Generic emails don’t fit unique people
We value understanding our customers. Yet we can overlook how often our communications still speak to an average.
Think of the last promotional email you opened. Maybe it was about something you needed. Or maybe it was about a room you are not furnishing, a product you already own, or an offer that did not feel meant for you. It is easy to see why broad communications are familiar and straightforward to plan. We can fall into that habit too: thinking about audiences in general, rather than the different people behind them. But customers have different needs, interests and life situations. A message that feels useful to one person may feel irrelevant to another. That difference matters in everyday life. Someone planning a home project may be interested in different ideas from someone whose interests lie elsewhere. When an email reflects what matters to you, it has a better chance of feeling relevant.
Image credit, Barcelona 2026
That is why we explored segmentation. Instead of asking how to send the same message to everyone, we asked how customer data could help us make better choices about what different IKEA Family members receive.
In practice, we explored ways to tailor emails around customers’ interests, such as Deco Style and Affinity Index; their needs or circumstances, such as Home Project and Living Situation; and their relationship with IKEA or shopping behaviour, through Retention, Reactivate, Value vs. Price, Affinity Channel and Omnichannel.
In Barcelona, over about a year, we tested these approaches in emails sent to IKEA Family members. We compared an exposed group with a control group, keeping the volume of communications the same while varying the content. The pilot generated €1.04 million in incremental member spend versus control. Affinity Index and Home Project delivered the strongest incremental results in Barcelona.
The results varied across use cases. That does not mean other approaches could not work elsewhere; it means we should keep testing rather than assume that one result applies to every audience or market. Validation beyond Barcelona is ongoing.
The core learning is that personalisation is not simply about creating more customer groups. It is about using what we know to make more relevant communication choices, then testing and learning where those choices make a difference. Next time you open an email, ask yourself: does it feel like it was meant for you?
Outcome / Next Step
The Barcelona pilot showed the potential of personalised IKEA Family emails to generate incremental value. Further validation will help us understand where the use cases can work across markets.
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