Some customers love personalized brand experiences. Others are skeptical. Our Personalization Affinity Score matrix helps brands appeal to different customer groups to grow loyalty and retention.
Advancements in technology and data have enabled today’s brands to deliver highly tailored, personalized experiences at an individual level. This shift has been crucial for brands to foster deeper connections with customers, enhance satisfaction, and drive loyalty. But how can brands continue to anticipate and meet their customers’ unique needs as customer expectations continually evolve?
We’ve created a metric we call the Personalization Affinity Score*, or PAS, that helps our clients gain a clearer understanding of how to appeal to different customers based on how much they favor personalization, and how to meet those customers where and how they want to be met.
*The Personalization Affinity Score is a metric that assesses and measures customer perception and behavior across five key categories: experience, spend, loyalty, engagement, and satisfaction. This method was developed and tested using data from our 2024 personalization research. The PAS is calculated by summing the scores of responses to five questions, each rated on a scale from 1 to 5, covering the above key categories. Respondents' cumulative scores, with a maximum possible score of 25, were then used to classify them into distinct sub-categories: skeptic, observer, opportunist, and fanatic.
What key factors determine personalization affinity?
The PAS system can help brands understand how to differentiate their personalization efforts across their customer base. We used five key indicators derived from our 2024 personalization research results to create the Personalization Affinity Score matrix. These five factors are experience, spend, loyalty, engagement, and satisfaction.
To help shape their personalization strategies, brands can focus their customer data analysis on the five areas below.
How important is it to you that brands personalize your customer experience?
Are you less likely or more likely to purchase from a brand that personalizes your customer experience, versus a brand that doesn't personalize?
How often does personalization influence you to buy an additional item or service from a brand?
How often does personalization increase the amount of time you engage with a brand (e.g., time spent on their website, app, social media, or store)?
How often does personalization increase your satisfaction with a brand?
What is the value of personalization affinity data?
Through customer data points gained from questions around experience, spend, loyalty, engagement, and satisfaction, the PAS system can help inform brands’ customer strategies. For example, the research reveals that customers with a lower PAS do not spend incremental dollars as a result of personalized experiences, while the majority of customers with the highest PAS are willing to spend at least 30% more as a result of those same personalized experiences. This information can help brands create strategies that can optimize marketing return on investment (MROI) by focusing personalization efforts on customers that received high personalization affinity scores.
The four customer archetypes of personalization
The Personalization Affinity Score matrix can be used to segment customers into archetypes based on their preferences for personalization and their changing behaviors toward brands as a result. Analyzing the research, we have derived four archetypes: skeptics, observers, opportunists, and fanatics.
By exploring these archetypes within their customer bases, brands can see distinct behavioral differences. For example:
Brands can yield stronger results by prioritizing personalization for their customer archetypes that have higher PAS—while strategically crafting experiences to nurture the rest of the archetypes up the curve.
SKEPTICS
Personalization skeptics have a low affinity for personalization and actively avoid brands that are personalizing poorly. While skeptics do not typically spend more with brands that personalize, their willingness to engage increases with programming that saves them money. Skeptics are influenced by their satisfaction with an experience, as well as by touchpoints that take little to no effort to interact with, such as in-store and email interactions. Personalization does not particularly resonate with skeptics, and they often don’t recognize when they are being personalized to. But they are more likely to take negative action if they are put off by personalization, with 75% taking no positive action after a personalized experience and 20% spending less when personalization was off-target or didn't match their needs.
OBSERVERS
Personalization observers have a moderate affinity for personalization. These customers are driven by tactics that save them time and money, with 75% seeking special discount offers or bundles. Observers also display an increased desire for product or service recommendations during their purchase consideration cycle, but only when it is surfaced in their preferred channels and supports a simple purchase journey. While they may respond to additional personalization tactics, they are only somewhat likely to take action and are easily put off by undesirable touchpoints.
To nurture skeptics and observers to increase their Personalization Affinity Scores, brands can:
OPPORTUNISTS
Personalization opportunists are the largest grouping of customers, demonstrating a moderate to strong affinity for personalization. These customers primarily want personalization that maximizes their savings, but they are more likely to be influenced to purchase when personalization efforts are tailored to them in a genuine way that provides them with insights, offers, and history-based recommendations. Opportunists generally recognize and appreciate personalized experiences, with 40% reporting that over half of their experiences feel personalized and that they are more likely to complete a call to action as a result. When personalization communications and experiences feel valuable to these customers, they are inclined to spend more or consider additional interactions with the brand, with 55% indicating an increased likelihood of purchase consideration. Opportunists actively seek personalization and are typically more open to a variety of marketing tactics and engagement opportunities as a result.
FANATICS
Personalization fanatics have a very strong affinity for personalization and not only proactively engage with brands that provide this experience, but also become loyalists, promoters, and high spenders. Fanatics value digital communication and personalized marketing to maintain strong relationships and connections with brands, with 51% preferring to receive personalized marketing through social media and 64% preferring to make purchases via a mobile app. They are often driven to conversion and are willing to repurchase or re-engage with brands most frequently, resulting in higher lifetime value. Fanatics show a strong relationship between feeling that their needs are met with the right experiences and becoming a champion for the brand, with 81% reporting they feel an increased satisfaction over half of the time, driving an additional 70% increase in time spent engaging with the brand.
To retain opportunists and fanatics with high Personalization Affinity Scores, brands can:
Looking ahead
While every brand’s specific archetype mix looks different, this methodology can be replicated and utilized across any customer base. Our Deloitte Digital teams help organizations leverage their customer data to develop a smart personalization strategy that can create business impact. By analyzing a customer base, determining their preferences, and identifying the right use cases, we help brands drive their personalization efforts forward. The Personalization Affinity Score approach can help to both enhance user experiences and sustain long-term business success.
Reach out to our team to find out how to get started.
Personalization: The value exchange between brands and customers
Reimagining retail with personalization at Macy's
Explore our interactive personalization benchmarking calculator
