How to Build a Personalisation Strategy that AI can Actually Improve

Chapter headingChapter subheadingIn this exclusive interview, David Balko, Chief Marketing Officer at Wren Kitchens, shares his perspective on what effective personalisation really means in 2026.Contents

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3-4 November 2026 | Hilton Kensington | London

How to Build a Personalisation Strategy that AI can Actually Improve

Why data, trust, and organisational alignment are the real foundations of successful personalisation

Executive Interview with David Balko

Chief Marketing Officer

Wren Kitchens

INTRODUCTION

While AI has accelerated marketers' ability to deliver tailored experiences at scale, many organisations continue to struggle with the fundamentals: fragmented customer data, disconnected teams, inconsistent measurement, and declining consumer trust.

In this exclusive interview, David Balko, Chief Marketing Officer at Wren Kitchens, shares his perspective on what effective personalisation really means in 2026.

From strengthening first-party data and breaking down organisational silos to measuring commercial impact and using AI with intent, David explains why the future of personalisation won't be defined by technology alone, but by the organisations that get the fundamentals right.

What is your definition of personalisation?

For me, personalisation isn’t using someone’s first name or chasing them with the last thing they browsed. It’s relevance: showing up with the right message, in the right moment, in a way that genuinely helps the customer decide.

When done well, it feels less like marketing and more like good service – the digital equivalent of a shop assistant who remembers what you’re looking for or a waiter who knows when to come and ask how your meal is, etc.

The test I apply is simple: would the customer thank us for it? If it makes their life easier and their choice clearer, we’ve earned it. If it only serves us, we haven’t.

Customers expect personalised experiences but are increasingly concerned about privacy. How are you balancing relevance with trust?

Trust is the main thing here, and you lean on it fast if you get this wrong. The research is telling: most people want relevance, but far fewer feel the benefit outweighs the privacy cost.

The key for me is that most people don’t really ‘value’ relationships with brands compared with their views on things like education, etc.

My answer is precision over volume: collect only the data you genuinely need, be transparent about why, and

make sure the customer visibly gets something back. When people understand how their data improves their experience, relevance strengthens the relationship rather than threatening it.

The moment personalisation feels like surveillance, you’ve lost. I’d far rather use less data brilliantly than hoard everything and quietly erode confidence.

What is the biggest misconception organisations have about AI-powered personalisation today?

The biggest misconception is that more data and more automation automatically mean better personalisation. They don’t – the sunny uplands the internet promised us are largely rubbish!

Plenty of organisations are deploying AI to cut costs rather than improve experiences, and customers can tell the difference immediately.

The other myth is that AI thinks for you. It doesn’t. It’s brilliant at scale and speed, but it amplifies whatever strategy and data you feed it.

Point it at a weak proposition or messy data, and it simply gets you to the wrong answer faster. The winners treat AI as a powerful engine that still needs a human hand on the wheel.

What are the biggest barriers preventing organisations from delivering personalisation at scale?

Honestly, the barriers are rarely the technology – they’re data, organisation, and trust. Most companies still have customer data fragmented across systems that don’t talk to each other, so they can’t build a single view of the person.

Then there’s the operating model: personalisation cuts across marketing, CRM, e-commerce, and IT, and siloed teams struggle to act on a shared signal in real time.

Add content processes that can’t produce enough variations, and real skills gaps around AI, and you have the true bottlenecks. Fix the plumbing and the culture first; the clever decisioning is the easy part.

The winners will nail the fundamentals while everyone else is distracted.

David Balko, Chief Marketing Officer, Wren Kitchens

How can brands better use first-party data to create meaningful customer experiences?

First-party data is the most valuable asset most brands own, and most are barely scratching the surface.

The shift is from broad demographics to genuine behaviour – recent browsers, cart abandoners, loyal repeat customers, people actively researching a category – and treating each as a signal to act on.

I’d pair it with zero-party data, where customers tell you their preferences directly, because it’s consented, accurate and builds trust.

The key is unifying it in one place so it’s actually usable, then activating it across every channel. Collected honestly and used to help, it becomes a relationship, not just a record.

What role does real-time decisioning play in the future of customer engagement?

Real-time decisioning is where personalisation stops being a monthly campaign and becomes a live conversation.

Instead of reacting to what a customer did last week, you respond to what they’re doing right now; their context, their intent, the moment they’re in.

For considered, high-value purchases especially, that in-the-moment relevance is the difference between helping someone decide and losing them. The technology to make sub-second decisions across web, app, and email is finally mature.

But it only works on unified data and a clear definition of what ‘good’ looks like. Get that foundation right and real-time becomes your biggest engagement advantage.

How do you measure whether personalisation is actually delivering commercial value?

If you can’t prove it, it doesn’t matter. Personalisation has a measurement problem, because too many teams point to opens and clicks.

I care about incrementality: what actually happened versus what would have happened anyway. That means disciplined test-and-control, holdout groups, and tying activity to revenue, margin and lifetime value, not vanity metrics.

The evidence is compelling when you measure properly; done well, personalisation can lift revenue by double digits and meaningfully improve marketing ROI.

But you have to close the loop, connect the data end to end, and be honest about attribution. Measure hard, and the business case makes itself.

What should marketing, CRM, and eCommerce leaders prioritise over the next 12 months to remain competitive?

Three Main Things:

First, get your data foundations right: A unified, consented view of the customer is the platform everything else stands on, and it’s still missing in most businesses.

Second, build the operating model to match: Break the silos between marketing, CRM and e-commerce so you can act on a signal as one team.

Third, adopt AI with intent: Start with clear use cases that improve the customer experience, not just cost, and measure them ruthlessly.

Underpinning all of it, protect trust. The temptation is to chase shiny tools; the winners will nail the fundamentals while everyone else is distracted.

David Balko, Chief Marketing Officer, Wren Kitchens

The winners treat AI as a powerful engine that still needs a human hand on the wheel.

David Balko, Chief Marketing Officer, Wren Kitchens

What made you decide to join the Marketing Personalisation Summit 2026?

"Marketing is being rewritten in real time, and personalisation sits right at the centre of it. AI is reshaping how we’re discovered, how we create, how we personalise and how we prove our value – all at once, and faster than any of us have known.

That’s exactly why rooms like this matter: we learn far more by comparing notes honestly with peers than we ever do in isolation. I wanted to be part of a conversation that’s practical rather than hype: what’s genuinely working, what isn’t, and where the hard problems really are. These are the conversations that move our whole industry forward."

3-4 November 2026 | Hilton Kensington | London

This interview highlights a challenge facing every marketing leader today: AI may have transformed what's technically possible, but successful personalisation still depends on strategy, customer understanding, organisational alignment, and trust.

These themes sit at the heart of the Marketing Personalisation Summit, 3-4 November 2026, Hilton Kensington, London, where senior leaders from marketing, CRM, digital, customer experience, and eCommerce will come together to explore how organisations are delivering AI-powered personalisation that is both commercially effective and customer-centric.

If David's insights have resonated with you, join the conversation this November to hear more practical strategies, real-world case studies, and honest discussions from the leaders shaping the future of marketing personalisation.

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