68% Still Nurture Leads by Hand: Use Data Analytics and AI for B2B Food & Nutrition Personalisation at Scale in 2026

Why Personalisation Led by Data Analytics and AI Matters in 2026

Whether it's timely ingredient or product recommendations, relevant content formats, or communication aligned to their job role and industry, your buyers expect experiences tailored to their needs. 

The reason is simple. Personalisation cuts the noise buyers have to sort through and delivers what's most useful to them in that moment—think a whitepaper, case study, technical specifications, webinar, or even a direct email. 

For B2B suppliers, it means stronger engagement, higher quality leads, and more efficient use of one’s budget. HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing Report affirms this, with 93% of marketers saying that personalisation gets audiences to act and improves leads or purchases. On the other hand, 29% of respondents in HubSpot’s 2025 State of Sales Report admitted that the sales process not being personalised enough is one of the biggest reasons prospects back out of deals. For B2B buyers, personalisation offers clarity and confidence in choosing the right partner. Together, these insights make one thing clear: personalisation is now a deciding factor in whether buyers stay or walk away. 

“Personalisation matters; most suppliers send general information to everyone.” – Smartcore B2B Food and Nutrition Marketing Report 2026 survey interviewee (buyer) 

And this is exactly where data analytics and AI become essential. They turn fragmented interactions across content formats and channels into a clear buyer picture, enabling marketing and sales teams to personalise at scale with accuracy.

Personalisation starts with understanding your audience—who they are, what they're interested in, and how they behave across your digital ecosystem. Here are three ways data analytics and AI can help you do this:

1. Segment-Based Personalisation: In B2B food and nutrition, the most effective segmentation combines firmographics (region, company size, job function) and behaviours (content downloads, webinar attendance, form fills). Data analytics builds a more complete picture, allowing teams to tailor campaigns by audience needs, pain points, and buying signals.
2. Predictive Content and Product Recommendations: By analysing buyer behaviour patterns, AI can predict exactly what content format or category a lead is most likely to engage with next. Knowing whether it's an industry paper or a similar product category can help you proactively personalise your content marketing. Additionally, AI can help you repackage long-form assets into short proof cards for quick supplier validation.
3. Behaviour-Led Follow-Up: By analysing behavioural signals like webinar participation or whitepaper downloads, your sales and marketing teams can tailor conversations to match what the buyer cares about most. This is how data analytics can turn outreach from generic check-ins into context-rich interactions that build trust. Now nearly 60% of suppliers expect AI to have the greatest impact on marketing in 2026. Applied well, it can automate routine tasks across journeys or even evaluate, classify, and prioritise leads based on interests.

Personalisation isn't a one-time effort but rather a cycle of learning and refining. Getting it right calls for aligning your data, systems, and workflows. Here's how to build a scalable approach in 2026:

1. Data Integration: Fragmented data is one of the biggest roadblocks and disconnected systems make it harder to scale. Unifying your CRM, digital channels, event data, and analytics platforms gives you a complete view of the buyer. With a single source of truth, marketing and sales can finally speak the same language.

2. Automation: Automation brings consistency and speed to your campaigns. It enables triggered journeys based on behaviour, timely follow-ups after downloads or event interactions, and personalised nurture tracks based on interest signals. This reduces manual work and ensures buyers never fall through the cracks. 

   Define a short but complete minimum journey: specifications → relevant case study → certifications, and automate its delivery in the right order. Reserve humans for the work only humans can do: complex qualification, technical matching, and negotiation. 

3. Continuous Testing: A/B and multivariate testing can help you understand which messages, formats, and channels resonate most with each audience segment. Testing is essential to improve engagement rates, content performance, and lead quality. Here too, don't rely only on end-state metrics. Add upstream measures to learn and optimise.

   “Targeted beats general – the campaigns that focus on one ingredient and one problem always do better.” – Smartcore B2B Food and Nutrition Marketing Report 2026 survey interviewee (supplier) 

    

As we've seen, personalisation is a defining factor in 2026 B2B food and nutrition marketing and sales success. From segmentation and predictive insights to automated journeys and custom content, personalisation helps suppliers strengthen engagement at every stage of the purchase funnel. 

At Smartcore, personalisation sits at the heart of how we help suppliers connect with buyers worldwide. This is powered by our first-party data, targeted campaigns, and behavioural intelligence designed to tailor every interaction. 

• When you secure specific Smartcore digital products – perhaps a Custom Branded Targeted Email or a Targeted Ad – you’re provided with our Datacard to refine your audience selection. While the full Datacard experience is exclusive to Smartcore customers, you can explore its capabilities through our FREE Audience Reach Calculator. Simply select your target audience and segment by product and industry interest, job function, job level, and geographical location (across 228 data points). See the level of granularity and personalisation you can action and your first-party data reach with us.
• Smartcore Lead Insights is our AI-powered lead intelligence platform built specifically for the B2B food and nutraceutical industry. It collects and analyses behavioural signals from across the Informa Markets events and digital ecosystem. These include both physical and online interactions—think visits to your stand at Fi Europe or Vitafoods Europe, attendance to the Fi Webinar Series, Vitafoods Insights Webinar Series, content downloads across our industry-specialised Ingredients and Finished Products Network, Vitafoods Insights, and Fi Global Insights channels, and more. These touchpoints are analysed, enriched, and transformed into actionable insights that help suppliers personalise their follow-ups with confidence.

Read success stories from Smartcore clients about the impact we’ve helped them make. Contact us today to get started.