Stat of the Week. $2 trillion: the revenue BCG projects will shift to the companies that are best at personalized marketing over the next five years. The companies leading BCG’s Personalization Index already grow revenue 10 percentage points faster each year than everyone else. (BCG, Personalized, October 2024.)
If you ask a marketing team if they do personalization well, they’ll almost always say yes and show you their tools. They have a customer data platform, a segmentation strategy, and automated journeys. But customers don’t see these tools—they only notice whether the offer feels right for them or not. BCG has measured the cost of this disconnect. Their Personalization Index shows that companies excelling at personalized marketing grow revenue 10 percentage points faster each year than others, and they estimate $2 trillion in revenue will shift to brands that get personalization right over five years (BCG, October 2024). Many teams who think they’re already personalizing well will lose out on this revenue.
What sets the top companies apart isn’t usually effort or budget—it’s how they measure success. Most teams judge personalization by what they’ve built, but the leaders focus on how the customer feels. Two frameworks help turn this customer perspective into action: BCG’s five promises of personalization, which explain how good personalization should feel, and Bain’s Elements of Value, which show what personalization should deliver.
The prize is other companies’ revenue
It’s important to understand that the $2 trillion opportunity is about shifting existing revenue, not creating new demand. BCG expects money to move from companies whose customers don’t feel personalized to those whose customers do. This changes the game, because what works today may not work tomorrow. If customers feel understood by another brand, they’ll take their business there, and the 10-point growth gap will show up in your sales numbers.
You can see the difference in what leaders measure. Top companies track results customers notice, like repeat purchases, share of wallet, and whether people feel known by the brand. Teams that fall behind focus on activity, such as counting campaigns sent or segments created. Activity is easy to report, but customers don’t notice your activity—they notice if your brand’s actions feel personal to them.
Five promises, graded by the customer
BCG’s five promises—Empower Me, Know Me, Reach Me, Show Me, and Delight Me—work because they use the customer’s voice. Your customers are already judging you by these standards, whether you use them or not.
Three of the promises focus on fit. Know Me is about earning my trust and permission to use my data to improve my experience. Reach Me is about showing up where I am, at a time that works for me. Show Me is about making sure what you offer is relevant to me, not just to a group I might fit into.
The other two promises are about payoff. Empower Me is about putting my needs first and helping me reach my goals. Delight Me is about constantly improving until the experience sometimes feels magical. These two promises build trust—fit gets attention, but payoff earns loyalty.
A grocery chain shows how tools can look successful even when the customer promise is missed. They invested in channel intelligence, so every weekly promotion reached shoppers through their preferred channel—app notification, email, or printed coupon. But the offer was the same for everyone. For example, a shopper who bought gluten-free products for two years still got the same barbecue bundle as everyone else, sent to her favorite app. The dashboards called it a win because channel engagement went up, but the customer saw it as proof the brand never paid attention to her needs. The chain personalized the delivery, but not the offer. They met the Reach Me promise but failed at Know Me, which is the promise customers expect from brands they trust.
What to personalize toward
Realizing that customer experiences are broken doesn’t show you what to fix first. That’s where Bain’s Elements of Value helps. Their 2016 research, based on over 10,000 US consumers, lists 30 things customers care about, from saving time and cutting costs to reducing anxiety, self-actualization, and social impact (Bain, September 2016). Even after a decade, it’s still the best guide to what customers really value.
When you combine the two frameworks, each promise gets a clear goal. For example, Reach Me, which is about saving time, could be a reorder shortcut that pops up when the pantry is low. Delight Me, focused on reducing anxiety, could mean sending updates before the customer has to ask. Know Me, aimed at quality, would make sure the gluten-free shopper never gets the barbecue bundle again. The promises show how personalization should feel, the elements show what value to deliver, and together they help teams focus on what customers actually want—not just what’s easy to automate.
How to get started
Changing your scorecard is the real work, and it begins with a strategy, not just a new platform.
Which promise do your customers think you break most often? Start by showing the five promises to real customers this month and ask them to grade you. The difference between their grades and your dashboard is your real backlog.
Which element of value does your best customer segment care about most? Start by looking at your highest-retention customers and, based on their behavior, identify the two or three elements they clearly value. Then see if your personalization delivers those elements, or if it just sends messages.
The $2 trillion in shifting revenue will go to companies that match their customer promises with what customers value most.
Which of the five promises is your weakest link? Reply and name it: Empower, Know, Reach, Show, or Delight.
Sources
BCG, “Capturing the $2 Trillion Personalization Opportunity with AI (*Personalized*, Abraham & Edelman),” October 2024 (book + Personalization Index; $2T labeled projection in-article; growth gap stated in percentage points).
Bain / Harvard Business Review, “The Elements of Value,” September 2016 (n=10,000+ US consumers; vintage flagged in-article).