Hey friend! Welcome back to The Edge! With the European summer heatwave in full swing, I want to chat about the hot topic of personalization and profitability. We know they are the equation to growth, but what does that mean exactly, and how much does AI play a role?
Brands are under pressure on every side: rising acquisition costs, cautious consumers, and a competitive landscape where the reflex answer is still to discount.
But this approach only trains customers to wait for your next sale or promotion. And it's very hard to un-train them once that happens.
Here’s where personalization is actually your most underrated margin tool — the more relevant your customer experience, the less you have to rely on discounts to drive conversions.
Personalized marketing means you're putting the right products, messages, and offers in front of the right customers instead of blasting the same promotion to everyone. Rather than training customers to wait for the discount, you're creating demand through relevance.
Once consumers are on your site, personalization becomes a product discovery advantage. Instead of forcing shoppers to sift through hundreds of SKUs, you help them quickly find products that match their preferences, budget, and behavior. Better product discovery reduces friction while increasing perceived value.
There's another upside to this, too. Personalization means the same traffic converts better. You're not paying more to acquire customers, but you're getting more from the ones you already have. Improving conversion rate by even small margins across your highest-traffic channels can make a big difference.
Personalization is now being evaluated through a different lens. The question is no longer just, "How do we get more people to buy?" Instead, it's: "Where are we over-discounting?", "Where are we leaving revenue on the table?", and "How do we use relevance instead of price to close those gaps?"
In a tighter economic climate, that reframing matters. Growth is harder to come by, but efficiency is something you can actually control.
Something I’m thinking of…
My feed has been full of summer 2026 feel-good moments, including the NYC Knicks fans taking over the streets of the West Village and the Tartan Army taking over Boston and Miami. I can't stop watching. Not because I follow basketball or Scottish football, but because these are people being completely, unapologetically themselves. And it turns out that's magnetic.
The most compelling experiences aren't engineered to appeal to everyone. They're exactly right for someone, and end up pulling the whole room in anyway. The World Cup keeps showing me that with individual identities and collective energy.
The same is true for brands. A homepage, email, or product recommendation doesn't need to feel generic to be effective. When each customer sees something that reflects their taste or needs, the brand becomes more relevant.
See how your email program stacks up
If you're trying to drive more revenue without relying on deeper discounts, it helps to know what "good" actually looks like.
Our new Email Benchmark Report, powered by data from Bloomreach's Loomi Platform, gives you a real-world look at how commerce brands are performing across 16 industries.
Compare your email delivery, open rates, and click rates against industry averages to see where your program is outperforming and where there's opportunity to improve.
No matter what you're doing this summer — whether you're watching sports, traveling, or simply making the most of the sunshine — I hope you find time to enjoy a few of those brilliantly personalized moments yourself. Thanks for reading this week’s issue. See you next time!
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