The death of generic marketing

Marketers have long understood that personalisation is key to effective customer engagement. But in 2025, simply adding a first name to an email subject line isn’t enough. Consumers today expect brands to anticipate their needs, understand their preferences, and deliver messages that feel uniquely tailored to them. Those that fail to do so risk being ignored, or worse, labeled as irrelevant.

 A recent study analysing over 17.3 billion brand emails over the past year provides compelling evidence that generic marketing no longer works. According to MoEngage’s Email Benchmark Report for 2025 and Beyond, personalized emails consistently outperformed mass-blasted ones across every key metric. The findings were staggering — retail and e-commerce brands that sent emails based on customer behavior saw a 405x increase in conversions, while media and entertainment companies experienced conversion rates that were 93.7 times higher when they personalised recommendations.

The data confirms what many marketers have sensed for years: consumers no longer tolerate irrelevant messaging. Instead, they gravitate toward brands that speak directly to their needs, at the right moment, and through the right channels.

But what does true personalisation look like? More than just addressing a customer by name, hyper-personalisation requires brands to tailor content, offers, and recommendations based on real-time behavioral insights. A travel company, for instance, should not send out generic vacation deals to its entire mailing list. Instead, it should analyse browsing history and previous bookings to suggest personalised travel packages. A customer who recently searched for beach destinations might receive an email with curated resort recommendations, local weather forecasts, and limited-time flight discounts.

Meanwhile, an E-commerce brand looking to recover abandoned carts can go beyond a simple reminder email by including product recommendations, user reviews, or a time-sensitive discount to encourage immediate action.

Consumers also expect brands to recognise their identity beyond just past purchases. Attributes like location, language, and cultural preferences play a major role in shaping customer expectations. IKEA’s Ramadan campaign in the Middle East is a prime example of how brands can get this right. The Swedish furniture giant didn’t just run a single global promotion; instead, it localised its website for each country, adjusting everything from product availability to currency and language.

It even launched tailored marketing campaigns in different regions, such as short-form cooking shows in the UAE and in-store cooking workshops in Egypt. This multi-layered approach helped IKEA achieve a 23 per cent increase in regional transactions, proving that customers respond positively when brands take the time to understand their cultural context.

Beyond content and localisation, timing plays a critical role in personalisation. Even the most well-crafted email will fail if it reaches a customer at the wrong moment — such as during work hours, in the middle of the night, or when they are least likely to engage. The MoEngage report emphasises that there is no universal best time to send emails. Engagement rates vary significantly depending on industry, audience, and personal habits.

A retail brand’s audience may be more receptive to promotions in the evening, vs a food delivery app which may see better engagement in and around meal times. The only way to determine the optimal timing for each brand is through persistent A/B testing and real-time data analysis.

 As the demand for personalisation grows, so does the need for automation. Manually curating personalised campaigns for thousands — or even millions — of customers is virtually impossible. This is where AI-driven Customer Data and Engagement Platforms (CDEPs) become indispensable. By integrating data from multiple touchpoints, these platforms enable brands to move from static, campaign-centric marketing to real-time, customer-centric engagement.

A purpose-built CDEP can track customer interactions across websites, apps, emails, and even offline stores, and use AI to trigger personalised messages at the perfect moment.

Industry leaders believe this shift is inevitable. Kunal Badiani, Regional Head for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa at MoEngage, points out that as digital and physical touchpoints continue to converge, brands that fail to invest in personalisation will struggle to stay relevant. MoEngage’s CEO, Raviteja Dodda, echoes this sentiment, emphasising that brands must transition from campaign-centric to customer-centric strategies.

According to Dodda, traditional marketing platforms offer fragmented solutions that are unsustainable in the long run. A fully integrated, multi-channel data and engagement platform is the only way for brands to build meaningful, data-driven customer relationships at scale.

In today’s crowded digital landscape, attention is the scarcest resource. Consumers are constantly bombarded with marketing messages, but only a select few break through the noise. The brands that succeed are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the most aggressive advertising — they are the ones that understand their customers deeply, respect their preferences and engage them in ways that feel genuinely relevant.

For marketers, the question is no longer whether to invest in hyper-personalisation, but how quickly they can implement it before their competitors do. The shift from mass marketing to meaningful engagement isn’t just a trend — it’s the new reality of customer relationships in 2025 and beyond. Brands that recognise this and take action now will not only see higher engagement and conversions but will also build long-term loyalty in an increasingly competitive world.