In most B2B organisations, the marketing dashboard still rewards scale.

Thousands of contacts mailed, hundreds of thousands of impressions, open rates that match the benchmark. It all looks busy. The problem is that much of this activity is now economically hard to measure.

Multiple studies have shown that business buyers do the bulk of their evaluation without engaging a salesperson. Research from CEB (now part of Gartner) and Google has long suggested that buyers are already more than halfway through their decision – around 57% – before they speak to sales. More recent work from 6sense places the point of first contact closer to 70% of the journey, with buyers initiating that contact in the vast majority of cases.

By the time your firm appears on their radar, the shortlist is heavily shaped.

In that world, the lazy version of “personalisation” – sprinkling a first name into a subject line and pasting a logo onto a slide – is just noise.

Hyper-personalisation is something different, and it is rapidly becoming the fault line between vendors that still look interchangeable and those that don’t.

A crash course in hyper-personalisation

Hyper-personalisation is best understood as a change in substance, not just surface.

Instead of sending the same narrative to your B2B prospects, minorly edited, you adapt its argument to the realities of a specific account and the individuals inside it. That usually involves three shifts:

1.     The story is anchored in the organisation’s observable situation – strategy announcements, hiring patterns, technology stack, market moves – rather than in a generic category problem.
2.     Different members of the buying group are addressed on their own terms. Finance hears a risk and return argument; operations sees resilience and efficiency; marketing sees pipeline and market share.
3.     Core messages genuinely change. The opening, the data points, the case studies, the ROI logic and even the recommended path forward are calibrated to each target company, not cloned from the last pitch deck.

Done properly, the result is not “Dear <First Name>”. It is a proposal, landing page, email sequence or meeting that could not plausibly have been sent to anyone else.

This is why, in B2B marketing, hyper-personalisation is an economic decision more than a creative one. It is expensive. It takes research time, data, coordination and decent writers. You cannot roll it out to an entire database. You choose which accounts justify that level of precision and align your go-to-market around them.

ABM And Go-to-market: Where Personalisation Actually Pays

This is where Account-Based Marketing (ABM) matters. ABM is a governance system for hyper-personalisation: it defines which target companies merit disproportionate effort, how that effort is orchestrated across marketing and sales, and how impact is measured.

The adoption numbers are striking. Momentum ITSMA’s Global ABM Benchmark reports that around 90% of organisations now run some form of ABM, and 81% say it produces higher returns than other marketing activity.

Demandbase’s 2024 ABM Benchmark similarly finds that top B2B marketers are seeing markedly superior returns from account-based programmes, with ABM often cited as the highest-ROI element of the mix.

Hyper-personalisation is how that return-on-investment advantage shows up in the real world:

•         In an ABM-led go-to-market, a small group of “tier one” accounts receives one-to-one treatment: dedicated microsites, bespoke proposals, content assembled specifically for that firm and its buying group.
•         A broader “tier two” set sees heavy but more templated tailoring – by industry, use case and role – that still feels specific but is easier to scale.
•         Everyone else is largely handled through high-quality but more standard marketing programmes.

Crucially, ABM also changes the scoreboard. Instead of obsessing about channel metrics, the organisation watches pipeline, win rates and deal sizes by account tier. Hyper-personalisation is no longer a nice-to-have creative flourish; it is an investment with visible unit economics.

The Technology Tailwind – And The Risk Of Automating Rubbish

If hyper-personalisation used to be prohibitively manual, the technology stack has caught up.

First, data is improving. Studies from Anteriad and Ascend2 show that marketers who are confident in their data are around three times more likely to report significant revenue growth than peers who are not. That is the difference between guessing at relevance and acting on reliable signals: firmographics, technographics, intent data, product-usage behaviour and so on.

Second, ABM software platforms can now unify signals at company level, trigger marketing messages based on real behaviour (research into a topic, repeat visits to pricing pages, intent surges around certain problems), and switch in industry- or company-specific content automatically.

Third, generative AI has dramatically lowered the cost of producing tailored material. Machines can now summarise annual reports, earnings calls and news coverage into a handful of useful insights per account; they can draft a first version of an email or landing page tuned to a specific firm and role; they can suggest next-best actions based on how a buying group is engaging.

Used well, this tech stack doesn’t replace strategy; it accelerates it. A team with a clear ABM plan and decent data can deliver a level of personalisation in days that would previously have taken weeks.

Used badly, it just allows marketers to send more generic outreach, faster. That matters because expectations have moved. McKinsey research finds that 71% of consumers expect companies to provide personalised interactions, and 76% report frustration when communications fail to do so.

Those attitudes do not stop at the office door. In B2B as in B2C, irrelevant automation is now actively damaging.

A Practitioner’s View

Alex Croucher, B2B marketing consultant, argues that hyper-personalisation will rapidly become the organising principle of B2B marketing.

When we concentrate effort on a finite set of companies and build genuinely tailored journeys for the buying groups inside them, the returns are disproportionate. Again and again, we see a small cluster of precisely targeted marketing programmes generates more pipeline than a year of broad, generic campaigning. The combination of better data, strategic discipline and tech-assisted execution means hyper-personalisation is becoming the de facto standard for successful B2B organisations.

That view is increasingly backed by the data. The same ABM benchmarks that report higher ROI also highlight better sales alignment, stronger pipeline growth and faster revenue expansion among organisations that invest in targeted, personalised programmes instead of broad, generic campaigns.

What This Means For B2B Leaders

For B2B leadership teams, the question is no longer whether to “do more personalisation”. The question is whether the company is prepared to redesign its go-to-market around where personalisation will actually pay.

That involves some unglamorous decisions like narrowing the focus of marketing and sales to a realistic number of priority accounts, investing in data quality and governance before scaling clever campaigns, and building modular assets that can be recombined intelligently rather than commissioning one-off “hero” pieces.

Hyper-personalisation is hard precisely because it cuts against the comforting illusion that more volume is always better. But the evidence is clear: as buyers take greater control of the journey and expectations of relevance rise, the returns are flowing to the firms that look as if they have done their research.

Summary

Hyper-personalisation has become a clear dividing line in B2B marketing. Generic campaigns can still generate activity, but they seldom shape real deals once buyers are already deep into their own research. The companies that win are those that commit to deep account understanding, coordinated ABM programs, and targeted messages that speak directly to each stakeholder’s reality.

For ecommerce and B2B founders or marketers, the first step is to narrow your focus. Identify a short list of accounts where a win would materially change your year, then build simple one-page briefs that capture what is happening inside each business and why your offer matters right now. From there, design a small set of assets (an email sequence, a landing page, a tailored deck) that reuse core blocks but feel specific to each account.

Next, bring your sales and marketing teams into one workflow. Agree on shared account lists, shared definitions of success, and a shared view of the data you trust. Use technology to monitor intent signals, trigger outreach, and personalise on-page content, but always keep a human in charge of the overall story.

If you want to go further, explore ABM tools, revenue platforms, or AI-assisted writing tools that support account research and content assembly. Or, as a practical next step, take one of your current priority accounts and rebuild your next outreach from scratch using the principles in this article, then measure the impact on meetings booked, deal speed, and deal size.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is hyper-personalisation in B2B marketing?

Hyper-personalisation in B2B marketing means tailoring messages, content, and offers to a specific company and the individual people inside its buying group. It goes far beyond using someone’s name or industry in an email. Instead, it uses real account insight to change the story, data, and recommendations so they fit that company’s current situation. The goal is to make your outreach feel like it could only have been created for them.

How is hyper-personalisation different from basic personalisation?

Basic personalisation relies on simple variables like name, company, or job title. Hyper-personalisation changes the substance of your message, not just the wrapper. You adjust your value proposition, proof points, and calls to action based on factors like strategy shifts, recent news, hiring patterns, or technology choices. This level of relevance usually leads to higher engagement and stronger sales outcomes.

Why does hyper-personalisation matter so much in B2B today?

B2B buyers do most of their research before talking to a salesperson, so by the time you engage them, their shortlist is already formed. Hyper-personalisation helps you join that shortlist or reshape it by proving that you understand the buyer’s context better than your competitors. It also helps you build trust faster, since buyers see that you have put real thought into their specific challenges.

How does Account-Based Marketing (ABM) support hyper-personalisation?

ABM provides the structure that makes hyper-personalisation sustainable. It defines which accounts get one-to-one attention, how marketing and sales coordinate their efforts, and which metrics matter. With ABM, you can decide where deep personalisation is worth the cost, track impact at the account level, and avoid spreading your team too thin across thousands of contacts.

What role does technology play in hyper-personalisation?

Technology helps you collect and connect the data needed to personalise at scale. Tools like intent platforms, CRM systems, marketing automation, and AI assistants can surface in-market accounts, suggest relevant content, and trigger tailored experiences on your website or in email. However, tech should support, not replace, human thinking; you still need people to craft a strong, credible argument for each key account.

Can small marketing teams do hyper-personalisation effectively?

Yes, small teams can benefit a lot from hyper-personalisation if they focus. The key is to pick a handful of high-value accounts and create simple, repeatable workflows. For example, a small team might build detailed briefs for five target accounts each quarter and develop a few modular assets that can be lightly tailored. This approach keeps the workload realistic while still driving better deal outcomes.

What is a common misconception about hyper-personalisation?

A common misconception is that hyper-personalisation is just “more fields in the template” or more automation. In reality, it is not about adding extra tokens or endless variations. It is about doing the strategic work to decide what truly matters to this account right now, then crafting focused, concise messages that speak to that reality. Without that thinking, more automation just creates more noise.

How can I measure the impact of hyper-personalisation?

The best way to measure impact is at the account and deal level, not just the channel level. Track metrics like opportunity creation, win rate, deal size, and sales cycle time for accounts that receive hyper-personalised treatment versus those that do not. You can still monitor opens and clicks, but your main question should be: “Did this level of effort lead to better revenue outcomes from these accounts?”

What is a practical first step to start using hyper-personalisation?

Pick one strategic account that is already on your radar and rebuild your outreach around it. Create a one-page account brief, identify the key people in the buying group, and write separate value messages for each role. Then update your next email sequence, landing page, or sales deck to reflect those insights. Compare the response and deal progress to what you see from your standard campaigns.

How should ecommerce or DTC brands think about hyper-personalisation for B2B?

Ecommerce and DTC brands that sell into other businesses, such as retailers or partners, can use the same principles. Treat each key retailer or partner as an account, study their assortment, digital maturity, and customer base, and tailor your pitch to how you can grow their category or margin. This kind of focused, account-aware story can help you secure shelf space, co-marketing support, or better commercial terms.