Chapter Two:
_{The State of Personalisation in 2026}

^{Chapter Two: The State of Personalisation in 2026}

Executive Question: How mature is personalisation really across the industry today?

Why This Matters:

For years, personalisation was framed as a future ambition, a destination organisations were “moving towards.”

That framing no longer holds. Personalisation is now an active operating model, not a future state.

The real question is no longer whether organisations are investing in it, but whether that investment is translating into measurable, scalable, and trusted customer experiences.

The data in this chapter points to a widening gap between ambition and execution – between what organisations believe they are delivering, and what customers actually experience.

The Perception Gap

Most organisations believe they are delivering personalised experiences. Customers are far less convinced.

85% of companies believe they deliver personalised experiences effectively
Only 60% of customers agree (Source: Twilio Segment, The State of Personalisation Report)

This gap is one of the clearest signals that personalisation is not yet operating as a consistent, end-to-end capability.

In practice, customers are experiencing not a unified journey, but a series of disconnected interactions that vary in relevance and timing across channels.

The Strategic Consensus

89% of marketing decision-makers say personalisation will be critical to business success over the next three years. (Source: Twilio Segment, The State of Personalisation Report)

Personalisation is no longer a competitive differentiator in principle – it is a baseline expectation for growth, retention, and customer experience. But consensus on importance does not equal maturity in execution.

The Execution Gap

One of the most consistent challenges across the industry is the ability to deliver tailored experiences at scale, and privacy regulation is compounding the problem.

63% of digital marketing executives report difficulty delivering personalised customer experiences (Source: Gartner, Predicts 2025: Marketing)
50% of companies say privacy regulation has made personalisation more difficult (Source: Twilio Segment)

Even as tools improve, organisations continue to struggle with fragmented customer data, inconsistent channel experiences, limited real-time decisioning, and unclear ownership of personalisation strategy.

In many organisations, personalisation is still not one capability – it is a collection of partially connected initiatives.

Investment is Rising, but so is Complexity

Despite the uncertainty, investment in personalisation continues to climb.

Marketing budgets allocated to personalisation have increased to ~40%, up from 22% in 2023 (Source: Comviva, State of Customer Engagement Report 2025)

Increased investment is also exposing complexity: more tools, more platforms, more data sources, and higher expectations.

Without strong integration, this often results in overlapping technology stacks, inconsistent customer logic, and difficulty proving ROI. In short: investment is increasing faster than organisational readiness.

AI Adoption: High in Principle, Low in Practice

AI is now widely recognised as central to personalisation's future, but recognition has not translated into deployment.

84% of marketing leaders believe AI/ML is critical for personalisation
Yet only 17% report extensive use today (Source: Gartner)

Trust and Privacy are Now Structural Constraints

Personalisation is no longer purely a marketing challenge. Half of companies say privacy regulation has made personalisation more difficult - a reflection that consent management, transparency requirements, and data usage controls are now embedded in every stage of the customer journey.

Importantly, this does not reduce the importance of personalisation. It increases the importance of doing it well.

Reality Check

The industry does not have a personalisation strategy problem – it has a personalisation execution problem.

Most organisations are not limited by ambition or investment, but fragmented data foundations, inconsistent definitions of success, and a lack of organisational alignment across marketing, CRM, data, and technology teams limit them.

_{I think the biggest problem in my experience is that most marketers are deluded about who their customers are. For example, most organisations are very heavily populated with people aged 25 to 39, but that's only 20% of the population. So you can see how already we're baking in a bias.}

Janis Thomas, Chief Marketing Officer, Clothes Doctor

_{Personalisation at scale also requires investment in technology, skills and governance. However, technology alone is not enough. Organisations need alignment across functions and a clear understanding of how personalisation supports broader business goals.}

Haleema Ali, Head of B2B Marketing, ManpowerGroup