At a Glance
- Only 41% of consumers are comfortable with companies using AI to personalize their experiences
- Traditional personalization fails because it looks at past behaviors instead of real motivations
- Psychological personalization based on core traits and motivations increases engagement customer loyalty
- A look at Nike’s six psychological personas and why they work better than age or gender groups
- Our five-step framework makes marketing more effective and future-proof against AI
In a world where AI can generate an entire marketing campaign in seconds, where does that leave personalization?
If you’re still defining personalization as “Dear [First Name]” in emails or showing winter coats to shoppers in cold regions, you’re already behind. These tactics are outdated, and are rapidly becoming commoditized by the same AI tools promising to “revolutionize” your marketing.
The hard truth? Personalized targeting is dying. But true personalization that creates genuine connections with your audience? That’s more powerful than ever.
In our new AI arms race, your personalization strategy may be your most effective weapon.
The Problem with Traditional Personalization
Most personalization strategies have three big problems:
- Surface-level grouping: Sorting people by age or location misses why they behave certain ways
- Looking backward: Focusing on past actions instead of what drives future decisions
- Tech without human insight: Using personalization tools without understanding what feels human
When we asked 351 marketing leaders, we found:
- 91% think understanding customer psychology would help them reach goals
- Only 38% know their audience’s top motivators
- 72% don’t know how to define those motivators.
The result? Personalization that doesn’t work.
What Is Personalization, Really?
Personalization has remained largely unchanged for decades: tailoring content, products, or experiences based on user data like demographics, past purchases, and behavior.
This definition made sense in the early days of digital marketing. Then, simply showing different content to different segments was revolutionary. But as technology evolved, this understanding of personalization stagnated.
Here’s why traditional personalization falls short:
- Confusing what with why: Knowing someone bought hiking boots doesn’t tell you why. Were they planning a trip? Starting a hobby? Buying a gift? Without understanding why, personalization becomes guessing.
- Measuring the wrong things: Demographics and clicks are easy to collect, but they don’t tell you much about why people do things. Two people with the exact same purchase history can have totally different reasons for buying.
- Assuming patterns repeat: Traditional personalization assumes past behavior predicts future actions. However, this only works when those behaviors come from deep psychological traits, which traditional personalization doesn’t measure.
- People have grown immune: Personalization has become so ubiquitous that people now ignore it. What worked well in 2018 now has less impact since people tune out seeing their name in emails or getting product suggestions based on browsing. This “personalization blindness” gets worse with AI wariness. Only 41% of consumers are comfortable with companies using AI to personalize their experiences.
Our work with top experience leaders shows something important: psychological traits predict behavior better than past actions or demographics. This is a complete shift in understanding personalization.
We need to redefine personalization:
Personalization is creating experiences that match an individual’s psychological drivers, delivering content that connects at a human level.
Quite frankly, this changes everything. It shifts focus from what people did to why they did it. It means truly personalized experiences speak to motivations, not just behaviors and first names. And most importantly, it means good personalization needs human understanding, not just data analysis.
Benefits of Psychological Personalization
When you personalize based on psychological traits instead of basic demographics, the benefits go way beyond normal metrics:
1. Predicting Future Behavior, Not Just Reacting to Past Actions
Psychological traits reveal what drives someone’s decisions, not just what they’ve done before. A person with high achievement orientation will consistently seek progress and accomplishment across different contexts, whether they’re shopping, working, or exploring new products. This consistency lets you anticipate their needs rather than merely responding to their past clicks.
Traditional personalization says “you bought hiking boots, here are more boots.” Psychological personalization says “you’re achievement-oriented, here are products that help you reach your goals.” That can be fitness gear, productivity tools, or skill-building courses.
2. Building Connections Across Demographics
One powerful benefit is finding unexpected audience connections. Our psychological data reveals surprising psychological bridges between different groups:
Here’s one example: Gen Z females and Baby Boomer males show nearly identical status values and very similar humor/fun values.
These psychological similarities let you create personalized experiences that work across traditional demographic boundaries, which is impossible with old personalization.
3. Delivering Personalized Content That Actually Matters
Instead of guessing what might interest someone based on their age or location, you understand what genuinely motivates them. Achievement-oriented people want to see progress, mastery, and results. Community-oriented people want connection, collaboration, and shared experiences.
When content speaks to these core psychological needs, engagement feels natural rather than forced.
4. Building Customer Loyalty Through Psychological Alignment
Loyalty happens when brands consistently deliver experiences that match how someone naturally thinks and feels. When your brand aligns with someone’s psychological profile, you become not just a vendor, but a reflection of their values.
5. Standing Out from AI-Generated Sameness
AI can analyze behavior patterns and demographic data, but struggles with psychological insights that create authentic human connections. As personalization becomes increasingly automated, the brands that understand the “why” behind human behavior will have an unshakeable advantage.
Planning for Psychological Personalization: A Framework
Using psychological personalization takes a different approach than traditional methods. Here’s a framework:
1. Find Psychological Segments, Not Just Demographic Groups
Start by understanding the psychological profiles in your audience. For example, Solsten has identified six distinct personas in our Nike audience of over 245,000 people:
- Sensitive Altruists (13% of Nike audience): Guided by compassion, and value comfort in their surroundings
- Risk-Averse Improvisers (6% of Nike audience): Empathetic and reserved, often guided by feelings
- Confident Socializers (23% of Nike audience): Energetic, socially plugged in, and optimistic
- Individualistic Free Spirits (11% of Nike audience): Independent, impulsive, and keep to themselves
- Visionary Achievers (15% of Nike audience): Innovative, social, thrive where ideas flow, people connect, and ambitions grow
- Skeptical Individualists (31% of Nike audience): Value independence and maintain a skeptical outlook
Each of these segments responds differently to personalization. Sensitive Altruists reject emotional and overly persuasive ads while Confident Socializers are highly responsive to social proof and influencer marketing..
2. Match Relevant Content to Psychological Traits
Once you know your audience’s psychological segments, map your content:
- For achievement-oriented people: Show progress, mastery, and accomplishment
- For moderation-focused people: Highlight quality, balance, and thoughtful consumption
- For self-expressive people: Create opportunities for expression and influence
- For ethics-focused people: Emphasize authenticity, transparency, and purpose
This creates the foundation for website content and experiences that truly connect.
3. Test and Improve Based on Psychological Signals
Traditional personalization relies on clicks and conversions. Psychological personalization measures deeper signals:
- Emotional responses
- How long people engage with content
- Behavior consistency across channels
- Feedback that matches psychological traits
These signals show how well your personalization connects with psychological drivers.
Real-World Examples of Psychological Personalization
Let’s look at how leading brands already use psychological personalization:
Nike’s Cross-Demographic Success
Apple succeeds across different demographic groups through sophisticated psychological personalization. Their ecosystem appeals to multiple psychological segments:
- For Sensitive Altruists: Comfort and compassion
- For Risk-Averse Improvisers: Community and ethics
- For Confident Socializers: Exclusive experiences and limited-time offers
- For Individualistic Free Spirits: Transparency and proof
- For Visionary Achievers: Innovation and leadership
- For Skeptical Individualists: Direct and practical
These multi-layered personalization efforts explain why Nike ranks first in our brand preference data. They maintain high customer satisfaction across all psychological segments despite premium pricing.
The Future of Personalization: Real-Time Psychological Insights
The next step in personalization doesn’t necessarily mean faster technology and endless automation. Instead, it’s deeper understanding.
Imagine knowing not just what customers did, but why they did it. Imagine personalizing based on psychological traits that drive decisions. Imagine creating personalized experiences that feel human because they’re based on human psychology.
This future needs two things:
- Access to psychological data beyond basic demographics
- Tools that turn this complex data into actionable insights
Enter Solsten Chat, a new platform that gives marketers access to psychological insights about any audience.
How Solsten Chat Upgrades Your Personalization Strategy
Traditional psychological insights needed extensive research, expensive consultants, and months of analysis. Solsten Chat changes that.
This AI tool lets marketing teams have natural conversations with Solsten’s vast psychological database — the world’s largest collection of consumer psychological data. Instead of complex reports, marketers can simply ask:
“What are the core psychological drivers of our target audience?” “How does our audience differ psychologically from our competitors’?” “What messaging would connect with the psychological profile of our customers?”
The result? Immediate insights for truly personalized experiences:
- Customer segmentation based on psychological traits, not just demographics
- Product recommendations aligned with core motivations, not just past purchases
- Personalized emails that speak to psychological needs, not just open rates
- Customer journey optimization based on psychological evolution, not just funnel position
All without specialized training or big budgets.
Personalization Best Practices for the Psychological Era
As we enter this new era of personalization, several best practices stand out:
1. Start with Why, Not What
Before implementing personalization tactics, understand the psychological “why” behind customer behaviors. Don’t just ask “What did they click on?” Ask “Why did they click on it?”
2. Build Psychological Consistency Across Touchpoints
Make sure your personalization maintains psychological consistency across all channels. A psychologically resonant email followed by a generic website creates dissonance that undermines trust.
3. Balance Personalization with Privacy
Psychological personalization actually needs less personal information than traditional approaches. By understanding psychological traits rather than tracking every behavior, brands can create resonant experiences while respecting privacy.
4. Test Against Psychological Hypotheses
When measuring personalization effectiveness, test against psychological hypotheses, not just conversion metrics. “This content should resonate with achievement-oriented people” gives deeper insights than “This should improve conversion rates.”
5. Look Beyond Traditional Metrics
Measuring successful personalization means looking beyond traditional metrics to psychological alignment:
- Does the experience match the audience’s psychological traits?
- Does it address their fundamental motivations?
- Does it evolve as their psychological journey evolves?
Why Psychological Personalization Matters Now
In a world where AI generates endless content, where every brand has the same personalization tools, and where consumers are skeptical of marketing tactics, psychological understanding creates real differentiation.
It’s no longer enough to personalize based on what people have done. You need to understand who they are.
The brands that succeed will be those that recognize personalization is more than a marketing tactic. It’s a shift in how we understand and connect with audiences.
By using psychological personalization, you’re creating authentic human connections in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Ready to explore what drives your audience? Try Solsten Chat today and start creating instantly personalized content, powered by human psychology.
