Why personalisation is the final nail in the coffin of spray-and-pray marketing

For decades, spray-and-pray marketing was the go-to strategy for businesses. The approach was simple: scatter gun generic messages to the widest possible audience, and pray that some would stick.

And it worked for a while, but contemporary customers expect more.

So overwhelmed by endless advertising coming from every angle, they not only ignore but are impatient of ads that fail to reflect their interests or anticipate their needs. “Ad fatigue” is real, and it affects a massive 77% of consumers. Making spray-and-pray little more than an expensive waste of time.

So, what does the future of marketing hold instead?

The fall of spray-and-pray

Everyone understands the logic of spray-and-pray marketing: the more people to see the ad, the greater the chance of conversions. The priority is visibility. But there are multiple reasons why this no longer works.

Although generic marketing might be seen by thousands of prospective buyers, it only rarely reaches the right audience at the right time. This means that conversion rates are low and revenue goals unreachable. Recent research suggests that brands that use personalisation to target a smaller audience are 48% more likely to surpass their revenue goals, compared to those that use alternative strategies. That’s probably at least partly to do with the fact that 76 percent of consumers become frustrated by generic, non-personalised ads. It’s even been shown that 62% of consumers feel a drop in brand loyalty when contact is un-personalised. All of which implies that it’s time for something new.

The rise of personalisation-based marketing

Personalisation-based marketing is about data. When you have the right data and know how to meaningfully use it, you can drive conversions, retention, and longer-term value by segmenting your customer base and actively targeting. But it goes beyond that too, because you’re not just using the data to target, but to give your audience what they want. And it’s when you deliver value that marketing delivers results.

With personalisation-based marketing, you move away from the blanket messaging and instead tailor campaigns dynamically, responding to your audience, the moment, the time of the week or day, and localised events. You speak directly to the people most likely to act on it in that specific context. And then you can add-in wider data – weather triggers, mobile data integration – to build contextual ads into your campaign. And it works because you’re targeting the right audience in the right place, at the right time, with messages that resonate. So, you get higher engagement and stronger brand recall.

How to transition from spray-and-pray to personalisation-based marketing

Understand your customers

Successful personalisation begins with properly knowing your audience. Not just the surface level of age, gender, location. But digging down into their motivation. And that’s where data comes in. When you analyse different data, such as nearby foot traffic patterns, location-based behaviours, time-of-day activity, and even social media check-ins, you gain insights into what drives their decision-making, helping you to better shape your campaigns around their needs.

Segment your audience

Segmenting targets is nothing new, but rather than lazily sticking to demographics, try for something more meaningful. Behavioural cues, lifecycle stages, something that is relevant to them. Or, if you’re using digital boards, something that is relevant to the location and the people who use it. So, quick coffees or breakfast offers for morning commuters, flash sales in retail districts. This allows you to target high-impact groups with precise messages that deliver valuable returns.

Invest in the right technology

Even with strong customer insights, personalisation is hard without the right tools. Salesforce offers a complete ecosystem to unify data, turn it into intelligence, and automate relevant engagement across all channels. While tools like Salesforce Einstein use AI to predict intent and recommend next steps in real time, enabling dynamic, evolving experiences instead of static segments.

Contextual messaging

Customers now expect relevance in their advertising. If they’re going to give you their attention, it’s your job to make it worth their while. So, effective personalisation demands messaging that has been tailored to specific contexts. A digital board promoting student supplies, for example, will perform much better when placed by a university than it will by a business district bus stop. Shifting away from the “one message fits all” mindset to “the right message for the right moment” can improve your conversion rates by building both trust and engagement.

Personalisation can change the way your company’s marketing works, and the results it delivers. But it isn’t just about adopting the right tech. It’s about finding ways to make the data and tech properly work for you. So, don’t just jump in and invest in the first software that seems to do the job. Search for a tech ecosystem that can fully answer your business’ needs, scale with it, and enable you to fully execute personalisation-based marketing. And for the expertise and guidance that can help you to extract its full potential.

Satish Thiagarajan is the founder of Brysa, a Salesforce and data consultancy based in the UK. His company advises media, industrial, and services clients on using Data Cloud and Agentforce to turn signals into action. His work focuses on closing the loop between insight and execution in sales, marketing, and service.