Stayin' Alive Episode 4 with Seth Longhurst, Founder - LifecycleIQ | How Growth Teams Are Operationalizing Personalization

Every business wants personalization. But too often, it ends up creating more chaos than conversion.
The real challenge? Scaling personalization in a way that’s operationally sustainable—and actually moves the needle.

🚀 Watch the Full Webinar:

In the latest edition of Propel’s webinar series, "Stayin’ Alive," Jaskaran Lamba, co-founder of Propel, sat down with Seth Longhurst, co-founder of LifecycleIQ, to talk about how high-performing growth teams are scaling personalization without burning out their marketing and product orgs. They discussed how to make personalization relevant, actionable, and actually measurable across teams.

🎥 Watch the full webinar recording below!

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Why Personalization Breaks Down

Seth kicked things off by calling out a hard truth: most personalization efforts break not because of the tech, but because of organizational confusion.

He identified 3 common failure points:

• Ownership Gaps – Nobody truly owns personalization end-to-end. Different teams run conflicting strategies without alignment.
• Misaligned Incentives – If the people doing the work don’t have KPIs tied to personalization success, progress stalls.
• Over-Reliance on Tools – Buying another CDP won’t fix unclear segmentation or bad messaging logic.

“The second you personalize something, the bar goes up. If it’s wrong, it erodes trust immediately.”

What Scalable Personalization Actually Looks Like

Seth shared what he’s seen work across B2C and B2B2C businesses that are nailing personalization:

🔁 Align Around Relevance, Not Just ‘Personalization’

Instead of trying to personalize everything, focus on delivering relevance: the right message, at the right time, based on real user behavior.

“Don’t ask ‘how do we personalize this?’ Ask ‘how do we make this more relevant right now?’”

🧱 Build an Operational Foundation

Seth emphasized the need for systems and rituals that make personalization a team sport:

• Create shared playbooks for segmentation, triggers, and experimentation.
• Centralize ownership around lifecycle marketing or product-led growth teams.
• Set feedback loops with product, data, and engineering teams.

“Without clear roles and a measurement framework, personalization becomes a bunch of one-off hacks.”

📊 Actionable Segmentation

Not all segments are created equal. Seth encourages teams to ask: Can someone take action on this segment this week? If not, it’s probably too abstract.

• Focus on behavior-based segments over vanity ones.
• Use lifecycle stages and intent signals (e.g., cart abandoners, repeat browsers, silent subscribers).

“Segments should drive campaigns, not sit in dashboards.”

How AI Fits In

Seth and Jaskaran also touched on AI’s evolving role in lifecycle and personalization:

• Pattern Recognition – AI can surface behaviors or cohorts humans might miss.
• Message Optimization – LLMs can test tone, length, and clarity at scale.
• Campaign Automation – AI can reduce the lift for iterative testing and multi-touch journeys.

But Seth cautioned: AI doesn’t replace strategic thinking or cross-functional collaboration.

“Think of AI as a productivity boost, not a strategy replacement.”

Final Takeaways: What Growth Teams Need to Remember

Seth closed with 3 powerful reminders for anyone looking to scale personalization:

1. Simplify to Scale – You don’t need 200 segments. Start with a few meaningful ones and build feedback loops.
2. Operationalize It – Without shared systems and incentives, personalization will stay fragmented.
3. Relevance Wins – Personalized doesn’t always mean helpful. Relevance is what drives action.

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