Where Do You Start With Personalisation?

If your website speaks to everyone in the same way, you’re missing a big opportunity. Customers expect more relevant and helpful experiences. But getting started with personalisation can feel unclear. Where do you begin?

The best starting point is understanding where you are today. Not just in terms of tools, but also team habits, goals, and how decisions are made. That’s where personalisation maturity models can help.

Four common stages of personalisation

One widely recognised framework is the Forrester Personalisation Maturity Model. It outlines how organisations typically evolve in their use of personalisation, moving through four key stages:

1. Ad hoc: The same content is shown to everyone. There’s no use of personal data or audience signals. Personalisation is not part of the team’s regular work.

2. Opportunistic: Some personalised content exists, often created by one team or for one channel. It’s not planned or measured regularly. It’s hard to repeat or scale.

3. Systematic: Personalisation is linked to business goals. Teams use audience data, run A/B tests, and have a process for planning and learning from results.

4. Differentiated: Personalisation is used across channels. Experiences adapt to each customer. Teams work with live data, predictive signals, and clear targets.

You don’t need to jump from one level to the next right away. The goal is to understand your current stage so you can choose the right kind of activity for your team.

What to focus on at each stage

So what should you focus on at each stage?

If you’re in the Ad Hoc stage, start small. Segment basic audiences, like new vs returning visitors, and try simple changes. The aim is to build awareness and get a feel for what’s possible.

At the Opportunistic stage, focus on consistency. Keep track of what you’re testing and measure outcomes where you can. Look for repeatable wins rather than one-off ideas.

In the Systematic stage, link personalisation to business goals. Use your existing data and tools to run structured experiments and optimise over time.

At the Differentiated stage, it’s about scale. Personalise across journeys and channels using behaviour signals, synced audiences, and predictive models. Keep refining what works.

From thinking to doing: The first real steps

If you haven’t done any personalisation yet, the hardest part is often just getting started. The good news is you don’t need to set up a full platform or rebuild your website to begin. Some of the most effective improvements come from small, focused experiments.

Try things like:

• Changing homepage banners based on where someone came from
• Showing different offers to new versus returning visitors
• Highlighting products based on location or campaign
• Testing two messages to see which performs better

These small changes can reveal a lot. They help you understand what resonates with your audience and give your team confidence to keep going.

Getting started doesn’t need complex tech

You don’t need a big tech stack to begin experimenting. In many cases, it’s as simple as adding a lightweight script to your site, tagging a key action like a sign-up or checkout, and connecting to a tool you already use, such as Google Analytics.

From there, you can run basic tests that show different content to different groups. It’s quick to set up and starts delivering insight straight away. What matters most is taking that first step and building momentum.