Tailor product recommendations for every industry 

Don’t you just love it when your favorite brand seems to know you so well that they recommend exactly what you need—even before you know you need it? Whether it’s the perfect skincare product to complement your routine or the next course in your learning journey, personalized product recommendations create moments of delight that build loyalty and keep customers coming back.

Personalized recommendations are essential for any brand looking to enhance customer experiences. But the best approach varies by industry. From suggesting the right product in e-commerce to recommending the next investment in fintech, businesses need flexible ways to deliver tailored recommendations that resonate with each customer. Let's explore how personalized product recommendations transform industries like edtech, fintech, SaaS, healthcare, and e-commerce—and how features like collections and custom objects can support those efforts.

Let’s talk data for a minute. To deliver on the promise of personalized recommendations, there’s a little bit of work that needs to happen behind the scenes with your customer data. Luckily, Customer.io does most of the heavy lifting with two powerful features: collections and custom objects. Essentially, each one gives you a means for grouping and organizing your data so that you can make your product recommendations feel extra personal. Here’s a quick breakdown of the difference between these two features and when you’ll want to use one over the other:

You’ll want to use collections for smaller, static sets of data—things that don’t change too often and don’t require frequent updates. Collections are ideal when you want to make recommendations based on a predefined set of items (and the relationships between those items don’t change often). Consider it like this: if you’d normally manage this type of data in a spreadsheet, collections are probably the best fit for your use case!

Let’s look at an example. An e-commerce fashion brand might use collections to group related products, such as a seasonal clothing line or a set of complementary items (like pairing socks with shoes or scarves and matching hats).

While collections are great for static data, objects shine when dealing with more complex, dynamic data sets. Think of custom objects as your go-to solution when managing thousands of items or when you need to update your data frequently throughout the day. If collections are like simple spreadsheets, custom objects are like a database that can handle real-time changes and store unique information for each customer.

For example, let’s say you’re a fintech company helping customers manage their investments. With custom objects, you can track every change to a customer’s portfolio in real time. If a customer purchases a stock, your system can instantly update and recommend similar stocks based on their current investments and financial goals.

Now that you understand a little more about the data side of things, let’s get into the messaging. Here are ten ways various industries can use personalized recommendations to engage their customers better.

Edtech platforms can tailor messaging to align with each student's learning journey. This empowers learners by guiding them toward resources that complement their current studies.

Helping learners continue their journey with relevant courses is key to retention. You can create personalized recommendations for similar courses or resources based on what a student is already learning. For example, you might offer a series of courses on HTML, from beginner to advanced. When a student finishes one course but doesn’t enroll right away in the next, you can queue up an email that touts all the reasons they should continue their learning journey.

💡 Pro tip: Use Liquid to dynamically personalize email content based on a student's progress. For example, you can insert the student's current course and suggest the next step in their learning journey with a simple Liquid code snippet like this: {% if student.completed_course == "HTML Basics" %} Congratulations on completing HTML Basics! Get started on **Intermediate HTML**. {% else %} Ready to level up? Explore courses that complement your current studies. {% endif %}

For edtech platforms, connecting students with relevant events—whether online or on-campus—can help build community and keep them engaged. If students are based on a specific campus or time zone, you can use that information to tailor event reminder messages.

For example, if you're hosting a career seminar on campus in one hour, you can send a friendly yet urgent push notification reminding graduating students not to miss it.

💡 Pro tip: Schedule the message in the student's time zone. That way, you don't accidentally send a message that says "begins in one hour" after the event already ended.

For fintech platforms, personalized investment recommendations can guide users toward more diversified and profitable portfolios.

A customer who purchases a stock in one industry might appreciate suggestions for related stocks to diversify their portfolio. For instance, if a customer buys Nike stock (NKE), you could recommend stocks from other companies in the same athletic industry, like Under Armour or Sketchers, to help them explore similar opportunities.

💡 Pro tip: Leverage A/B testing to experiment with different recommendations. For example, you could test messaging customers about more conservative stock recommendations versus high-growth opportunities. This helps you understand what resonates most with your audience.

Helping customers navigate their financial journeys with tailored advice can enhance loyalty. For example, if a customer consistently opts for sizable investment portfolios, you can curate a financial newsletter with insights about the risks and rewards of larger portfolios. You might also offer expert insights on strategies other investors with similar profiles have used to maximize their returns, helping the customer make informed decisions that align with their goals.

💡 Pro tip: You can use dynamic content blocks in your emails to curate specific sections of your newsletter based on portfolio size. That way, you just have to build one newsletter, but you can swap content in and out dynamically.

SaaS businesses can easily improve customer engagement throughout their journey with tailored features and plan recommendations.

As customers engage with your platform, you can recommend specific features based on their activity. For instance, say you’re a productivity app. If you notice that a project manager hasn’t started using some of your newest features, like automated reporting on weekly time tracking, you can create an in-app message highlighting why they’ll love the feature.

💡 Pro tip: If the customer starts using the feature, follow up with an in-app survey in a few weeks asking for feedback. This lets you collect valuable insights directly within your platform, helping you refine future feature suggestions and understand what your customers need most.

As customers reach the limits of their current subscription plan, recommend an upgrade that meets their growing needs. For instance, when a customer’s usage of a specific feature reaches the max threshold for their plan tier, that’s a perfect opportunity to email them about it. You can also showcase why they'll love upgrading to a higher-paid plan.

💡 Pro tip: Consider pairing your email with an in-app message. If a customer is actively using your app and approaching a usage limit, trigger an in-app message that suggests the next available plan tier. If they don’t upgrade, follow up with your email.

Personalizing patient care and recommendations in healthcare can significantly improve outcomes and boost overall patient satisfaction.

By tracking patient data and understanding their conditions, you can deliver personalized recommendations for medication, treatments, or home care products relevant to their needs. For example, a patient with seasonal allergies might receive recommendations for allergy relief products to help them manage their symptoms more effectively.

💡Pro tip: Use conditional logic to adjust medication recommendations based on the patient’s treatment progress. For instance, if a patient has been using allergy medication for several weeks, you can skip sending them their monthly suggestions.

Patients who are actively engaged in learning about their health may be more likely to take proactive steps in their care. Say a patient expresses interest in certain topics—like joint health or mental wellness—you can send them curated articles, research papers, or wellness tips to keep them informed and involved in their health journey.

💡 Pro tip: Make your life a little easier by using snippets to easily insert content blocks into your messages based on a patient’s expressed interests.

For e-commerce brands, personalized product recommendations are essential. These recommendations enhance the shopping experience, drive sales, and foster long-term customer loyalty.

A customer who buys a skincare product, like a face serum, might appreciate recommendations for complementary items such as moisturizers or sunscreens. Sending product suggestions based on their purchase history helps guide customers toward additional products that enhance their original purchase, increasing the likelihood that they’ll keep coming back.

💡 Pro tip: Integrate Shopify with Customer.io via webhooks or reverse ETL to ensure all your shopping data is fueling your messaging campaigns.

Partnering with influencers or well-known brands can significantly enhance the appeal and reach of e-commerce products. For example, you can collaborate with an influencer to curate a seasonal collection of products. Then, you can recommend these curated collections to customers who align with the influencer's audience or style preferences.

💡 Pro tip: Use segmentation to target customers who have previously engaged with influencer-related content or products. That way, you can send personalized recommendations to those most likely to convert.

Personalized product recommendations can make a difference for customer-centric brands, regardless of their industry. By leveraging your customer data and having the right tools in your toolbox, you can create experiences uniquely tailored to each customer.

Ready to begin sending your product recommendations with a best-in-class customer engagement platform? Start a free 14-day trial of Customer.io today!