5 personalization use cases that help CPG brands boost customer acquisition

Personalization has become an industry standard for marketers looking to better connect with their audiences. As consumers gain greater access to information and choices, it’s more important than ever for brands to deliver personalized experiences that resonate with each individual, enhancing conversions, reducing cart abandonment, and strengthening connections with visitors.

While personalization has become table stakes in ecommerce, companies of all shapes, sizes, and verticals should leverage customer data to improve their business outcomes. With their deep troves of transaction data and consumer information in their systems, CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands are uniquely positioned to increase engagement, elevate conversions, and ultimately boost customer acquisition with personalization. 

Here are five ways that personalization can help boost customer acquisition for CPG brands.

1. Personalization for multiple products and brands 

Large CPG companies often have multiple products across multiple brands and sub-brands. Take Kraft Heinz, for example. The Kraft Heinz umbrella encapsulates 200+ brands, from Kraft Mac & Cheese to JELL-O to Oscar Mayer. 

So when they decided to revamp their digital presence (which would include a more personal approach with product information throughout), they knew it would be a challenge. The more brands and products you own, the more experiences you have to manage, making it more difficult to personalize each touchpoint.

That’s why many CPG companies are turning to personalization tools like Ninetailed by Contentful — to manage multiple experiences at scale, from one unified command center. That means no more switching between the systems to power your personalization strategy. It all happens inside Contentful.

And when each sub-brand has a personalized experience that speaks to each customers’ specific wants and needs, conversions are more likely to increase, along with customer satisfaction.    

2. Turn generic campaigns into highly engaging ones 

If it wasn’t hard enough to manage multiple brands, sub-brands, and products, CPG brands are typically running large-scale integrated campaigns, spanning all media and channels like paid advertising, email, referrals, SMS, and everything in between. It can be painstaking to build out personalized content for each campaign, and difficult to manage and track. 

But having a personal touch throughout each touchpoint of the customer journey can be the difference between a new customer and a missed opportunity.  

Ninetailed allows CPG brands to personalize app and web content based on campaign source and other variables, ensuring that visitors see messages and offers tailored to their specific journey, preferences, or intent. This level of personalization transforms generic experiences into highly engaging ones, increasing the likelihood of capturing customer attention and creating a seamless, brand-consistent path from ad to checkout.

By adapting content to match each visitor’s path and interests, Ninetailed empowers CPG brands to maximize the return on their acquisition investments. Whether it’s an SMS subscriber coming from different SMS campaigns, a visitor coming from a paid social ad, or a repeat customer referred by a friend, Ninetailed ensures that each web/app visitor sees content that feels directly relevant to them. 

This not only increases the likelihood of capturing their interest, but also builds brand affinity by showing that the brand truly understands and values each consumer.

3. Meet customers where they are 

Customers in Boston probably have different needs than customers in Austin, right? 

CPG brands have a massive opportunity to use geo-location and seasonality to increase engagement and conversions by speaking directly to customers’ individual needs and preferences. 

Here’s a scenario: Phoenix broke a 21-year record this year by having 113 consecutive days above 100 degrees. 🥵 

Now, let’s say your brand sells ice cream. Sure, you could geotarget the Phoenix area with normal summer branding, telling locals to “beat the heat this summer.” Or, you could personalize it specifically to what they’re all feeling: 100+ days of 100 degrees, and counting. 

By personalizing your content based on what your customers are feeling at that moment, you’re building trust by showing that you understand their pain and you have the solution. Ice cream, of course.   

And Ninetailed makes it easy for CPG brands to create location-specific experiences at scale. 

4. Leveraging AI to personalize at scale 

During a recent podcast episode of The CPG Guys Podcast, Contentful Chief Evangelist Nicole France was asked about how AI will impact the CPG market overall. She said, “I actually think that the most creative ideas are still going to come from people. {But} scaling can be difficult to do manually, so I think AI can play a very significant role there — which is really fun to think about.” 

AI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But the CPG brands who can figure out how to use it to help them scale will be the ones who win in the long run. 

As Nicole said, AI isn’t necessarily the key to creating original content. But as you build more content within Contentful, Ninetailed uses AI to tailor your brand voice and the context of your content, making it easier to create personalized content at scale. For example, AI could take a set of core assets and create variants with different copy to A/B test. 

Not only that, but Ninetailed’s Audience Suggestions analyzes your traffic, demographics, and behaviors to recommend audience segments. 

And the best part is, you don’t need to rely on developers or a business intelligence team. Even non-technical marketers can access these insights and create personalized experiences as needed.

5. Make loyal customers feel valued

Customer loyalty is paramount for any brand, and this is no exception for consumer packaged goods companies. If your most loyal customers are receiving the same experience as everyone else, then you’re missing a massive opportunity to surprise and delight your biggest supporters with a truly unique experience that will keep them coming back for more. Or better yet — referring new customers.

With Ninetailed, CPG brands are able to identify high-value customers based on consumption patterns (like frequent buyers), build an audience, and create exclusive, personalized experiences just for them. For example, you might want to give your most loyal customers early access to a new product, exclusive discounts, or other loyalty offers to show your appreciation. 

These are your most valuable customers we’re talking about here. Get personal with them, and show them you’re willing to go the extra mile to earn back their business every single day.

Case Study: How a global CPG brand used personalization to increase engagement and conversions

As one of the largest, global, fast-moving consumer goods companies, Kraft Heinz was looking to shake up their customer experience by making their content more personalized. One way they were able to do this was by employing location-based personalization strategies, proving that relevance is key to capturing consumer attention.

Partnering with Contentful and Ninetailed, Kraft Heinz replaced its generic homepage banners, product components, and CTA messages with content personalized to the user's geolocation.

The result?

• 78% more conversions

• 30% increase in engagement

• 28% increase in customer satisfaction

Funny how a little personalization can make such a difference for your content performance.  

With CPG brands, it just got personal 

Ecommerce brands aren’t the only ones who can use personalized experiences to boost customer acquisition. In fact, CPG companies have arguably more data and insights from their prospects and customers to use to their advantage. Ninetailed and Contentful have made it easier than ever to uncover these insights, use them to create personalized content across all channels, and increase conversions.

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