By 2025, 80% of marketers who have invested in personalisation will abandon their efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both, according to Gartner, Inc. In fact, 27% of marketers believe data is the key obstacle to personalisation — revealing their weaknesses in data collection, integration and protection.

“Personal data has long been the fuel that fires marketing at every stage of the customer journey, and the drive to find new forms of fuel and devise new ways to leverage them seems to be boundless,” said Charles Golvin, senior director analyst in the Gartner for Marketers practice. “However, this quest has failed to meet marketers’ ambitions and, in some cases, has backfired, as consumers both directly and indirectly reject brands’ overtures.”

Marketers face other impediments to personalisation success including the continuing decline in consumer trust, increased scrutiny by regulators and tracking barriers erected by tech companies. While personalisation comprises 14% of the marketing budget, more than one in four marketing leaders cite technology as a major hurdle to personalisation.

“Consumers have developed an increasingly jaundiced eye toward marketers’ efforts to embrace them,” said Mr. Golvin. “Their increasingly cluttered email inboxes and mobile phone notification centers may lead them to ignore even the most carefully personalised and contextualised message. Marketers must really adopt the basics when it comes to test and learn before investing in personalisation technology and new tactics.”