At the May 2026 MarTech Conference, a panel of marketing leaders took on a long-standing challenge in the industry: how brands can deliver personalized customer experiences without veering into the realm of “creepy.” During the session, “Winning attention without losing trust: creating meaningful moments across the customer journey,” moderator Angela Vega, director of capabilities and operations at Expedia Group, guided a conversation with Alec Haase, general manager of AI products at High Touch; Sean Nowlin, founder and CEO of Spotlight IQ; and Ed Poppe, founder and fractional marketing leader at Poppe Marketing. Striking the right balance between “helpful” and “intrusive” remains a core struggle for marketers. The discussion revolved around a central idea: personalization is effective only when customers believe they’re getting fair value in return. Haase noted that many brands mistakenly treat personalization as a one-time consent event instead of an evolving relationship. “The real question,” he said, “is whether the customer is feeling that payoff every time you actually go and use that data.” He highlighted retail loyalty programs as a strong example of effective personalization, since shoppers immediately gain rewards, discounts, or added convenience in exchange for their data. Poppe stressed the need to avoid tactics that would sound unsettling if described plainly. Recalling early retargeting strategies in the insurance sector, he mentioned internal debates about whether showing the exact car a shopper had viewed in follow-up ads might feel too invasive. “If you’re saying it out loud, like, would the customer be creeped out or would they be OK with that exchange?”…