The Personalization Myth

"Just personalize the experience."

"Show returning visitors different content to boost conversions."

I used to believe this too. Amazon and Netflix do it. It must work.

After years of A/B testing, I've noticed something nobody talks about: The ROI on personalization rarely justifies its complexity.

When a page isn't converting well, the problem usually isn't lack of personalization — it's something basic getting in the way.

The pattern shows up everywhere. Teams spend months building sophisticated personalization engines when the real barriers are often basic:

Too many steps to complete an action.

Confusing interfaces.

Slow load times.

Unclear next steps.

We don't want websites to know us better. We want them to waste less of our time.

Every "Welcome back!" and "Because you viewed this..." isn't helping — it reminds me I'm being tracked.

The best digital experiences don't feel personalized.

They feel inevitable.

The next step is what you were going to do anyway.

Before investing in complex personalization:

Identify what's stopping users.

Remove unnecessary steps.

Make the next action obvious.

First, test the simple fix.