The C-suite's Blueprint to Personalization in Retail and Beyond

Over the past decade, personalization in retail has fundamentally changed. It used to be that sending emails to broad audience segments and swapping in first names counted as personalization. But those tactics no longer cut it. Today, personalization means delivering dynamic, contextually relevant experiences across every touchpoint

At WWT, we view personalization as an enterprise capability — powered by customer data platforms (CDPs), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, loyalty engines, identity resolution, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), real-time decisioning and composable omnichannel delivery — that transforms how businesses engage, retain and grow customer relationships.

Yet many organizations struggle to scale personalization. Fragmented data, siloed teams, outdated infrastructure, limited staff expertise and a lack of measurement rigor are common barriers. Meanwhile, rising customer acquisition costs, stricter privacy regulations and the deprecation of third-party cookies are accelerating a shift from acquisition to retention strategies, further highlighting the importance of personalization.

For retail leaders, the directive is clear: maturing your personalization capabilities is no longer optional. When executed with coordinated leadership across the C-suite, personalization becomes a powerful driver of competitive advantage, exponential growth and long-term brand relevance.

The strategic value of personalization

When effectively implemented, personalization drives outcomes that span multiple areas of the business, including:

• Increased revenue: Companies that excel at personalization generate 40 percent more revenue than their peers.
• Higher conversion rates: Personalized content, promotions and offers increase conversion rates by more than 25 percent.
• Increased average order value: Retailers using AI-powered personalization have seen bigger basket sizes and increased customer loyalty from creating tailored and interactive shopping experiences.
• Reduced churn: Companies like Yum Brands have observed double-digit increases in consumer engagement and reduced churn when using AI-powered personalization.
• Optimized marketing spending: Marketing teams can target customers with higher precision, cutting waste in advertising and campaign costs.
• Greater operational efficiency: Personalization data can be used to forecast demand, improve inventory allocation and train store associates based on expected customer needs.
• Better product experiences: Dynamic personalization in apps and digital channels can help continuously inform and improve product designs based on user behaviors.

The C-suite's role in personalization 

Personalization is not the responsibility of a single team — it's a cross-functional initiative that demands strong executive alignment. For personalization to move from siloed pilots to an enterprise-wide capability, the C-suite must act as a unified force, with each leader bringing a unique but complementary role to the table.

These titles and roles may be different in your organization — and that's OK. What matters most is that personalization is treated as a team sport, with clear ownership and shared accountability across the C-suite.

Where to start: Practical first steps to personalization at scale

Successfully scaling personalization begins with a few small but important steps. Based on our work with clients, these four steps offer a proven approach to unlocking early wins at velocity: 

1. Prioritize a high-impact, testable use case. Identify a use case where personalization can make a clear, measurable impact and treat it as a pilot from which to learn and scale. For example, starting with business objectives such as increasing revenue, boosting loyalty or improving operational efficiency can help focus use case development and keep pilots on track. This also has the added benefit of tying pilots to ROI.
2. Audit how your data and tools are being used. We frequently find that organizations already have many of the right tools (e.g., CDPs, CRM platforms, journey builders), but they're poorly integrated or underutilized. CIOs and CMOs should partner closely to assess where data lives, how accessible it is and how it flows through current personalization workflows.
3. Align on measurement and baseline definitions. Personalization efforts often stall because teams don't agree on what success looks like or they're not measuring the right metrics. Before scaling any initiative, align on key definitions (for example, who qualifies as a "loyal customer?") and establish the right baseline metrics to compare against. This helps avoid confusion and supports stronger storytelling when demonstrating ROI.
4. Establish a cross-functional data and privacy governance team. As organizations grow their personalization capabilities, they must also ethically manage data and comply with evolving privacy regulations like the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). We recommend forming a cross-functional team that includes marketing, technology, legal and compliance leaders to oversee data usage, consent management and AI governance. This not only protects the organization but also builds trust with your customers.

What's possible: The payoff of getting personalization right

When personalization is executed well, it delivers more than smarter marketing campaigns or higher conversion rates — it becomes a strategic engine for growth, operational efficiency and customer loyalty.

Take our work with Schnucks, a regional grocery chain that wanted to increase loyalty through deeper digital engagement. By analyzing both purchase patterns and behavioral gaps, such as days customers didn't shop, we helped Schnucks build dynamic personalization into its app experience. This allowed the grocer to not only influence basket size and trip frequency but also tailor the interface itself based on each shopper's behavior and preferences.

At Jersey Mike's, we helped bake personalization into its modernized e-commerce platform to drive stronger loyalty and engagement. By unifying data and optimizing digital journeys, the sandwich chain improved the ordering experience, increased repeat business and laid the groundwork for more AI-driven personalization.

But personalization isn't limited to retailers and quick-service restaurants. Across industries, it's fueling innovation:

• In healthcare, we partnered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to enhance patient engagement through a personalized digital experience tailored to individual treatments, diagnoses and individual schedules.
• In travel, many airlines use personalization to reward frequent flyers with tailored experiences, such as premium upgrades and flexible boarding, increasing long-term loyalty.
• In financial services, AI-powered personalization can dramatically improve online application flows. For example, integrating eligibility checks early in a loan application prevents customers from completing lengthy forms only to be declined, reducing drop-off, improving trust and optimizing marketing spend.

Whether your goal is increasing customer retention, improving digital engagement or unlocking new revenue streams, personalization done right delivers measurable, enterprise-wide impact. These examples show what's possible when organizations align data, technology and strategy to meet customers where they are and where they're going.

How can we help advance your personalization strategy?

There's no one-size-fits-all roadmap for personalization, but there are clear patterns that emerge from organizations that get it right. Whether you're just starting to explore what's possible or looking to scale personalization as an enterprise capability, success often follows this journey:

No matter where you are on the personalization journey, we help connect the dots between your vision and execution. Our cross-functional expertise and real-world experience allow us to chart a strategic and proven path forward so you can scale personalization and reimagine what's possible.