The news: Personalization is a key priority for marketers, but implementation across channels is severely lacking, per a StackAdapt and Ascend2 report.

• 99% of agencies report that digital personalization directly increases client revenues.
• While 93% of brands and 94% of agencies say AI enhances personalization, only one in five have fully implemented it across channels.
• 77% of agency marketers struggle to measure and communicate the impact of personalized campaigns.

Behind the gap: Personalization is complicated by fragmented data and operational challenges.

• Brands and agencies point to numerous data challenges for personalization. Forty-two percent cite limited integration of tools across platforms, while 47% of agencies say the same.
• Other challenges include difficulty unifying data into a customer profile (37% and 47% of brands and agencies, respectively), high costs for data management (40% brands and 44% agencies), and lack of real-time access to data (33% brands and 42% agencies).
• 38% of marketers and budget decision-makers cite difficulties in personalizing creative for target audiences as a top challenge for executing media campaigns, per Smartly. Thirty-seven percent point to the time-consuming creative production that comes with personalization.
• 35% struggle to maintain a consistent standard of personalized content across various media channels.

Why it matters: Effective ad personalization drives stronger results by increasing relevance, engagement, and consumer connection.

• Over three-quarters (76%) of US consumers are more likely to pay attention to relevant ads, and 48% are more likely to engage with these ads, per Verve.
• Two in three say that personalized ads help them discover new products.
• 72% would be less likely to pay to remove digital ads if they are targeted and interesting.

Implications for marketers: Personalization is a key revenue driver that few have cracked. The brands and agencies that treat AI implementation and cross-channel integration as strategic imperatives will be best positioned to turn personalization into measurable revenue impact. Closing the current gap means marketers must unify data, streamline creative workflows, and embed AI across the entire campaign lifecycle.