Many major retailers are not personalizing their marketing emails based on customer behavior, instead sending out generic messages with nontargeted product recommendations, according to a recent report from SimpleRelevance.

The report was based on data from email campaigns sent by 20 companies in the Internet Retailer Top 500, including Internet-based retailers (e.g., Amazon, Netflix) and brick-and-mortar stores with significant e-commerce operations (e.g., Macy's, Wal-Mart, Walgreens).

The data set was relatively small (418 emails total), so the analysis is more of a snapshot of current behavior rather than a comprehensive audit of all campaigns sent by the companies.

Below, key findings from the report.

Personalization 

• Of the 418 emails examined, 104 did not include any product recommendations at all.
• 46% of those emails that did include product recommendations were generated on an individual basis, and 54% were delivered based on categories.
• 78 of the emails examined suggested that their product recommendations were tailored for the customer, but more than half of those were in fact composed of generic content; only 37 of the emails offered truly personalized recommendations.
• Only 10% of the emails contained personalized images (i.e., images of products relevant to that particular consumer based on previous behavior).