically improves relevance.

Advanced: behaviour-based personalisation

Triggering specific emails based on what contacts have done, which products they've viewed, which links they've clicked, which events they've attended, is the most powerful form of personalisation. This requires clean data, well-configured link tracking, and automation workflows, but the results in engagement and conversion are significant.

Getting started

You don't need to implement all three levels at once. Start with what your data allows:

• If you have first names: personalise greetings and subject lines with #firstname#.
• If you have interests: use dynamic content to show relevant sections to each group.
• If you have link tracking set up: use click data to segment and target your next campaign more precisely.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Personalising the subject line but delivering generic content inside. The subject line sets an expectation. If the email content doesn't match the personalisation, contacts feel misled and trust drops.
• Not testing the empty field fallback. A subject line reading "Hi , here's your update" looks broken. Always test with a contact profile that has incomplete data.
• Treating name personalisation as sufficient on its own. First-name personalisation is a starting point. The highest returns come from interest-based and behaviour-based personalisation.
• Building personalisation before the data is clean enough to support it. Personalisation on bad data produces bad experiences. Audit your data quality before scaling up.

Next steps

• Add the #firstname# placeholder to your next subject line and preview with both a complete and an empty test profile.
• Set up interest-based dynamic content in your next campaign, see "Dynamic content in the Email builder" for instructions.
• Enable link tracking and assign interests to your most important links, see "Link tracking" for setup guidance.