Personalization at Scale: Lessons from 50+ eCommerce Deployments
After deploying personalization engines for retailers across the GCC and India, we've distilled the patterns that consistently move the needle.
Personalization is one of those concepts that everyone agrees matters but few execute well. Most eCommerce brands stop at "people who bought X also bought Y" — which is table stakes, not differentiation.
What actually moves the needle
After working with retailers across the GCC and India, we've found that the highest-impact personalization happens in three places: homepage merchandising, search result ranking, and post-purchase email flows. Getting these three right accounts for 70–80% of the revenue lift from personalization.
The data foundation matters most
The biggest mistake we see is investing in a personalization engine before cleaning up product data. If your catalog has inconsistent attributes, missing tags, and duplicate SKUs, no algorithm will save you. Start with data hygiene, then layer on intelligence.
The retailers that win at personalization aren't necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated algorithms. They're the ones with the cleanest data and the willingness to continuously test and iterate on what's served to each customer segment.
Written by
Krishna Moorthy
Founder & CEO at TBI
Krishna founded TBI in 2019 with a mission to integrate intelligence into every business. He leads strategy across AI, performance marketing, and digital transformation from offices in Kochi, Dubai, and California.
LinkedIn