Consumer Responses to the Personalization of Marketing Communications: A Meta-Analysis
(A2023-114317)

AUTHORS

Xia Liu, Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Groningen; Tammo Bijmolt, University of Groningen; Marijke Leliveld, University of Groningen; Hong Zhao, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

ABSTRACT

Personalization of marketing communications, propelled by consumer expectations and technology, has become companies’ top priority. However, the marketing literature lacks a comprehensive empirical integration of the consumer responses to personalization. This study integrates empirical evidence on the effects of personalization on consumer responses and examines five categories of moderators (message, source, setting, receiver, and personalization strategies) explaining the variance in the reported outcomes. In particular, we conduct a meta-analysis based on 508 effect sizes. The results show that personalization has medium-sized effects on marketing intended responses (g = 0.506) and somewhat smaller effects on unintended responses (g= 0.316). Several moderators (e.g., brand familiarity and picture information about the product) significantly influence the effectiveness of personalization on consumer responses.