Dialling back personalisation in the early stages of customer journeys has been one of the perhaps more surprising outcomes of test-and-learn work MYOB has conducted to inform its new strategic framework balancing the need for personalisation with the incremental value it delivers to customers.

MYOB is one of flurry of organisations inching towards real-time personalisation across the customer journey as a way of making every touchpoint feel more relevant. To do this, MYOB chief operating officer and CMO Awards 2025 #11 winner, Dean Chadwick says investment is going full steam into applying AI-powered customer segment and predictive analytics, through to micro-segmentation techniques.

Already, AI-powered segmentation and real-time personalisation have driven improvements in email engagement rates and delivered a 20 per cent increase in conversion rates across abandoned cart campaigns.

In concert, MYOB has been integrating its customer data platforms – martech, CDP and CRM – to unify data from multiple channels so it’s able to deliver more consistency in an omni-channel way. Among the key data sets Chadwick points to being in play are product usage analytics, lifecycle metrics, segmentation and feedback loops.

But just as critical as getting the tech and data in order is the exploration of what customers actually value, not purely what technology makes possible, Chadwick says in our latest CMO Awards special report, The journey to business growth: How CMOs are rethinking customer engagement.

“Our test-and-learn approach has helped us develop a strategic framework that balances the need for personalisation with the incremental value it delivers to customers,” he continues. “We now evaluate personalisation opportunities through three lenses: Does it solve a real customer problem? Does it respect their privacy preferences? And does it align with their stated journey goals?

“This thinking has actually led us to dial back personalisation in some areas, particularly early in the customer journey where trust is still being established. Underpinning this approach are strict data security and governance measures that enable us to create unified customer profiles while maintaining the flexibility to adapt quickly as customer preferences and behaviours evolve.”

In addition, Chadwick says MYOB has evolved to fewer and more selective communications across the SME customer journey “with a focus on providing education and support at every step”. “This has helped us improve email engagement by around 10 percentage points, or 30 per cent year-on-year,” he says.

Personalisation versus value

Chadwick isn’t alone in looking to ensure personalisation is valuable, or enacted just because the technology is there to achieve it. With the multi-year, transformative review of Australia’s privacy laws underway, and the first set of updates – dubbed tranche 1 – put into legislation late last year, there has been a need for brands to make sure what they’re doing from a personalisation perspective respects the personal information sharing preferences of customers.

While the industry waits to see whether the more disruptive and even more significant ‘tranche 2’ privacy reforms coming into being, Australia’s Privacy Commissioner, Carly Kind, has made no secret of her push to robustly enforce existing privacy and consumer laws under the increased scope of her own regulatory powers. Which makes it critical for brands to ensure what they’re doing with customer data is compliant and up to date.

Suncorp EGM marketing and customer engagement, Mim Haysom, says the insurance giant recently reviewed its segments and personalisation methods to ensure they’re compliant with the changes and expected future-state of privacy protection in this country. Suncorp has adjusted some algorithms as a result.

“That’s a constant CMOs and their teams need to be looking at,” Haysom says. “Our ambition is the future state is really personalised financial services or insurance services where we know our customers have an insurance product that really meets their needs. So we need to continue on that personalisation journey, but have a big focus on ensuring we’re doing it in a compliant, responsible way.”

Chadwick and Haysom are two of six marketing leaders Mi3 spoke to in our latest CMO Awards special report, The journey to business growth: How CMOs are rethinking customer engagement. This special report, supported by CMO Award partners, Adobe, Publicis Groupe and News Australia, takes a look into how six of our CMO Awards winners, finalists and former CMO50 alumni are delivering more effective marketing through better, ever-more sophisticated and evolving approaches to customer journey understanding and responsiveness. Also in the report are Freedom Furniture, Anytime Fitness, REA Group and IBM.

Download your free copy of the full CMO Awards special report on evolving customer journeys, click here.