Content personalization hums along in the background of our lives. When you finish a show on a streaming service, you're greeted with a screen of new options you’re likely to enjoy. On your birthday, you’re likely expecting a special deal from the app you use to buy your morning coffee. And probably a few discount codes from your favorite online stores.
Personalized content means tailoring the shopping experience to individual customer preferences. We’ve grown well-accustomed to it: 81% of consumers prefer working with companies that deliver personalized content.
In 2025, personalization strategy goes hand in hand with first-party data. Gone are the days of scavenging the web for third-party cookies. With the right tools, behavioral data collected from customers on your own channels can broadcast the perfect proposition to any segment of your target audience.
Maybe it’s writing subject lines for an email outreach campaign. Maybe it’s crafting personalized messages to customers you’re looking to win back. Maybe you want to create personalized content for newsletters. Wherever you’re at, a unified commerce platform, like Shopify, is your best solution for personalizing every customer touchpoint. Let’s explore how we can make the perfect sales pitch.
What is content personalization?
Content personalization means using customer data to deliver relevant and tailored content, offers, and experiences to each shopper.
It’s much more than a customer’s name appearing atop a landing page or marketing email. We’re all used to rote, surface-level personalization—it’s baked into our daily existence. Effective personalization strategies deliver experiences that feel genuinely relevant to each shopper.
Welcome customers with new product recommendations based on items they’ve shown interest in before. As they shop, present them with items corresponding to what they’ve placed in their carts. And at the checkout screen, have their preferred payment methods ready and waiting. Customers expect personalization at every touchpoint.
Why is content personalization important?
Our lives are inundated with irrelevant content, offers we never asked for… a constant chorus of voices yelling to catch our attention online. Without personalization, it all tends to fade into white noise.
Personalization catches customers’ attention. It signals that you know they’re a real person, and that you’ve taken time to remember their preferences—that they prioritize back-to-school shopping in August and they like to pay with Venmo, for instance. This leads to more interaction with your brand and a more positive shopping journey overall.
Meeting customers where they are has extensive monetary benefits. Conversion rates rise when shoppers can sign in to their accounts and complete a purchase in just a few clicks. Data from McKinsey shows that personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%, increase return on investment (ROI) by up to 30%, and boost revenue by up to 15%.
The role of first-party data
Personalization is powered by first-party data. It’s the data you already own, collected directly from your customers through your own channels, such as website interactions, purchase history, chatbot conversations, and email signups.
While third-party data—cookies collected throughout a customer’s browsing history—powered much of ecommerce’s initial rise, its relevance has waned in recent years. In fact, 40% of shoppers don’t trust companies to use their data ethically and 30% opt out of sharing data altogether. Getting to know your customers is increasingly difficult—at least outside your own channels.
This is why it’s so important to make all user interactions meaningful. First-party data is accurate, reliable, and directly reflects your customers’ behavior and preferences. And because customers willingly share this data, they’re far more trusting of brands using it.
A unified customer data model, built on first-party data, is the foundation for effective personalization. Shopify provides all the tools you need to synthesize first-party data into personalized experiences at every stage of the buying process.
“More and more, we are seeing organizations win in the market when they take a unified approach to their channels,” says Warren Tomlin, EY-Shopify global alliance leader. “Customers expect a deep, personal experience no matter where or when they start or end their purchasing journey. Only a natively integrated solution can deliver this.”
Content personalization tactics
First-party data can be a brilliant resource. But to unlock its potential, your business must audience segment effectively.
Segmentation is the foundation of personalized marketing. It allows you to group customers by key characteristics, so that you can message them as meaningfully as possible.
Shopify makes segmentation easy. Our software gives you access to dozens of data filters you can combine in near-endless ways to target the exact kind of customer you’re trying to reach. You can segment based on purchase data, storefront engagement, location, third-party app data stored in Shopify, and more.
Here are some of the most reliable ways to use website personalization and demographic data points to build an effective marketing strategy on Shopify and other platforms:
- Personalized product recommendations showcase items based on customers’ browsing history, past purchases, or items placed on wish lists. Offering complimentary items at checkout is a common example. Egan Cheung, director of product at Shopify, highlights this key benefit: “Shopify’s segmentation capabilities can improve a variety of marketing KPIs, due in large part to the fact that segmentation is the foundation of personalized marketing. And personalization is going to drive more sales, and drive up every result you’re looking for.”
- Personalized emails let you laser-focus outreach to specific customer segments. For instance, you could use first-party data to send special offers to customers who haven’t purchased in a while, or to entice customers who abandoned their carts to complete their purchases.
- Dynamic website content displays different banners, offers, or content, based on customer segments, location, or browsing history. For example, a clothing brand might want to greet repeat customers with this season’s version of an item they purchased last year, or a garment that pairs well with one they bought last month.
- Personalized search results prioritize products based on individual preferences and past interactions.
- Personalized promotions—such as birthday discounts—offer customized discounts and deals based on customer purchase behavior or preferences.
Three examples of brands implementing content personalization
Using these tactics—and Shopify’s unified approach to first-party data—let’s get some inspiration from three online businesses who have built innovative customer experiences:
1. Ruggable
How: The online rug boutique Ruggable uses a “Rug Quiz” to personalize the customer experience. The quiz helps potential customers select designs that match their style and preferences. By collecting data through this quiz, Ruggable can provide more relevant product recommendations.
Results: Customers who take the Rug Quiz have a conversion rate that is four times higher than the average customer. This demonstrates the effectiveness of personalized recommendations in guiding customers towards a purchase. Ruggable also uses AI to empower their own tools. Customers can upload images to let AI analyze their room’s style, which helps them narrow down their choices.
2. Upscale Audio
How: The high-end home audio equipment business Upscale Audio utilizes personalized email campaigns and onsite chat data to enhance the customer experience. They use Klaviyo to send personalized emails based on products that customers have looked at, or might be interested in. Additionally, Upscale Audio uses Gorgias for onsite chat, which allows them to gather customer questions and improve technical specifications on product listings.
Results: After shifting to Shopify, Upscale Audio increased their online revenue from $3 million to over $20 million. They also experienced a 122% increase in average order value and a 300% increase in conversion rate: proof that providing a personalized experience drives both engagement and sales.
3. Saint Charles
How: The historic Vienna-based pharmacy Saint Charles uses Shopify and Klaviyo for personalized marketing campaigns. They create automated campaigns based on specific customer segments, leveraging data to target customers with relevant content. Saint Charles also uses the Shopify App Store for additional integration, utilizing the Smile app for their customer loyalty program.
Results: Since migrating to Shopify, Saint Charles has seen a 20% revenue growth and a 55% increase in returning customers. Newsletter subscribers also went up 300%. Their strategy of targeting first-time customers with special offers after 100 days led to a 5% increase in conversion rates.
Take your customers on a journey they’ll remember
Our lives as consumers have become so optimized that a little customization here and there barely registers. The standouts of ecommerce in 2025 will be companies that build the most meaningful connections.
The key is content personalization. The best way to turn content personalization into something truly special is with a powerful, unified platform like Shopify.
Content personalization FAQ
What are the four D’s of personalization?
The four D’s of personalization are data, decisioning, design, and distribution. Together, these ecommerce principles are used to scale a personalization approach: first by gathering relevant data, then using it to make decisions to design personalized experiences, before finally distributing these experiences across commerce channels.
What is an example of personalized content recommendations?
Content personalization methods can offer customers special product recommendations that compliment items they already purchased from your webstore. For instance, a pet supply company could use first-party data to find customers who recently purchased a certain kind of pet food and offer first-time discounts on a dietary supplement that compliments that particular pet food.
How to make personalized content?
You can make personalized content by leveraging the first-party data you collect from customers on your business’s own channels into experiences such as personalized emails and product recommendations. This process is made easy using a unified ecommerce platform, like Shopify.
What is an example of personalization?
An example of personalization could be emailing loyal customers with birthday discount codes each year when their birthdays come around.
