Distinctions between the top 20 hyper-personalisation software vendors
Following ever-growing adoption of artificial intelligence in ecommerce marketing, the distinction between personalisation and hyper-personalisation has become very important. Indeed, some might argue that the distinction is essential. Leading market research facilities around the world, including McKinsey, Forrester, Gartner, Bain, Statista, Forbes and many more, have all become advocates for early adoption of this technology due the enormous additional revenue it delivers, unequivocally.
Through this warts and all appraisal, as a provider of this service, reviewing ourselves and our peers on an equitable basis, brings to bear a specialist knowledge of the distinction. It then becomes a candid overview in a specialist field, to enable CMOs to make a qualified and discerning decision of their preferred solution based on their own needs and preferences.
What is hyper-personalisation software?
First let’s define exactly what hyper-personalisation, sometimes called individualisation is: a customer-centric term, meaning “to be unique and absolute to the individual consumer”. Ron Shevlin at Forbes, proposes “It is a series of interactions that strengthens a customer’s emotional connection to a product or company,” in his recent article. Emphasis is on “a” customer, (an integer of one) not a segment (a section of people on a database) to which “a” customer belongs. i.e. All people who bought red wine in the last 30 days. If you read anywhere else it Is something different, some one is trying to gaslight you.
There is zero collusion of either the data, or how it is used, to bias or sway application of it between individuals, despite some providers suggesting the edges can be a little bit more fuzzy, to order to the bend the definition to suit their own purposes. One example being Amazon’s “remarketing” software first launched back in 2012, it isn’t personalisation, it is only what everyone else who bought that product also liked. Not a ringing endorsement of the uniqueness of the individual.
The absolute opposite, and perhaps nemesis of hyper-personalisation is segmentation, the definition of which is division into separate parts or sections. That stalwart of email marketing for the last 20 years still has a place in certain echelons of FMCG marketing, because it offers opportunity to group together what are hopefully a cross-section of a database that have similar interests.
It also enable the use of greater design input by the retailer, or specifically, the email marketing designers, that can tailor it to the specific products on offer, in line with the brand’s image, to satisfy the demands of store owners and shareholders. Be in no doubt that segmentation is not personalisation, and the ration of ROI between the two is as much as 20:1 — see research companies above.
So nothing to do with a single person whatsoever then. So before you make any further investment in this existing, tried and tested technology, you need to appreciate how much advantage your peers can take from you by early adoption, namely the diffusion of innovation theory specifically. It is extremely labour intensive, finding the exactly appropriate slices of everyone you have captured on your database. If you involve human beings you open up a whole can of worms of traits that come with it. Errors and omissions are just the start, then you have cost, and it is also confined to working hours, not evenings or weekends, holidays or sick-leave etc.
See articles: How much do your staff really cost
We need to just offer a word about triggered solutions. These solutions enable a high-degree of hyper-personalisation because as shoppers trip over trigger points on a visit to your site, it enables the despatch of unique personalised emails with those specific items.
There are downsides, including such examples as if that trigger is set-off inappropriately, i.e. the shopper happened to the click on the wrong thing, or the time of despatch was passed or made irrelevant by other purchases, then it has no ability to be effected. You then have to suffer the negativity that may, or indeed my not, be caused to that shopper. Nothing makes you look more lame than sending an email of a product the day after it was bought.
Triggered solutions are also significantly labour intensive, requiring perpetual tuning, and change to prevent boredom of message — the wallpaper effect, and savvy consumers learn the triggers and avoid them in order to avoid the email. If it involves labour, it involves additional cost into the calculation of investment, and a significantly higher breakeven level.
A couple of final considerations before we delve into the significant providers. Firstly AI, all the necessary intense deep learning analysis is only possible with AI. You obliterate the potential involvement of human beings merely on cost let alone errors and omissions etc (as detailed above) . Further machine learning isn’t restricted to who bought what and when, but the subtleties of each individual shoppers by their own unique idiosyncratic behaviour. How long the look at an item, how often they come to look at it, its correlation between the habits for this purchase against those made for previous purchases etc.
See article: Deep learning vs Machine Learning
Finally we must stress the distinction of hyper-personalised web content and hyper-personalised communications. the distinction between the two is summarised simply by considering how long you look at a website compared to how long you don’t. OK give the ratio is enormous in favour of you actually having a life, and the same applies for everyone, there is rarely a moment when people aren’t far from access to communications you sent them. Email popularity continues to rise despite troglodyte naysayers still living in the dark ages, bemoaning mass bombardment of emails to their inbox.
With the advent of GDPR (EU), the Data Protection Act (UK) and CCPA, CPRA, CDPA (US) only those what what to hear form their chosen -prefered brands, get the privilege of emailing them. Remember people “opt-in”. So you have a situation where your customers want to hear from you. They demand relevancy, and therefore the opportunity to ensure the right products, are infant of the right person at the right time is only achieved via email marketing with hyper-personalisation functionality.
It is important to note the absence of all standard email software providers. Many of who purport to offer “personalisation”, and preferring to avoid the distinction that new technology — hyper-personalisation provides, are stolid tried and tested software for the purpose it was designed, all be it that it avoids to dwell on the distinction in return that the new kids on the block provides.
Hyper-personalisation software
The following companies purport to offer “hyper-personalisation”, hence their consideration to appear here. We don’t presume to know your priorities nor scope of your particular considerations. Please feel free to recommend alternatives, which we will gladly add, should you feel they are worthy of consideration and inclusion below.
1. SwiftERM.
SwiftERM is an AI hyper-personalisation SaaS for email marketing. It uses all the data, captured from your site, to predict what each unique consumer is most likely to buy next. It runs totally autonomously — with zero human involvement whatsoever. It nurtures your relationship with each person that shops with you, as an appreciation of them as an individual, reflected in the ever changing products each are offered. It identifies their most pressing needs, wants and desires throughout their lifetime, a state of the art AI algorithm delivers one of the highest ROI’s in ecommerce marketing.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): Yes
AI: Yes
Integration: Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Opencart, and bespoke.
30-day free trial: Yes
Lock-in / Notice requirement: None
100% Autonomous: Yes
2. Dynamic Yield
Create lasting impressions with customer experiences that are personalised, optimised, and synchronised. With Dynamic Yield’s Experience OS, you can algorithmically match content, products, and offers to each customer’s preferences and anticipate future behaviour using AI across any digital channel, fostering loyalty and driving revenue.
Target different promotions to different audiences in the same email. Targeting rules enable you to serve different promotions and content to different audiences all within the same email. If a customer doesn’t meet your conditions, you can easily define a fallback variation.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: No
Integration: Magento, Shopify and CMS systems.
30-day free trial: No (14 days)
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 Months
100% Autonomous: No
3. Qualtrics
Make every interaction an experience that matters. Know what people need, when they need it, and deliver it every time with our powerful Experience Management (XM) software. Seamlessly combine experience and operational data from digital and offline channels in one place and get the insights needed to predict customer behavior and drive the actions with the biggest impact. Target your outreach to ensure you reach the right people at the right time. With over 20 behavioral and location-based criteria and seamless integration with digital platforms like Adobe and Google, you can easily deliver more personalised experiences.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: No
Integration: https://www.qualtrics.com/marketplace/integrations/
30-day free trial: Yes
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
4. Salesforce
Cross-Channel Personalisation. Personalise every customer experience with AI and real-time data to optimise conversions and reduce costs.
Create personalised experiences with machine learning and AI. Customize everything, from webpages to in-app experiences, product recommendations, content, and more. Tailor each customer experience for driving a specific KPI, from acquisition to customer retention, using a mixture of real-time user behaviour and historical customer data. Improve page personalisation with machine learning, informing CTAs like banners or pop-ups. You can even target and test at the speed your customers are browsing, with personalisation decisions happening in milliseconds.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Integration: https://www.salesforce.com/eu/products/integration/overview/
30-day free trial: Yes
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
5. Bloomreach
Ecommerce personalisation, powered by AI. We power marketing automation, product discovery, content management, and conversational shopping. At every touchpoint in the shopping journey — for any kind of shopping journey — customers see what they want to buy. With marketing automation from Bloomreach Engagement, marketers have the freedom to create powerful omnichannel campaigns with lasting impact — all from a single place.
Easily create, test, and preview email newsletters with our visual builder. Drag and drop in product recommendations, add personalisation elements, and set conditional blocks to selectively display content to custom audiences. Drive value quickly with prebuilt templates and automation based on high-converting campaigns.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Applications: https://documentation.bloomreach.com/engagement/docs/email-providers
30-day free trial: Yes
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
6. Mailmodo
Quickly send interactive emails and set up automations powered by AI that will grow your numbers in your sleep. Create custom email designs and copy for every need at the click of a button. Set effective prebuilt campaigns and flows designed to turn your subscribers into loyal customers. Utilises micro-segmentation for individual treatment of customer
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Applications: https://www.mailmodo.com/integrations/
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
7. Sales Rocks
Create automated email drip campaigns and scale your overall outreach based on a set of conditions triggered by the recipient’s actions. Reach the right inbox by verifying your emails with a multi-step verification process for guaranteed high delivery and low bounce rate. Craft the most targeted nurturing campaigns. Create your Lead Lists with the help of the Contact Search and create nurturing sequences with personalized images and messages.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Applications: https://sales.rocks/integrations/
30-day free trial: No (7 days only)
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
8. Hyperise
Double your outreach personalisation with personalized images. Create your perfect personalized image from 100s of templates and stock images. Record your own GIF direct from your webcam, or start with a blank canvas and add your own images. Works with all website builders and CMS, using our Chrome Extension, simply add personalisation to your website in the browser.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Applications: https://hyperise.com/integrations.
30-day free trial: No (14 days only)
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
9. Benchmark Email
Our tools let you test, measure and optimize campaigns. So easy, anyone can see a lift in their email marketing results. We’ve simplified email automation. With Benchmark, you don’t need to be an automation expert to send tailored outreach that feels personal. Getting great content delivered to the inbox has never been easier with our suite of AI-powered email marketing tools.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Applications: https://www.benchmarkemail.com/features/integrations/
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
10. Progress Software
DeveloProgress Digital Experience (DX) empowers organizations to rapidly build and deliver more expansive digital experiences-from apps to websites-that drive customer acquisition, retention and competitive success. Progress DX offers the best solution designed for developers and marketers alike. Included are .NET Telerik UI controls and JavaScript Kendo UI components for web, desktop and mobile applications, reporting and report management solutions and automated testing. Integrated powerful design system capabilities accelerate UI/ UX customisation.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No
AI: Yes
Applications: Not revealed.
30-day free trial: Yes (60 days)
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
11. Sendlane
Unified email, SMS, reviews, and forms. Better features. Better support. Better customer experience. Collect, manage and dynamically display unlimited reviews all within one snazzy dashboard (and at no additional cost). Welcome new shoppers, recover abandoned carts, notify back-in-stocks, and more with pre-built email & SMS automation funnels. From click rates and exact products purchased to revenue attribution and beyond, bring your email and SMS data together to drive your store performance. Identify high-intent visitors by tracking website activity and engagement to send tailored messages that convert every time.
Never leave another dollar on the table. Easily create and send perfectly personalized smart “dynamic” emails that automatically adapt content to each individual recipient. Get your messages to the inbox when your contacts are most likely to open them. Sendlane’s behaviour tracking analyzes contact data to send campaigns at an optimized time unique to each individual contact.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (segmentation)
AI: Yes
Applications: https://www.sendlane.com/features/deep-data-integrations
30-day free trial: Yes (60 days)
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 30 days
100% Autonomous: Yes
12. Bluecore
Turn your untapped retail data into one-to-one campaigns that make an immediate impact on revenue. Unlike other email and mobile platforms built for mass communications, Bluecore matches shoppers with their next great buy so marketers can drive lifetime value — without limitations. Automated workflows so you can stand up 1:1 campaigns in minutes — and drive the revenue you need now. Quickly and dynamically send the right content, offers, and recommendations to each shopper, in every email and mobile message.
A supercharged set of triggers within your full control that go way beyond abandonment. Set up behaviour and product triggers — like back-in-stock, new arrival, and price-drop — to show shoppers the products they want to see, when and where they want to see them, recommend other products — and optimize without limitations.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (triggered)
AI: No
Applications: https://help.bluecore.com/en/articles/3567271-integrations-overview
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
13. Yieldify
Yieldify is an onsite personalization platform for global brands. Engage customers with tailored onsite content from browsing to checkout — and drive better performance. Whether you’re an emerging brand or established business, take the guesswork out of personalisation. With local sector expertise from our client services managers, on-brand experiences from our designers and optimisation insights from our data scientists, the Yieldify team has always got your back.
Reliably hit your ecommerce goals with an AI-backed platform, end-to-end support and in-depth performance metrics — all tailored to your business, not someone else’s. Browse abandonment doesn’t have to mean lost customers. Easily drive more shoppers back to your site with personalised on-brand remarketing emails.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Remarketing)
AI: Yes
Applications: https://www.yieldify.com/partners-integrations/
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
14. Listrak
Listrak’s single, integrated platform gives retailers and brands unmatched channel orchestration. From data unification and identity resolution to personalization and owned channel automation — Listrak ensures you deliver exceptional customer experiences and increased revenue. Turn influence into revenue with GXP. Capture more zero- and first-party data, increase first-time conversions, and personalise shopping experiences on and off-site… all with guaranteed results.
Retailers trust Listrak’s robust, highly scalable, highly-available enterprise-class send engine to send billions of targeted emails every month generating over 50X ROI. Sophisticated email marketing tools like predictive analytics, advanced retail segmentation, dynamic content and predictive product recommendations allow marketers to translate customer data directly to personalised messages resulting in increased engagement and revenue.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Segmentation)
AI: Yes
Applications: https://gxp.listrak.com/integrations
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
15. Humanic
Humantic AI is a Buyer Intelligence platform for revenue teams. Top revenue teams use Humantic’s Personality AI to identify early adopters, help their BDRs personalize outreach and enable their AEs with vital customer insights for every deal. To draft a personalized email that sells, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. The email needs to be tailored to your prospect’s personality type, buying traits, risk appetite, and general behavior. Once you know all the relevant behavioral insights for your target prospect, personalizing your email and hitting the right chord would become much easier.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Segmentation)
AI: Yes
Applications: https://www.humanic.ai/integrations
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
16. Allyy
Each individual visitor is delighted to experience really relevant content on your content-rich website. Also when your content is information and experiences — not products. Allyy.io identifies which content items are most relevant to every single individual, resulting in improved engagement, loyalty and sales..
Increase engagement with your email subscribers by automatically picking the most relevant content for each newsletter recipient. Allyy.io uses AI instead of human-biased rules. This way, you can skyrocket your email CTR. We create an individual cognitive profile of your users based on their profile and response behavior. We use it to find and rank the most relevant content for each individual.
Flip the approach 180 degrees, and let our Machine Learning predict the right audience and performance for a specific email you have already crafted. Be inbox considerate by becoming an Allyy, and avoid spamming subscribers with content that is irrelevant to the individual.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Segmentation)
AI: Yes
Applications: Integrates to email tools.
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Yes 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
17. Selzy
Launch your first email campaign in 15 minutes and boost your sales with Selzy email marketing platform. Enjoy the most flexible email builder on the market and create beautiful emails for free. No designer or HTML experience needed. Play with the pre-built blocks to create the perfect-high converting emails your users want to receive.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Segmentation/Triggered)
AI: No
Applications: https://selzy.com/en/support/category/integration/
30-day free trial: Yes 14 days
Lock-in / Notice requirement: Monthly and Annual options
100% Autonomous: No
18. Segment
No cookies? No problem. Segment helps you collect valuable first-party data, reducing your customer acquisition cost and increasing return on ad spend by enabling better targeting and multichannel engagement. Understand your customer journey and unify every customer touchpoint across all platforms and channels. Get trusted AI at your fingertips to effortlessly anticipate upcoming customer actions and create tailored campaigns without relying on data science teams.
Deliver a message that’s timed and tailored to each audience, suitable for their preferred platform, and designed to influence behaviour.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Segmentation/Triggered)
AI: No
Applications: https://segment.com/catalog/
30-day free trial: No
Lock-in / Notice requirement: 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
19. Nosto
Enrich, understand, and activate all your customer, product, and content data in our Commerce Experience Platform (CXP) to personalize every shopping experience and increase your online revenue. Bring together your commerce data in a real-time engine with open APIs and 100s of robust integrations and view all your data in clear dashboards with deep analytics to guide decision-making. Use rich commerce data across enterprise-grade personalisation, merchandising, search and discovery, and UGC modules to create high-performing personalised shopping experiences.
Take full control, trust experience.AI™ to algorithmically recommend relevant personalization campaigns, or opt for a blend of both, increasing performance and operational efficiencies. Reduce time to value, accelerate campaign execution, maximise revenue, and replace multiple tools with a single platform built for ease of use with no IT dependency. Entice shoppers back to your online store with timely emails triggered by behaviour, such as post-purchase thank you emails with discount offers, abandoned-cart reminder emails, and more.
Hyper-personalisation (above definition): No (Segmentation/Triggered)
AI: Yes
Applications: https://www.nosto.com/integrations/ecommerce-technologies/
30-day free trial: No 14 days
Lock-in / Notice requirement: 12 months
100% Autonomous: No
Conclusion
There are many reputable and creditable companies listed above, that show significant ingenuity and dedication to customer success, through various means. Because many are not be ideal for pure hyper-personalisation doesn’t mean they’re not appropriate for someone else’s needs. We merely intend to highlight the distinction between hyper-personalisation and other alternatives, while also remembering that if you stick to principals, and wish to achieve the highest returns possible using 100% autonomous AI technology, there are solutions available.
Originally published at https://swifterm.com on April 18, 2024.
