​Special interest sites like LinkedIn, Spotify and iTunes should rank highly when it comes to personalisation.
 
Its likely that these platforms want to enable the element of ‘discovery’ of content, new content that matches your preferences but that you were unaware of. There is nothing wrong in designing for this experience but it can be done without sacrificing the convenience that personalisation could bring to the end user.
 
For example – Spotify. They have made an effort to provide personalised playlists (DailyMix, You Might Also Like etc). Their ‘radio’ offers up songs that you are likely to like listening to based on your previous choices. Why do they still not rank higher when it comes to ‘personalisation’ ?
 
The answer is not the lack of personalisation options but the absence of simplicity in personalisation. Spotify offers too much choice in discovery and no sense of hierarchy in usage. 
 
A. Discovery - Lost in Navigation : The recommendation functions within Spotify are working overtime. I am innundated with confusing choices. Sections like ‘You might also like’, ‘Top Recommendations’, ‘Perfect Soundtrack’ etc are few of the examples of the playlists available within Spotify. Which one do I choose if I wanted to discover a new song ?
 
B. Usage - Prioritise My Choices : A basic need for personalisation is to allow personalisation by me, for me. When I save the songs I like I expect that list to have priority over others – I have spent time in making my preferences clear ! But Spotify clubs my list (My Library) with other playlists making it tougher for me to access / use.
 
When it comes to enabling personalisation brands will need to sacrifice controlling the consumer experience and switch to curating it. The brands that will stand out in the coming years will be those who have harnessed the power of user insights and data to drive engagement and sales for their business.

In the attention economy brands are hungry for our attention.

There is a war for attention and success is benchmarked with proxy metrics like  ‘seconds’ and 'views' and 'reach'. But in chasing these metrics brands are struggling to win - an average view time for digital ads is 1.7 seconds while only 20% of digital ads are viewed beyond 2 seconds. The low figures are worrisome given that the digital advertising investment is upwards of $220 billion in 2017. This results in a continuous downward spiral where brands are creating more ads targeting wider audiences for higher reach, consumers responding to spam by using ad blocking software, leading to less time spent and so on. 

Here's an alternative way to think - action not attention, relevance and not reach is the goal. It does not matter if you are seen for 2, 30 or 300 seconds or if you have a 80%+ reach amongst a broad demographic if there is no relevant value exchange offered and no significant action taken after.  

A blind race for reach as a substitute for relevance will not solve the problem. Building relevance is a long term exercise for a brand. It involves understanding the consumer, your brand, the context of the interaction and the context of conversion.
 
a. Consumer : Segmenting consumers based on observed behaviors, their need states, understanding their consumer journeys and the ‘why’ within their journey, their core motivations based on life-stage/ geography and culture, their category involvement and interaction is step 1. Small + Deep Data is useful here. Know 10 consumers deeply Vs a faceless database of 1000 consumers.
 
b. Brand : The brands values (purpose), its value proposition that’s scalable, its role within culture and how will it present itself to its different constituents (act, voice, image, text).
 
c. Context of Interaction : For each consumer segment what are the ideal trigger moments, where and when do they occur ? Also, how do the segments want to be engaged in their consumer journey ? 
 
d. Context of Conversion : Breaking down conversion as the last mile to buy/ repurchase we can see that it involves acquisition-behaviors-outcomes all of which preceed purchase. Visiting your website (acquisition), viewing your video (behavior) or subscribing to your newsletter (outcome) are not purchases per se but meant to predict future purchase with differing probability.
 
This 4 step exercise is the beginning of building brand relevance. Done with discipline you will spend less money in chasing ‘seconds’ and more time in developing relevant brand experiences that convert.