How are retailers using data for hyper-personalization during the holiday season?

Broussard: Modern retailers see great value in leveraging technologies like advanced analytics and machine learning. The valuable insights they harness from these technologies even help them forecast popular products during the holiday shopping season. For instance, makers of technology gadgets typically drop specific new products around this time of year because data tells them that demand and price premium for these products will peak during the holiday season.

Hyper-relevant personalization, when done right, is a valuable proposition for retailers — and unified data quality is the key. Along with the huge volumes of data targeted at consumers every day, their buying habits and preferences do change over time, which is why spray and pray tactics are failing since the result is irrelevant, interruptive, unengaging and downright annoying experiences. So, retailers will need to strike a balance between the two and be very intentional about the data they serve up to customers.

Steadman: Data becomes valuable when it is relevant to the right customer at the right time. In the grocery space, personalization is being used to reach diverse generations. The messaging, communication medium and even how the data is collected vary depending on the shopper’s generation. Younger generations are more open to receiving specific offers based on geofencing and location awareness. However, older generations tend to be wary of having too much data collected on them and are less likely to appreciate this type of hyper-personalization.