A personalization management system (PMS) is an integrated

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

solution that enables users in an organization to manage and deliver personalized messages, campaigns, and interactive experiences to consumers across different communications channels and devices. The term PMS was first used in a 2003 study on personalization, but it was later popularized by marketing startup Croct, which was the first company to use the term PMS to distinguish the emerging category of platforms and technologies focused on delivering personalized customer experiences. Previously, these services were typically included under the umbrella of

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manag ...

or CRM solutions, which did not adequately encapsulate the nuances of this new category.

History

The concept of

personalization Personalization (broadly known as customization) consists of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals. A wide variety of organizations use personalization to improv ...

in marketing has been around for decades. But it all began with simple strategies, such as calling consumers by name in direct mail marketing. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the concept of personalization began to evolve with the use of

cookies A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts ...

, which allowed websites to track a user's browsing history and behavior. This information could then be used to serve personalized content, such as recommended products or tailored advertisements. As the internet and digital marketing continued to grow, the need for efficient and effective content management systems (CMS) became apparent. One of the main challenges with traditional CMS systems was that they were designed for the web, which often meant that content had to be created multiple times to be delivered across multiple devices. That was both a time-consuming and inefficient process. To address this issue, the concept of headless CMS was introduced. A headless CMS is a content management system that separates the backend (where content is stored and served) from the frontend (where content is displayed to the user). This allows content to be created once and delivered to any device or platform without creating multiple versions of the same content. As personalization in marketing evolved, it became important not just to create personalized content but also to analyze and track its effectiveness. Headless CMSs were well-suited to handle this task, as they allow for more flexibility when integrating marketing technology, such as analytics and testing tools. Together, these capabilities led to the emergence of a specialized category known as a Personalization Management System (PMS). As technology advanced, so has the ability to personalize marketing efforts. Modern PMS platforms now offer a range of sophisticated features and capabilities. Companies such as Microsoft, Netflix, and Spotify are some of the most successful examples of companies using modern personalized marketing strategies nowadays to offer tailored experiences to their customers.

Benefits

Personalization allows businesses to create more targeted, relevant, and timely interactions with their customers and prospects. This can have many benefits, such as: * Improved

customer engagement Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer (either B2C or B2B) and an organization (company or brand) through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen's (2019, p. 166) S-D lo ...

and loyalty * Increased conversion rates * Improved

customer experience Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described the ...

* Increased

customer lifetime value In marketing, customer lifetime value (CLV or often CLTV), lifetime customer value (LCV), or life-time value (LTV) is a prognostication of the net profit contributed to the whole future relationship with a customer. The prediction model can have ...

* Improved Return on investment (ROI).

Features

Personalization management systems typically offer a range of features to manage and deliver personalized messages, campaigns, and experiences. These features typically include: * Real-time personalization to automate customer interactions * Segmentation for creating and managing customer segments based on customer attributes and behavior *

A/B testing A/B testing (also known as bucket testing, split-run testing, or split testing) is a user experience research methodology. A/B tests consist of a randomized experiment that usually involves two variants (A and B), although the concept can be also ...

for choosing the best-performing content variations * Recommendations of relevant products and content to customers *

Analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

and reporting to give marketers a deep view of their website or application's performance *

Customer data management Customer data management (CDM) is the ways in which businesses keep track of their customer information and survey their customer base in order to obtain feedback. CDM embraces a range of software or cloud computing applications designed to give l ...

for collecting and segmenting customer data to create user profiles and understand customer behaviors

Deployment

Personalization management systems are available as both

on-premises On-premises software (abbreviated to on-prem, and incorrectly referred to as on-premise) is installed and runs on computers on the premises of the person or organization using the software, rather than at a remote facility such as a server farm ...

and

cloud-based Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multip ...

solutions. On-premises solutions offer more control and customization. Yet, cloud-based (

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

) solutions are more common due to their lower costs and ease of management.

Vendors

Some of the key vendors in the personalization management space are Adobe Target, Croct, Twilio, Responsys, and Monetate.

References

{{Reflist Information systems Website management Records management Records management technology Human–computer interaction User interface techniques

Personas A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatri ...