A recent Forrester study commissioned by Klaviyo, surveying 363 global B2C marketing and customer service leaders, confirms what many brands are experiencing firsthand: growth is harder, customer acquisition costs are rising, and loyalty is more fragile than ever
The research shows two priorities rising above the rest: revenue growth and customer retention.
But there is a clear gap between strategy and execution. While personalization is widely viewed as essential to driving retention and lifetime value, most organizations have not implemented the infrastructure needed to deliver it at scale.
For brands focused on sustainable growth, that gap represents both a risk and an opportunity.
Revenue Growth Now Depends on Customer Retention
Forrester reports that revenue growth and customer retention rank among the top strategic priorities for B2C leaders. In response to economic uncertainty, 69% of decision-makers are placing greater emphasis on retention and loyalty.
This shift makes sense. Acquisition costs continue to climb—research shows that acquiring a new customer costs 5–7 times more than retaining an existing one—and relying on new customer growth alone puts pressure on margins. Retention, on the other hand, increases customer lifetime value and improves profitability: repeat customers account for 44% of revenue while representing just 21% of the customer base. In other words, retention helps brands grow more efficiently and keep revenue steadier.
However, retention does not improve simply because it becomes a goal. It improves when brands engage customers in ways that feel relevant and timely.
That brings personalization into focus.
Personalization Is a Priority, but Adoption Lags
The same study reveals a striking disconnect. While 82% of leaders say delivering personalized experiences across the customer lifecycle is critical, only 11% have fully implemented the technology required to support that level of personalization.
Most brands are still relying on basic segmentation such as purchase history or recency. These signals are useful, but they only tell part of the story.
True personalization requires understanding who the customer is beyond what they bought. Household demographics, life stage, income range, and consumer behavior patterns provide the context that transforms generic campaigns into meaningful engagement. As we’ve explored previously, personalization is the new retention strategy, especially for brands focused on increasing lifetime value without increasing acquisition costs.
Without enriched and unified customer data, personalization remains limited. The result is broad messaging that fails to fully resonate, which ultimately impacts retention and revenue performance.
Why Personalization Technology Has Not Caught Up
If personalization drives revenue and retention, why are so few brands equipped to execute it?
The barriers are structural. Many organizations operate with disconnected CRM systems, fragmented data sources, and separate marketing and customer service workflows. Only 29% of leaders believe their current CRM and engagement tools fully support their strategic goals.
When customer data is siloed, teams cannot create a unified customer view. Without that foundation, lifecycle marketing, advanced segmentation, and AI-driven automation become difficult to scale.
The ambition for personalization is high. The supporting data strategy often is not.
Relevance Drives Retention
The report also highlights that organizations with stronger collaboration between marketing and customer service see measurable improvements in retention, revenue, and customer lifetime value.
The common thread is relevance.
When brands understand not just transactional history but also household demographics and consumer behaviors, they can:
- Create more precise audience segments
- Deliver messaging aligned to life stage and lifestyle
- Reactivate lapsed customers with tailored offers
- Support cross-sell and upsell strategies with greater accuracy
Personalization built on real customer insight improves engagement. Improved engagement strengthens retention. Stronger retention fuels revenue growth.
This is the new growth equation for B2C brands.
Closing the Personalization Gap
To turn retention into a revenue driver, brands must move beyond surface-level data.
That means building a unified customer profile that combines transactional history with household demographics and consumer behavior data. It also requires aligning marketing and service teams around shared retention goals and accessible customer insights.
Personalization is no longer about adding first names to emails. It is about delivering context-aware experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.
Brands that invest in deeper customer understanding will be better positioned to increase lifetime value, improve loyalty, and navigate economic volatility with confidence.
How LaunchPad Supports Retention-Driven Personalization
At LaunchPad, we help brands bridge the gap between personalization strategy and execution.
Through Customer Profile Appends inside Klaviyo, we enrich existing customer records with actionable household demographic and consumer behavior data — added directly as properties within Klaviyo profiles. This gives marketing teams the ability to build smarter segments, apply meaningful tags, power more relevant campaigns, and activate personalized retention workflows without changing platforms.
No platform migration. No complex IT lift. Just deeper customer insight that fuels retention and lifetime value.
If revenue growth and customer retention are your top priorities, the next step is making personalization real.
Learn how LaunchPad helps brands turn better data into stronger retention.