What is email personalization?

Personalization tailors email content to individual recipients based on data you have about them. It ranges from simple name insertion to fully dynamic content that adapts to each person.

Basic personalization: "Hi Sarah" instead of "Hi there." Uses merge tags to insert individual data fields.

Behavioral personalization: Product recommendations based on browse history. Content based on past clicks. Offers based on purchase patterns.

Contextual personalization: Time-sensitive messages ("Your trial ends tomorrow"). Location-based content. Device-optimized formatting.

Predictive personalization: AI-driven recommendations. Optimal send time per recipient. Content sequencing based on likely response.

Why it matters: Generic messages compete with personalized ones and lose. When an email demonstrates it knows who you are and what you care about, you pay attention. When it's clearly mass-produced, you scroll past.

Ray Tomlinson sent the first email in 1971. It was about as personal as a telegram. Fifty years later, we have the technology to make every email feel like a handwritten note. Use that capability, or compete with those who do.