Gartner Predicts 80% of Marketers Will

Abandon Personalization Efforts by 2025

Gartner Reveals Marketing Predictions to Guide Marketers Through Uncertain
Times Ahead
2

STAMFORD, Conn – WEBWIRE – Monday, December 2, 2019

By 2025, 80% of marketers who have invested in

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

“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 personalized and contextualized message. Marketers must
really adopt the basics when it comes to test and learn before investing in personalization technology and
new tactics.”

Gartner has a number of recommendations for marketing leaders evaluating their personalization efforts,
including:

Leverage a pilot or proof of concept (POC) with a vendor before investing in a personalization tool.
Go back to the basics and test tailored recommendations at the segment level to avoid unnecessary
or premature investment in a personalization engine.
Grow personalization efforts from a set of tactics or tools to a capability by focusing on strategic
planning, use case development and consent management as part of a personalization roadmap.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align personalization efforts and increase momentum.
Sharing control of personalization efforts can lead to shared insight and expand collective impact and
 ROI.

Other Gartner predictions to help marketers adjust to rapidly evolving customer behaviors and plan
accordingly include:

By 2023, chief marketing officer (CMO) budget allocation on influencer marketing will decrease by a third
as consumers continue to lose trust in brands and entities they don’t personally know.

By 2024, artificial intelligence identification of emotions will influence more than half of the online
advertisements you see.
By 2022, 25% of marketing departments will have a dedicated behavioral scientist or ethnographer
as part of their full-time staff.
In 2023, one-third of all brand public relations disasters will result from data ethics failures.

Additional details on Gartner’s marketing predictions are available to Gartner for Marketers clients in the
report “Predicts 2020: Marketers, They’re Just Not That Into You.”

About the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo

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multichannel marketing. Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo will be held in London, May 18-20, and in San
Diego, June 1-3. Follow news and updates for the event on Twitter at #GartnerMKTG.

About Gartner for Marketers

Gartner for Marketers provides the objective, expert advice and proven tools CMOs and other marketing
leaders need to seize the right opportunities with clarity and confidence, and stay ahead of the trends that
matter. With in-depth research and analysis, Gartner for Marketers helps you focus on the opportunities
with the greatest potential to deliver results. More information on Gartner for Marketers is available online
at www.Gartner.com/marketing/.

About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P
500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-
critical priorities today and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.

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industry and enterprise size.

To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit gartner.com.

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