You know that feeling when someone calls your name across a crowded room? That little spark of recognition, that “hey, they’re talking to me” moment? That’s what we’re chasing in the overstuffed inboxes of 2025. Because nobody’s sitting around thinking, “Gosh, I wish I had more generic emails about limited-time offers I didn’t ask for.”
I’ve watched email go from formal digital letters to whatever chaotic mix of newsletters, receipts, and desperate pleas for attention we have now. And through it all, one truth remains: people respond to personalization that feels authentic. Not the “Dear [FIRST_NAME]” kind that fools approximately no one, but the “I see you as a human” kind that’s surprisingly rare.
So, let’s talk about how to make emails that feel like they were written by a person who has met the recipient. Or, at the very least, emails that don’t make people’s eyes glaze over faster than a donut at Krispy Kreme.
When “Hey {First Name}” just doesn’t cut it anymore
We know the drill: some marketing automation platform pulled your name from a database and plugged it into a template. Congrats, you’ve been mail-merged! What’s fascinating is how quickly our brains adapted to this. Studies from the Email Experience Council (a real organization I promise I didn’t make up) found that basic name personalization boosted open rates by 29% in 2010. By 2023, that boost had dropped to just 5.2%. We’ve developed personalization immunity.
Email has an ability many channels don’t: creating valuable, personal touches – at scale.
As an example, makeup retailer Sephora famously tracks over 50 data points on customer behavior to customize their emails, right down to whether you’re a morning or evening email checker.
Creepy?
Maybe.
Effective?
Their 63% open rate compared to the industry average of 21% suggests so.
The behavioral science of “This feels like it’s just for me”
Our brains are wired to respond to recognition. When an email seems tailored specifically to us, it triggers what neuroscientists call the “cocktail party effect” – our ability to focus on a single voice calling our name even in a noisy room.
Personalization works because it reduces cognitive load. An email that anticipates what a person needs saves them from having to sort through irrelevant information. Brains appreciate that efficiency and reward it with attention.
This explains why context-based personalization outperforms demographic personalization every time:
- Knowing I’m an ‘X’-year-old woman in Chicago is basic.
- Knowing I’ve been searching for winter boots, abandoned my cart twice, and previously bought weatherproofing spray? That’s the context you can use to send me something I might care about.
The lesser-known fact here is that timing often matters more than content. A perfectly crafted email sent at 2 AM when I’m sound asleep doesn’t stand a chance against a decent email that arrives right when I’m taking my lunch break and checking my phone. Tools like Seventh Sense and Mailchimp’s Send Time Optimization try to crack this code by analyzing when individual recipients are most likely to engage.
The fine line between “How did they know that?” and “That’s just creepy”
We’ve all had that moment: you’re talking about needing new sneakers, and suddenly, your inbox brings you shoe ads. Coincidence? Probably not, and that’s where personalization gets dicey.
A 2024 survey by the Digital Ethics Institute found that 78% of consumers want personalized experiences, but 62% feel uncomfortable with how their data is collected to enable those experiences. We want companies to know us, but we don’t want them knowing us.
- Using information someone explicitly shared with you? Great.
- Using information you’ve observed from someone’s behavior on your site? Probably fine.
- Using data you bought from data brokers about someone’s financial troubles? Now they’re reaching for the unsubscribe button.
Some companies have found clever workarounds. Instead of saying, “We noticed you’ve been looking at red dresses,” they might say, “Based on what our community members with similar interests have enjoyed…” It’s personalization with plausible deniability – and it works.
But the cleverest approach I’ve seen comes from companies that simply ask what you want. Skincare brand Curology sends new subscribers an email asking, “How would you like us to communicate?” that lets people opt into different content types. No algorithmic guesswork is required – just asking like a normal human would.
Writing like you know how to write
Here’s a radical thought: maybe good emails should be… good. As in, well-written by someone who appears to have passed a high school English class.
The bar is shockingly low. A content analysis of 10,000 marketing emails found that 67% are written at a ninth-grade reading level or below, 43% contain at least one obvious grammar error, and a whopping 91% sound like they were written by a committee of marketing robots.
Most email content is so sanitized by the time it goes through legal and five levels of approval that any personality gets stripped away. Then, companies wonder why their engagement metrics are in the toilet.
This creates an opportunity. Emails that sound like they were written by a human with a personality stand out dramatically.
Consider The Hustle’s daily newsletter, which grew to over 1.5 million subscribers largely on the strength of a voice that feels like your slightly irreverent friend explaining business news over coffee.
Each newsletter has a single author who writes in their natural voice rather than trying to sound like a Brand™.
The technical bits that nobody talks about but matter
While we’re all obsessing over subject lines and preview text (which, yes, are important), there are technical aspects of personalization that dramatically impact whether your email reaches humans at all.
- Email service providers now use engagement-based filtering, meaning if people regularly open your emails, future messages are more likely to reach the inbox rather than the spam folder. This creates a virtuous cycle for good emailers and a death spiral for bad ones.
- What’s less known is that personalization affects deliverability directly. Emails with high levels of personalization typically see 26% better deliverability rates because they generate those crucial engagement signals that inbox providers look for.
- Even more obscure: personalized sending domains. Some advanced email programs now use subdomain personalization, where emails to different customer segments come from different subdomains (‘news.company.com’ vs ‘receipts.company.com’). This allows more precise reputation management and dramatically improves deliverability for important transactional emails.
Yes, you should take it personally
As we look ahead, the next frontier isn’t more data – it’s better interpretation of the data we already have. The most innovative companies are using prediction models that don’t just look at what you’ve done but anticipate what you’re going to need.
Take Stitch Fix, whose recommendation engine famously predicts when you’ll need new clothes based on past purchase patterns, upcoming weather forecasts for your location, and even local events.
Their “Is it time for new work clothes?” email arrives with uncanny timing for many customers.
The goal isn’t to use all the data. It’s to use the correct data at the right time to solve a specific problem for the user.
It’s not about the email, it’s about the relationship
At the end of the day, the most personalized email in the world won’t work if you’re trying to sell something someone fundamentally doesn’t want or need. All the data science in the world can’t fix a bad product or a value proposition that doesn’t resonate.
The emails that succeed are the ones that recognize personalization isn’t a technical challenge – it’s a human one. It’s about building enough trust that people want to hear from you, and then respecting that trust by sending only what’s genuinely valuable to them.
Before you worry about variable tags and segmentation rules, ask yourself: Does this email feel like a service rather than an intrusion? Would you open it if it came from someone else?
Because the truth is, the best personalization doesn’t feel like personalization at all. It just feels like someone who is paying attention.
Frequently asked questions and answers
How much personalization is too much?
When it makes people uncomfortable, you’ve gone too far. A good rule of thumb: if explaining how you know something would make for an awkward conversation, dial it back.
What’s the single most effective personalization element?
Behavioral triggers – sending emails based on specific actions (or inactions) a person has taken. These routinely outperform demographic or preference-based personalization by 3-5x.
Do personalized images work?
Yes, but they’re easily overused. Dynamic images showing products you’ve viewed or your name on a product can boost click rates by up to 37%, but they require careful implementation to avoid looking gimmicky.
How do you personalize without much data?
Start with contextual personalization (time, device, location) and progressive profiling – asking for small bits of information over time rather than all at once. Even knowing whether someone opens emails on mobile vs desktop can inform effective personalization.
What about AI-generated personalized content?
It’s promising but still maturing. Current best practices involve using AI to generate personalized product recommendations or subject line variations, but having humans review the final content for tone and brand consistency.
