Exponential Personalization

Personalization is amazing… but how much is too much?

I love reading about campaigns with hundreds of variations. I think “What masterful marketers, what personalized content, I want to do that too!” But producing, monitoring, and analyzing all those variations isn’t quite as glamorous as it might seem. Each additional variation creates exponential work, like a hockey stick curve to unlimited customization. At some point, it’s not humanly possible to manage all the variations, and AI must step up to orchestrate the show.

When I work with marketers on versioning, I like to keep tabs on the total variation count. For example, let’s say we start with one custom block with three possible variations: product 1, 2, or 3. Next, we add another custom block that also has 3 different variations: promotion A, B, or C. We’re now at 9 variations (3×3). This means that someone needs to build and review all 9 variations, and that someone needs to tag and track those 9 variations. 9 variations is doable, right? Sure! No sweat. But next thing we know, we’re being asked to add one more custom block with 3 more variations. That puts us now at 27 variations (3x3x3). From 3 to 9 to 27, ouch. 27 feels a bit overwhelming. At what point does the effort outweigh the value?

How do you enhance personalization without burning out your marketing team?