From One-Size-Fits-All to a Culture of Personalization

A multi-brand beauty retailer was treating nearly every customer the same, with full-file email sends, generic web experiences, and inconsistent processes across teams. Their ecommerce presence was still maturing, and while they had a personalization tool, they lacked consistent measurement and visibility into what was driving results. Without a clear personalization strategy, the retailer was missing opportunities to grow revenue and better understand their customers.

They partnered with Concord for both strategic guidance and technical implementation of personalization across their website and CRM. Concord helped the retailer identify the actions required to get up to speed and determine the best way to measure the impact of their marketing personalization efforts.

Proof-of-Value: MCP vs. Existing Platform

The first step was to validate that Salesforce Marketing Cloud Personalization (MCP) could deliver measurable results compared to the retailer’s existing platform. Concord ran structured, side-by-side tests across both email and web personalization, covering the retailer’s consumer and professional business streams.

MCP consistently outperformed the existing tool in engagement and revenue impact. This gave leadership confidence to fully migrate to MCP, establishing the foundation for a more strategic and data-driven personalization program.

Building a Scalable Experimentation Program

With MCP as the single platform, Concord helped the retailer implement a structured experimentation program:

• ‍Email Journeys: Hypothesis-driven tests, such as adding product recommendations, confirmed measurable lifts. Winning versions were rolled out to 100% of traffic, with results continuously tracked.‍
• Web Personalization: Recipe testing on high-traffic product blocks allowed each winning version to become the baseline for the next experiment, creating a continuous improvement cycle.‍
• Cross-Team Processes: Roles and workflows were clarified to ensure consistent execution across business units.

To maintain transparency and trust, Concord implemented a clear reporting framework:

• ‍Email Testing: Weekly updates on active experiments, monthly leadership reports, and CRM dashboards consolidating engagement and revenue data.‍
• Web Testing: Monthly reporting on actual and incremental revenue, with projections through the fiscal year.‍
• Overall Program: 50+ structured tests alongside documented results, providing measurable insights into performance and impact.