Inspiration for any industry — 25 examples of personalized customer experiences
Every customer wants to feel special. They want the brands they interact with to know their needs and interests so they can have an enjoyable experience across any channel. But these are more than just wants. Today, every customer expects personalized experiences. According to Forrester Consulting, 73% of consumers and 87% of B2B customers expect delightful experiences before and after purchase.
According to an Epsilon survey, 80% of consumers would be more likely to do business with a company that offered experiences tailored just for them.
What exactly is a personalized experience? A personalized customer experience starts with understanding the needs of each customer and then providing relevant, engaging interactions, messaging, or offers at the right time in the customer journey, however customers choose to connect with you.
But if you have thousands or even millions of customers, personalization can seem overwhelming. The right tools can make it easier. Learn how the following brands are creating personalized experiences for their customers that increase engagement, boost customer satisfaction, and raise revenue.
25 Personalized Customer Experience Examples Automotive
Marketing and Advertising
Finance
Government
Hospitality and Travel
Retail
- Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Walgreen’s Boots Alliance
- Tractor Supply Company
- Coles
- L’Occitane
- Pandora
- Ben & Jerry’s
- The Home Depot
Sports
Technology
Media, Entertainment, and Telecommunications
Automotive
1. Discount Tire Supply — keeping services safe and personal
During the height of the pandemic, Discount Tire Supply needed a way to provide essential auto services while keeping customers and employees safe. This meant going touchless. With the help of Adobe solutions, customers were able to make appointments and enter information online so they could stay in their vehicles during service.
The company also provided personalized messaging for customers based on real-time conditions in the 36 states where its stores are located using Adobe Target, and it communicated safety measures consistently across desktop, mobile, and in-store screens with Adobe Experience Manager — all resulting in more online appointments and nearly doubling transactions.
Digital Marketing
2. Dentsu Aegis — Creating relevant content faster with more efficient asset use
Dentsu Aegis Network had an ambitious strategy to get their member agencies to focus on driving personalized stories through digital marketing, digital content, and digital channels. To get there, agencies had to produce more content at a faster pace to use across multiple digital channels.
Because high-quality images and video are important elements for quickly creating collateral, Dentsu Aegis Network chose Adobe Stock. Powered by Adobe Sensei AI and machine learning framework, designers can swiftly find and use assets, filtering searches based on depth of field or vivid color to match a desired look. This allows them to spend less time searching and more time designing just-right experiences.
Finance
3. BBVA — Recovering millions in revenue by knowing their customer
When BBVA set out to transform their business to digital, they aimed to provide data-driven services that speak to each customer. Beginning with Adobe Target, they implemented a test-and-learn approach to better understand what motivates their customers in order to provide a more relevant experience.
For example, after an A/B test, they discovered that customers in Mexico were dropping out of the sales funnel at the final stage of the online journey due to an undetected bug on its website. BBVA immediately fixed the issue and recovered millions in revenue. The financial institution also centralized the content creation process using Adobe Experience Manager Sites in order to communicate with customers in a more personalized, consistent way through their mobile app and other platforms.
4. CIBC — Using customer profiles to deliver real-time messaging
CIBC wanted to increase customer engagement and deepen relationships with their financial customers by taking personalization to the next level. At the same time, they had to prepare for the end of third-party online cookies.
With the help of multiple Adobe solutions, CIBC can now use existing behavioral data to deliver targeted messages to customers that adapt in real time based on their profiles and requirements — whether they’re on a computer, mobile device, or at an ATM. For example, retail clients with excess funds are exposed to ads about savings, while those receiving financial relief see ads for helpful services. CIBC also prioritized ads to build models that maximize responses, resulting in conversion rates that have risen 1.5x.
Government
5. US Census Bureau — Driving record participation in the first online census
Getting personal with 330 million people across the United States is a monumental task. But that’s just what the US Census Bureau set out to do as they prepared for the first-ever online census in 2020. This meant not only modernizing their website and preparing for a surge in traffic, but also creating awareness of the online option and driving census completion rates through digital advertising.
Pulling data from Adobe Analytics and Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target helped them make real-time decisions about content so they could improve their ads during the time the census survey was available. As a result, a record 99.98% of all housing units and physical addresses across the country were accounted for in the 2020 Census.
Hospitality and Travel
6. Japan Airlines — Bringing in-flight experiences to the digital realm
Japan Airlines understands the importance of creating tailored experiences for its passengers and wanted to extend the in-flight experience to digital channels to attract new customers. Because travelers often see the brand for the first time through targeted digital advertising, the airline sought a unified advertising platform to get to know their audiences better and deliver more targeted, relevant communications.
They chose Adobe Advertising Cloud Demand-Side Platform (DSP) with the power of Adobe Sensei to deliver the right content at the right time. As a result, they saw an 81% increase in viewability rates. And, with traffic to their website increasing, they’re now focused on providing even more personalized web experiences with Adobe Experience Manager.
7. Marriott — Improving travel experiences with a data mindset
Marriott wants their customers to feel at home — from booking to checkout and everywhere in between. That’s why they’ve changed the way they view and use data. With Adobe Target and Adobe Audience Manager, they can look beyond the numbers and see how data represents the user experience. For example, when a customer checks in using their mobile key, the data can show what customers liked and didn’t like about the experience.
This mindset has prompted Marriott to test different features to offer quick information about hotel amenities, local dining options, transportation, or local attractions — at just the right moments to create personalized stories that customers will keep telling.
8. Virgin Atlantic — Making customers feel special from booking to boarding and beyond
Virgin Atlantic sets itself apart from other airlines through the personalized experiences it provides to its passengers — from having a customer’s favorite drink ready for them as they board to recognizing customers through their loyalty program. Just like their in-flight experiences, they wanted to make their customers feel unique and valued whether interacting on their website, or in person at the airport.
With support from various Adobe solutions, the airline can now offer personalized experiences to passengers at regular intervals before they fly. For instance, someone flying in three months gets reminders to check their visa status or passport. They can also upgrade their flight, enhance their onboard meal, or reserve a limo at the airport.
9. AccorHotels — Unique communications for every guest
In the competitive hospitality industry, AccorHotels knows the importance of providing personalized experiences for guests, before, during, and after their stays. Their mobile app integrates with Adobe Campaign, allowing them to send tailored messaging like offers and alerts across channels and brands. “Adobe Campaign enables AccorHotels to deliver the perfect message to any customer at exactly the right moment,” said Romain Roulleau, senior vice president, ecommerce and digital services at AccorHotels.
With the ability to track online and offline interactions, the hotelier can see when someone booked a vacation to Cannes, for example. Rather than send the guest messages about other destinations, AccorHotels can then send personalized notifications with pre-stay updates about hotel services, local sites, and other helpful information.
“Adobe Campaign enables AccorHotels to deliver the perfect message to any customer at exactly the right moment.”
—Romain Roulleau
Senior Vice President, Ecommerce and Digital Services, AccorHotels
Retail
10. Dick’s Sporting Goods — Giving every shopper what they need
With an increasingly diverse customer base, Dick’s Sporting Goods needed to tap into the unique needs of each shopper. With the help of multiple Adobe solutions, they can quickly see what customers are searching for online and enhance the experience to make it more relevant.
They’re also taking personalization a step further with Adobe Experience Platform. With the ability to gather customer insights across channels in the moment of interaction, they can provide personalized experiences in real time. For example, a first-time shopper who enters the store to buy tennis balls will later get updates on rackets or tennis shoes instead of yoga pants. A customer who’s had an unsatisfactory experience in store might receive a message with an apology and an offer to return.
11. Walgreens Boots Alliance — Reimagining the pharmacy experience
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) wanted to recreate the neighborhood pharmacy feel of their retail stores with their digital experiences. But with rising customer expectations and quickly-emerging channels, achieving this at scale was complex — especially in the wake of COVID-19.
With IT and marketing working closely together, supported by Adobe solutions, WBA has made healthcare more personal and accessible on a wide scale. Customers can now get timely, relevant recommendations on past purchases, and while picking up their order at the drive-thru, get personal notifications, such as an annual flu shot reminder. As a result, WBA has seen a 30% increase in mobile app use, 50% increase in digital traffic, and 155 basis points of sales increases.
12. Tractor Supply Company — Providing consistent experiences across every channel
Tractor Supply Company had already begun modernizing the shopping experience through ecommerce, mobile, and buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS). So when the pandemic hit, they were ready. They quickly shifted BOPIS to curbside pickup while making sure customers could continue to easily buy online. But they also wanted to provide seamless, personalized experiences across all their channels.
Using Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Target, they were able to do just that. Millions of shoppers now enjoy consistent experiences across desktop web and mobile, as well as targeted offers and services like curbside pickup.
13. Coles — Unifying web experiences
Leading Australian retailer Coles needed a way to provide their customers with a unified online experience. Because they had separate sites for each brand with varying designs and navigation, customers often had to switch between sites to find what they needed, providing an inconsistent experience.
Using Adobe Experience Manager Sites, they brought all their sites under one content management system (CMS). With support from other Adobe solutions for personalization and testing, they’ve increased page views and site visits, and can now deliver the experiences their customers expect. This included providing frequent updates during the pandemic, such as changes to store hours, product purchase limits, when and where certain groups of people could shop, and store closures due to possible exposure.
14. L’Occitane — Creating connections through personalization and storytelling
Luxury brand L’Occitane understands that offering shoppers discounts may increase short-term sales but does little to build brand loyalty. Instead, they sought to establish a deeper connection with customers through personalization and storytelling. They used Adobe solutions to better understand customer interest and past purchases, and deliver email content tailored to those preferences, resulting in more clicks, site visits, and engagement. Their holiday campaigns also used dynamic first-name personalization, weather-related content, boutique locators, live polls, and countdowns for higher open and response rates, and more sales.
This has set the foundation for a company-wide shift to personalization.
15. Pandora — Tuning into listeners’ needs with data
Pandora has always strived to provide listeners with memorable music experiences by surprising them with new music and artists through their personal recommendations. “We’re known for discovery,” said Chris Phillips, chief product officer for Pandora. “We’re partnering with Adobe to unleash that discovery outside of our product.”
The company is using the power of their recommendations to communicate with listeners through email, push notifications, and other off-platform marketing. They’re working with Adobe Audience Manager to get customer insights from their data so they can tune music to each listener, displaying new songs from their favorite artists, and even helping them finish a playlist they started.
“We’re known for discovery We’re partnering with Adobe to unleash that discovery outside of our product.”
—Chris Phillips
Chief Product Officer, Pandora
16. Ben & Jerry’s — Catering to personal tastes and mindsets
As an ice cream brand with a powerful social mission, not only does Ben & Jerry’s need to cater to their customers’ personal tastes, but they also need to deliver messages consumers can relate to. With the help of Adobe Audience Manager, the brand can gather flavor preferences from their web visitors and use that data to remarket to them using images and videos that reflect their favorite flavors.
They can also test and refine messaging using Adobe Target in order to send the right messages to the right customers, sharing their ideas with the greatest number of people, and hopefully make a positive difference in the world.
17. The Home Depot — Bringing digital experiences to life
The Home Depot envisioned creating a unified experience for their customers, whether browsing online or on the store floor. Starting with their award-winning app, the home improvement store enabled shoppers to quickly find the aisle and bin number of their desired product in the store, as well as read reviews, view how-to videos, and get product details. Customers can also take a picture of a broken part or an object with a paint color they like, and through technology powered by Adobe Sensei, find a replacement product or paint to match their preference.
Using additional Adobe solutions, the brand can also use real-time data, such as geolocation data, to direct customers to the nearest store to pick up the product they need.
Sports
18. PGA Tour — Increasing engagement based on fan favorites
With today’s golf fans demanding more content, coverage, and player access than ever, PGA Tour needed to build a personal relationship with each fan to serve them the most relevant content. Using Adobe Audience Manager, they created a single view of their fan. PGA Tour can now personalize experiences across digital platforms, allowing fans to specify their favorite players, pin their favorites to a leaderboard, and get push notifications across mobile apps.
The brand has also launched a feed-based, personalized experience in their app that serves up content based on the fan’s favorite players.
Technology
19. Philips – Delivering relevant content that’s true to brand
As one of the world’s most respected technology and manufacturing brands, the digital needs of Philips are complex. With customers in 79 markets across the globe, the company wanted a new digital platform that would provide a steady stream of personalized experiences tailored to the context of each customer on both web and mobile.
With Adobe Experience Manager Sites, Adobe Target, and other Adobe solutions making up the foundation of their digital platform, Philips can now collect audience data, use those insights to segment and target the right audience, and create relevant, engaging content that stays true to their brand.
20. Pitney Bowes — Personalizing digital customer experiences around the world
In order to meet the expectations of their global digital customers and deliver compelling personalized experiences at scale, Pitney Bowes set out to transform their business. They needed to break down operational siloes, automate time-intensive processes, and connect data across the organization.
Using Adobe Experience Manager, they streamlined and sped up content creation while also achieving more targeted delivery of digital assets. This resulted in more personalized digital services, increased user satisfaction, and higher online revenue. With the help of Adobe Analytics, the company can also analyze large volumes of data, uncover patterns in customers behavior, and use that knowledge to deliver more tailored, personalized digital services. In just 18 months, Pitney Bowes saw a 198% return on their Adobe investment.
21. Western Digital — A unified platform for data-driven decisions
Western Digital wanted to create a complete view of their customers in order to make data-driven decisions. They also needed a unified platform that would help them target, segment, develop content, and automate campaigns to help them personalize content in real time. Using Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Target, and other Adobe solutions, they’ve been able to connect data across multiple systems, allowing them to create customized emails and highly-targeted web pages.
And, through machine learning and AI capabilities, the technology company provides online recommendations based on the specific buyer and what’s in their shopping cart. For instance, if a customer has a portable SSD drive in their cart, they might see a protective case as a recommendation.
22. Bose — Bringing personalization into focus
With so many products spread across hundreds of websites, Bose wanted to help its international customers find what they needed quickly. They also wanted to create personalized journeys for individual customers. Using Adobe Experience Cloud applications, they’re able to understand their customers better and personalize experiences through relevant, engaging content — including products, imagery, and information.
To bring a greater focus on personalization across the company, they also created the Adobe Center of Excellence at Bose. Content and technical teams can now come together and learn more advanced personalization strategies with the help of free resources from Adobe Experience League.
Telecommunications
23. Swisscom — Personalized experiences with one click
Swisscom AG, Switzerland’s leading telecommunications company, strives to themselves apart from competitors through their unique quality and services, and seamless online and offline experiences. They use Adobe Experience Manager to intuitively interact with customers in their native language across any device and platform. With the help of AI and machine learning capabilities from Adobe Target, they’re also delivering personalized experiences with a single click, such as relevant news, personalized recommendations, and other custom interactions.
“With Adobe Sensei, we can add personalization during the testing phase and get better results by identifying customer behavior patterns without any prior analysis,” said Nicolas Mériel, senior digital strategist at Swisscom.
24. Sky — Providing human connections with AI
Sky UK is a leading brand in telecommunications and digital entertainment serving millions of people. With 72% of their customers interacting with the company across three or more channels, they needed to strengthen their cross-marketing capabilities to provide personalized interactions in their customers’ channel of choice.
With Adobe Audience Manager, they gain a deeper understanding of customers by bringing together data across these channels. They can also uncover the recommendations, services, and experiences that best resonate with each customer through Adobe Target. For example, Target uses machine learning to discover a customers’ sports preferences, resulting in more effective and appreciated product recommendations.
25. Telefónica — Uniting online and offline interactions
In order to provide their customers with consistent, personalized experiences across channels, O2 — Telefónica Germany’s main brand — needed a central solution to collect and provide customer insights. Using Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform (CDP), they’re able to consolidate all online data — including behavior-based web data — with their own existing customer information so they can offer the most relevant content and services.
For example, after customers visit the company’s Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) availability checker, they usually visit a retail store to inquire about DSL services. Telefónica is testing out how they can make that online DSL checker data available to employees in stores so they have the information they need when that customer steps into the store.
Personalize your customer journey today
From delighting in-store shoppers to delivering spot-on digital messaging, brands across industries are using data-driven tools and processes to provide personalized customer experiences everywhere their customers interact with them. They’ve mastered how to unite and segment customer data, create dynamic and relevant content, reach different audience segments across channels, and refine experiences through testing — all at scales they could never imagine. And they’re reaping the benefits.
If you’re looking for higher engagement, more conversions, climbing revenue, and increased customer loyalty, personalization can get you there.
How Adobe can help
Adobe's customer experience technology can help your business create personalized experiences for every single customer — starting with data insights to really know each individual to content creation built just for them. And finally, delivering those experiences on any channel.
Adobe Experience Manager helps organizations create content at scale through powerful content management and digital asset management capabilities. Watch overview video.
Adobe Sensei uses AI and machine learning to help you turn customer insights into personalized experiences in real time. Watch overview video.
Adobe Target is a centralized decisioning engine that helps you select the best experiences for every single customer. Watch overview video.
Adobe Audience Manager enables real-time personalization by gathering data across multiple sources to create a complete view of your customers. Watch overview video.
Additional resources
Learn more about making personalization at scale part of every moment.
Read more from our Personalization at Scale study.
Check out our blog series on personalization at scale.