A consumer perspective of personalized marketing : An exploratory study on consumer perception of personalized marketing and how it affects the purchase decision making

Abstract: The traditional type of marketing is more directed towards big customer segments in specified areas. Due to technological improvement marketing has evolved into an extreme form of segmentation where marketing target the individual consumer based on their personal needs and preferences. This has led to a discussion of whether personalized marketing is something that create privacy concerns or benefits in the eyes of the consumer.     The purpose of this thesis is to explore the consumer perception of personalized marketing and how the perception affects the purchase decision-making process.   A conceptual framework was developed based on earlier research within personalized marketing. A qualitative method with an abductive approach has been used. Our primary data was collected through 8 different semi-structured interviews and consisted of men and women in the age span of 40-59 years’ old who had engaged in e-commerce at least once during the last six months.   Our empirical data has been analyzed out of the literature review, which founds the basis for our findings. Our findings show that the consumer perception of personalized marketing affect the consumer decision-making process in varying ways. A positive perception of the personalized marketing makes the consumer more susceptible to it, which further impacts the different stages in the process.