Personalization of content on the Internet

The main goals of marketing communication include sales and building long-term relationships between the brand and the customer. Today, mass communication is often abandoned in favor of personalized messages.

Thanks to its huge reach, the Internet is today the most popular marketing tool. It allows you to reach recipients around the world with a message, but also allows you to send advertising messages based on the recipient’s individual preferences.

Personalization can be an extremely effective marketing activity.
Content that is tailored to the needs of a specific recipient gives the feeling that they are unique and distinguished. Additionally, the awareness that the message was created specifically for a given person increases interest in the message sent.

Personalizing advertising content on the Internet is a complex process. It consists of advertising campaigns, as well as messages or personalized Google search results. Thanks to the dynamic development of this method, the messages sent are so tailored that the suggested material most often meets the recipient’s expectations.

Customized messages take various forms – it can be a direct personal address to the person visiting the website (“Hello, Magda!”) or the use of more detailed information to adjust the content of the page to the user’s needs.

This type of solution was developed by those companies whose main income comes from distributed advertising messages. Targeting advertising messages guarantees effectiveness at a low financial outlay, and the Internet offers the greatest technical possibilities.

Blunders, or traps of mechanical personalization

Content personalization is used not only in advertising messages, but also in various types of social media. However, advertising campaigns in social media based on personalization should be well thought out in advance.
At one time, Facebook decided to create an application called “User Year”, which was a summary of a given person’s last year. Personalized messages were sent regarding the anniversary of the publication of a photo or the user’s status.

This led to absurd situations in which users received reminders of an event they would rather forget, or events that were unpleasant (e.g. a photo of a leg in a cast or a photo of a crashed car) with a note generated by Facebook: “Agata, at Facebook we care about you and your shared memories. We hope that returning to this post from 2 years ago will bring you joy!”

It is impossible not to mention the situation of Eric Meyer, a web designer whose daughter died of cancer. After some time, Facebook sent him a message with her photo, along with the note “thanks to you, it was a great year!”

Google leads the way

The process of online personalization has developed most in the world of advertising. Google has become a specialist in this field, using AdWords sponsored links and Gmail. Additionally, Google intends to introduce an improved Customer Match advertising system, thanks to which a special database will be created in cooperation with companies used by a given person. As a result, Internet users will be shown materials related to the services they have used so far.

How does it look in practice? Google receives email addresses from companies of users who use their services. The company assigns them to the given accounts and directs the advertisement in such a way that the recipient receives advertising content related to the company they have had contact with in the past.

The company that will succeed on the Internet will be distinguished by ingenuity, innovation, individual approach to the customer and attractiveness of the message.

Personalization is a process that is increasingly appreciated by companies. The website that turns out to be more user-friendly and better meets their needs may turn out to be the most effective in sales activities, thanks to which it will gain many loyal Internet users.