Communicating data-driven and personalized marketing content is today common among large B2C businesses with loyalty programs. Email has become the standard digital channel for this type of communication as it offers high cost-efficiency among digital channels and great possibilities for creating appealing content customized to the customer. This thesis aims to identify what effects personalized communication through email can lead to within loyalty programs and whether businesses should invest in personalized email communication. The methodology consisted of two quantitative case studies in the form of data analysis on eleven personalized  newsletters and one activation email for a business in the fuel and convenience industry. A series of qualitative interviews with individuals that work in the field of personalized communication was also conducted. The results show that the loyalty members to a large extent accept the communication and are exposed to the personalized content. The emails in the form of monthly newsletters did not show any consistent positive effects on increased sales, store visits or in upsell. The activation email, which was part of the activation phase in the customer lifecycle, showed greater promise as it increased number of visits and led to a positive overall upsell. Additional effects in the form of switching costs and brand awareness were also identified, as long as the content reaches the customers personalization is deemed relevant. Otherwise it risks alienating them as customers today expects digital marketing to be personalized. In summary, the effects of personalized email justifies investing in it, but one should be aware of what effects to expect. / Kommunikation av data driven och individanpassad marknadsföring är idag vanligt bland stora kundbaserade företag med lojalitetsprogram. E-post har blivit standard som digital kanal för sådan typ av kommunikation främst för att den erbjuder hög kostnadseffektivitet och goda möjligheter att skapa attraktivt innehåll anpassat efter kund. Den här uppsatsen har som syfte att identifiera vilka effekter individanpassad kommunikation genom e-post kan leda till inom lojalitetsprogram, samt om företag bör investera i individanpassad e-post kommunikation. Metoden bestod av två kvantitativa fallstudier i form av analys av elva individanpassade nyhetsbrev och ett aktiveringsbrev av ett företag verksam inom bränsle och närbutik. En serie kvalitativa intervjuer hölls också med individer verksamma inom individanpassad kommunikation. Resultaten visar att lojalitetsmedlemmarna i hög grad accepterar kommunikationen och nås av innehållet. De individanpassade nyhetsbreven visade inga tydliga positiva effekter inom försäljning, butiksbesök eller merförsäljning. Aktiveringsmailet, som var en del av aktiveringsfasen i kundlivscykeln visade på mer lovande resultat genom att leda till fler butiksbesök och ledde till en positiv merförsäljning. Ytterligare effekter inom byteskostnad och varumärkesmedvetenhet identifierades även, såvida innehållet når kunderna och uppfattas som relevant. Om inte riskerar innehållet att stöta bort kunderna eftersom det idag förväntas att digital marknadsföring är individanpassad. Sammanfattningsvis så rättfärdigar de identifierade effekterna investering i individanpassad kommunikation, men man bör vara medveten om vilka effekterna är.

Nowadays when users navigate in internet they find lots of types of communication scattered across diverse sites. Due to the lack of users’ interests in advertisements, primarily caused by not matching their preferences, today’s advertisements have a low rate of success. Recently, owing to semantic web generation, some companies started to use personalized marketing in communication as a way to turn the conversions around and thus increase customer retention and loyalty. As a matter of fact, the retention and loyalty stages on the internet are, on average, the least crafted of the whole cycle. The customers’ conception of one-to-one marketing is quite ambiguous as they conceive that they need to be more efficient while shopping online but at the same time they feel stalked due to privacy concerns, and oversaturated with non-valuable information. The purpose of this paper is to explore from a holistic view online personalized communication strategies and how they can be implemented in order to increase customer satisfaction thus retaining customers and, in the long-term, gaining their loyalty. The main communication areas the study treats ranges from onsite the online store, where the company wants to sell the product, to offsite advertisements in websites, social media platforms and via email. In the empirical section, the study carried out a quantitative online survey to investigate customers’ perception and complete it with the literature. To answer the research questions, the study identified 19 hypotheses comprising of all primary aspects that define the exploration. The result could be gold dust for e-shop managers to help them maximize the marketing communication factor using personalization. The authors identified potential improvements to motivate customers to register in the online shop, whether communication channels are suited to implementing the strategy or not, and possible aspects to adapt in order to obtain maximal benefits. There were some limitations in terms of an analysis of the companies’ point of view and the necessity to analyze every communication channel more in depth as the study is an initial step.

Email marketing is not a new concept within marketing, it has been used by companies as a cost-effective way to incentives purchases for decades. However, during the past few years, there was a shift in the way email can be used. Today, it is also a way for companies to directly communicate with customers and through it create more long-term customer relationships. Previous research within the subject has had a focus on examining the effect of email marketing on purchases. However, with the new additional email practices, which have emerged in recent years, there is the need for studying email marketing from the perspective of the consumer. Since there are several conceptualizations of email marketing, this study adopts the definition where consumers’ consent to receiving the emails is a must, in other words permission-based email marketing. In addition, the study examines the influence of permission-based email marketing on consumers’ behaviors that go beyond purchases, namely the non-purchase behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how permission-based email marketing and relational factors influence consumers’ non-purchase behaviors. Moreover, the study aims to answer to the following research question: How does permission-based email marketing, aided by relational factors, influence consumers’ non-purchase behaviors? In order to answer the research question, a qualitative method was used, more specifically semi-structured interviews were conducted with young millennial consumers between the ages of 25 to 34. The results showed that different identified aspects of permission-based email marketing influence certain relational factors and ultimately the consumers’ engagement. However, a key factor is the consumer's own perception regarding what the emails from clothing retailers should contain in order to be relevant. Whether the email’s content is general or personalized, if the consumers perceive it as valuable and relevant, it will lead to increased customer satisfaction, perceived value, perceived brand competence, trust, commitment and loyalty. These relational factors can facilitate consumers’ non-purchase behaviors such as opening, reading, clicking on links and spreading positive word-of-mouth. However, the results also indicate factors, which contribute to less and more negative non-purchase behaviors. If consumers do not perceive to have given permission for receiving emails from a clothing retailer, they will respond by unsubscribing. Moreover, if consumers perceive to be receiving an excessive amount of emails, or if they deem the content irrelevant, they are more likely to delete, unsubscribe and spread negative word-of-mouth. The study resulted in a conceptual model, which illustrates the factors of both permission-based email marketing and relational factors and their influence on consumers’ non-purchase behaviors.