Hyper-personalisation: unlocking retailers’ hidden superpower

In “How to Keep Hold of Your Customers”, our latest report exploring the subject of shopper loyalty, we learned that fully automated, 1:1 personalisation is top of the wishlist for some of the world’s biggest retailers. Here, Mandeep Pal — dunnhumby’s Retail Client Director and an International Loyalty Awards Judge — looks at how retailers can unlock a hidden superpower in the form of hyper-personalisation.

Hyper-personalisation. AI-powered solutions. Real-time communications. These aren’t just buzzwords; they're reshaping how organisations approach loyalty and customer engagement. Today, more than 70% of customers say that they want deeper, more personalised interactions¹. But as businesses race to deliver gamified, hyper-personalised experiences, one key question remains - how do they ensure that those experiences create lasting value?  

I think there are six things that retailers (and other organisations) need to consider here, and they all have one thing in common: they start — and stay — with the customer.  

1. Start with objectives rooted in customer behaviour

The path towards hyper-personalisation begins with customer understanding. Before anything else, it’s important to define clear customer groups and understand the opportunities they represent. By doing so, you can then set objectives grounded in the value you want to create for your customers, and zero in on the behaviours that show it’s working.

Critically, measurement must be customer-outcome led, not just transactional. Think beyond short-term KPIs, and instead look at how your personalisation strategy influences long-term behaviour and sentiment. Some activations, particularly those that reward or surprise, might not drive immediate revenue, but they could foster long-term loyalty and satisfaction.

2. Don’t overdo it — strategic personalisation wins

Embracing segment and customer-group level strategies doesn’t mean delivering the same, uniform experience to everyone. Instead, they should serve as a foundation for personalised, one-to-one customer engagement. Even then, it’s important to be sensible. One of the biggest pitfalls is trying to hyper-personalise every interaction, something that’s neither sustainable nor always valuable.

True hyper-personalisation is the sum of its parts: a thoughtful orchestration of timely, relevant, and meaningful touchpoints. Not every moment needs to be deeply tailored to the individual — but the overall experience should feel personal, seamless, and valuable. And, critically, while Customer A and Customer B might experience different interactions, both can still be guided toward shared business outcomes.

3. Personalisation should enhance, not dominate

Customer journey planning should zoom in on value delivery, helpfulness, and the reduction of friction. Is your search helping customers find what they really need? What’s the ‘aha’ moment that might turn a casual browser into a loyal advocate? Are omnichannel experiences consistent? Where are you adding friction and where could you remove it?

Looking closely at the entire customer journey will reveal opportunities for impactful, subtle personalisation - ones that elevate the experience without overwhelming it. When done right, customers won’t see the mechanics, they’ll just feel understood.

4. Data is the real-time backbone — but context is king

Real-time responsiveness, predictive modelling, and emotional relevance are all underpinned by data — its depth, accuracy, and context. Imagine an unexpected sunny day. An ice cream brand uses weather data to trigger an app offer to prospective customers. Predictive modelling helps identify lookalikes to their best users.

Job done? Not quite. Recent search history shows many in this segment are now exploring vegan recipes. A dairy ice cream offer isn’t just irrelevant: to some customers, it’ll feel tone-deaf. This is why emotional relevance and understanding why a customer behaves a certain way must be layered on to your personalisation efforts. It’s not just about the ‘what’, but the ‘why’ behind customer actions.

5. Building the right data and value exchange

To personalise meaningfully, you need high-quality data (and the consent to use it). It’s for that reason that many organisations are now exploring incentivised surveys, zero-party data touchpoints, and loyalty programmes that go beyond the core product. Think banks offering career mentorship or fuel providers running lifestyle events, for instance.

These aren’t gimmicks - they’re efforts to earn a broader “share of life”. Smart organisations are using them to gain deeper context into their customers’ world, and unlocking more opportunities to personalise authentically.

6. Scaling with the right tech stack

Engineering genuine relevance at scale, via AI models, predictive tools, and integrated data, is no small feat. It demands robust platforms capable of delivering real-time, omnichannel personalisation across ecosystems. Brands, categories, pricing, promotions, partner networks, and retail media all need to be in the mix here.

With an influx of tech providers offering loyalty clouds, marketing automation, and customer data platforms, though, businesses increasingly have the opportunity to partner with experts. As discussed in one of our recent blogs, the strongest platforms enable:

• • The creation of centralised customer profiles.
  • Real-time event handling with dynamic content.
  • The building of behavioural foundation models.
  • Omnichannel journey orchestration.
  • Scalable experimentation and automation.
  • Seamless MarTech integration.

Combined, these capabilities can supercharge your ability to deliver personalisation at scale.

Unleashing your hidden superpower

In the end, successful personalisation is always rooted in one principle: a deep and continually evolving understanding of your customer. Often, this requires a cultural shift, one that helps to broaden executive priorities beyond pure revenue, and towards wider factors like customer trust, satisfaction, and long-term loyalty.

Done well, hyper-personalisation can become an invisible and effortless superpower. It doesn’t shout; it resonates. It’s this quiet relevance — timely, meaningful, and deeply customer-centric — that builds the foundation for sustainable value. Not just for the customer, but for the business too. Because when customers feel understood, they engage more, stay longer, and spend smarter.