The personalization readiness checklist. Switch it on, finally.
Use this checklist to find what’s stopping your personalization from going live. It covers the goal, the audiences you can recognize, the data and consent behind them, the content variants you’ll show, the setup in your platform and how you’ll measure the result. The first unchecked item is your next step.
How to use it
Go through it with the people who own your website, your data and your brand. Each group depends on the one before it, so start with the first unchecked item rather than the easiest one.
Start smaller than you think
One page, one audience, one goal. Prove it works, then add the next page or audience. Small, measured steps get personalization live; big plans tend to stall.
How Cypher handles this
The personalization playbook sets up audiences and page variants, configures A/B/n tests in your platform and checks each one before you see it. You decide the audiences and the offer.
Goals and audiences
- One clear goal, such as sign-ups or demo requests.
- A success measure, and a baseline to compare against.
- One to three audiences you can already recognize.
- A reason each audience should see something different.
- A named owner for personalization.
- Agreement on what you won’t personalize.
Data and consent
- You know which data identifies each audience.
- The data sources you need, such as analytics or CRM, are connected to your platform.
- Consent rules are followed for every data source.
- No sensitive categories are used for targeting.
- A default experience is ready for visitors you can’t identify.
- Your privacy policy describes what you do.
Content and templates
- A variant is written for each audience on the chosen page.
- Images and offers are approved.
- Templates let the right parts of the page vary.
- Variants are checked on phone, tablet and desktop.
- Fallback content is in place.
- Editors know how to update the variants.
Setup and measurement
- Audience rules are configured in your platform.
- Each variant is assigned to the right audience.
- A control group or an A/B test is set up to measure against.
- Analytics records which variant each visitor saw.
- Each variant is checked live before you announce it.
- A date is set to review the results.
- You know what you’ll personalize next.
Questions people ask
What’s the easiest first audience?
Returning visitors compared with first-time visitors. Most platforms can tell them apart without any extra data.
Do we need a customer data platform first?
No. Start with audiences your platform already recognizes, and add a customer data platform when you need data from other systems.
How do we know it worked?
Compare the personalized experience with a control group on the goal you chose at the start.