What is relevance-based personalization vs token-based?

These two approaches to personalization differ fundamentally in their impact.

Token-based personalization:

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Hi [FIRST_NAME], I noticed you work at [COMPANY]

Easy to scale but obvious to recipients

Better than nothing but not differentiating

Feels automated because it is automated

Relevance-based personalization:

Explains why this outreach makes sense for this person

Connects their specific situation to your offering

Requires understanding, not just data

Harder to scale but much more effective

Feels human because it requires human judgment

Examples:

Token-based: Hi Sarah, I see you're VP of Marketing at TechCorp.

Relevance-based: Noticed TechCorp just raised Series B. When companies scale marketing teams at this stage, they often struggle with [specific challenge you solve].

Practical application:

Use tokens for necessary customization (names, companies)

Use relevance for opening hooks and value propositions

Segment audiences to enable relevance at scale

Invest more personalization effort in higher-value prospects