This is a guest post by Kimberly Maceda. Kimberly is a content writer for ActiveTrail. She writes for some top online marketing sites and blogging advice on email marketing and marketing automation.

Gone are the days when one-size-fits-all emails work. Customers today are more hooked on content and messages that appeal to their unique interests and individual needs. So if you are still blasting that one email to your entire list, it's time to stop and rethink your strategy.  

Personalization gives heart to your email. Because your email has a personal touch, customers won't feel like talking to a robot or an automated message.

Using customer data for email marketing personalization allows you to send relevant offers and content. This sends a message to your customers that you take time to know them on a deeper level, enabling you to establish a stronger relationship.

When this happens, everything else will follow. Your open rates, clicks, and sales will boost up. In fact, personalized emails can deliver up to 6 times higher transactional rates.

Level up your email marketing personalization with these best practices.

1. Understand your Customer Profile

It starts with how well you know your customers. Data helps you personalize your email marketing.

The problem here is that most email marketers stop gathering data after customers submit the sign-up form. If you want to up your personalization game, gather customer data in every chance you have and at every touchpoint.

For instance, you can send a survey email each time a customer purchases a product to know more about their interests and preferences. Purchase history can give you an idea of what product or service to offer them next time. You can also ask them to share their birthday with you so that you could send them gifts on their special day.

Your email marketing automation software can even help you identify which pages customers frequent on your website. This gives you a hint on what they are thinking of buying from you.

2. Use Data Analytics to Power Your Personalization Game

Wise marketers always look at data analytics to improve their email marketing campaigns. From time to time, check the analytics in your email automation software to see what your numbers have to say.

Your data can show you how well your email personalization tactics are performing. You can use it to determine which strategy is working and which is not. Once you see this, you would know which strategy to continue and which to stop.

3. Leverage your Email Marketing Automation Software

It's good to know all the features of your email automation software, so that you can maximize the opportunities from this technology.

Of course, you have your basics such as using the first name in the subject line and content. But since you are automating emails, setting up triggers should be one of the first things you must master.

Simply put, triggers are conditions that start automation when customers meet your pre-determined criteria. This way, you are sure that the emails you send are relevant and personalized as they are based on the actions of customers themselves.

In e-commerce, a trigger that sends an automated email reminder to customers who abandoned their shopping cart is basic. You can also set up a trigger that sends a welcome email to new subscribers or a thank you email each time a customer buys an item to confirm their purchase.

4. Innovate your List Segmentation Process

Personalization begins with proper email list segmentation. Compared to non-segmented campaigns, segmented emails can bring up to 14.32% higher open rate and 100.95% higher click-through rate.

Using your customer data, you can group contacts sharing similar characteristics, so you could send them targeted emails containing offers that appeal to their interests.

For instance, you can segment contacts such as gender and age to make it’s easier for you to send promos based on demographics. Segmenting contacts based on where they are on the buyer journey can help you warm up cold leads and push hot leads to finally make a purchase. Some businesses group their loyal customers in one email list to enable them to strengthen their loyalty program.

Your email list segmentation techniques are limitless. You just have to check your data to know how well you can create effective segmentation.

5. Continuously Test Your Email Campaigns

If you want your email marketing to keep on improving, then you must keep on testing.

To know how which email campaign can yield better open rates, test your email subject line. Test your CTAs for higher click-through rates. You can test almost anything in your email automation software. Just remember, always test with a goal in mind.

Testing can help you determine the personalization tactics that work to your contacts so that you can apply them to other email campaigns.

Email marketing personalization is a basic tactic, but many marketers still fail to do it. Follow these tips to give your email campaigns a personal touch that your customers deserve. But before you do, remember to pick the right email automation software that enables you to personalize your email marketing campaigns in advanced ways.