Over the last few years, the rapid shift to digital channels has amplified issues around effectively and consistently scaling personalised digital experiences. According to data from Adobe's 2025 AI and Digital Trends Report, a significant gap exists between consumer expectations and brand delivery regarding customer personalisation.
While 71% of consumers desire personalised offers and proactive assistance, only 34% of brands provide it. With this in mind, let’s look at strategies you can adopt to enhance customer personalisation for your business.
This post will cover:
Accelerate personalisation at scale.
Personalisation at scale is a vital focus for businesses of all sizes, simply because customers expect it. People are now interacting with your brand through more channels, which means more data is coming in from more (potentially disjointed) sources. This means that tailored content must be delivered to a wider variety of places. At the same time, new and increasingly strict security and privacy regulations will soon require you to shift to a first-party data strategy.
Our 2025 digital report also revealed that consumers are increasingly concerned about data privacy, with 88% expecting responsible handling of their personal information. However, only 49% of organisations meet this expectation, creating a trust gap that hinders personalisation efforts. It’s no surprise that only 14% of organisations were able to deliver compelling experiences that delighted customers, a 25% decline from 2023.
Change is happening fast and it’s not just a matter of keeping up. Your customers have increasingly sophisticated expectations and they inherently compare the experience you provide with that of your competitors. Because this rings true for everyone in such a saturated market, many organisations are now primed to respond.
Personalisation at scale strategies.
Your ability to scale personalisation efforts hinges on 4 strategies:
1. Optimise data and insights.
Begin with a comprehensive foundation for data and insights as the cornerstone of your personalisation scaling strategy. This involves unifying data silos, governing siloed data and integrating analytics to achieve operational efficiencies and facilitate real-time interactions.
2. Streamline content and collaboration.
Build a scalable, dynamic content production machine. Begin by connecting all phases of the content production process, from creation to delivery. You can find out more about this in our guide on creating and delivering content at scale.
3. Deliver better journeys.
Create an intelligent decision-making engine that orchestrates every experience. Use real-time customer data to personalise experiences across all channels and incorporate AI-automated decision-making to better react to insights and engage customers across touchpoints.
4. Transform your organisation and operations.
Start by creating a culture that champions data-driven decision-making and agile marketing operations through team building and executive buy-in. Then, ensure that you have a technology foundation that supports your efforts with tools like Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform.
“Our expanded partnership with Adobe will enable us to enhance customer experiences even further, driving personalisation at scale and further optimising The Home Depot experience across online and in-store.”
Melanie Babcock
Vice President of Integrated Media at The Home Depot
Return on investment (ROI) of personalisation at scale.
While accelerating growth through personalised customer engagement can feel daunting, the benefits you can achieve are worth the effort.
Adobe’s own research on customer engagement and personalisation reveals that experience-driven businesses are more likely to:
- Drive greater customer retention and lifetime value.
- Have happier employees.
- Cultivate competitive advantage at every stage of the customer life cycle.
Likewise, ROI stats on Adobes Real-Time Customer Data Platform reinforce these trends and help companies act on data more easily, leading to a potential:
- 3 times the increase in customer engagement.
- 7-day speed in time to market.
- 50% improvement in workflow efficiency.
Implementing a scaled personalisation strategy that aligns with your organisation’s objectives and specific customer expectations is key. This not only fosters greater customer and employee contentment but is ultimately good for your bottom line.
AI adoption is a priority.
According to our 2025 Digital Trends report, businesses that are using emerging technologies and are already seeing returns on investment expect two major benefits over the next 12 to 24 months:
- Improved quality of customer interactions (58%)
- More consistent communication (50%)
These improvements will help to meet consumers’ key expectations of how brands should engage with them.
According to the latest research from McKinsey, as AI technologies — particularly generative AI — move from experimentation to wide-scale deployment, organisations are reporting significant gains in both efficiency and revenue. With adoption reaching record levels and executive leadership increasingly involved in AI governance, businesses are integrating AI not just as a technical tool, but as a strategic driver of growth and innovation:
- AI Adoption Growth: In 2024, 72% of organisations reported using AI in at least one business function, a significant increase from about 50% in previous years.
- Generative AI Usage: 65% of respondents indicated their organisations regularly use generative AI (GenAI) in at least one business function, nearly doubling from the previous year.
- Multi-Functional Deployment: Half of the organisations have adopted AI in two or more business functions, up from less than a third in 2023.
- Business Impact: Organisations deploying generative AI reported both cost reductions and revenue increases in the business units utilising the technology.
- Functional Adoption: The most common areas for generative AI adoption are marketing and sales, product and service development and IT.
- Leadership and Governance: 28% of organisations using AI have their CEO overseeing AI governance, highlighting the importance of executive involvement in AI initiatives.
The Danish telecom provider Telmore offers a good example of the value of effective consumer personalisation. Their AI-powered personalisation efforts led to an 11% boost in sales compared to non-personalised interactions.
72% of organisations reported using AI in at least 1 business function.
McKinsey
Take the next step to personalise experiences at scale.
Customer expectations are higher than ever in today’s digital world. Meanwhile, organisations have never had so many technologies and data sources available to help them to deliver effective personalised experiences.
At Adobe, we understand what personalisation means in today’s digital economy and why it’s so critical. For more on implementing a strategy within your organisation, check out our guide, Getting started with personalisation at scale.
Ready to turn data into dynamic experiences? Click below to start personalising at scale with AI-powered insights in Adobe Real-Time CDP — and deliver the right message to the right customer, every time.
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