New Research from Braze Reveals Critical Insights on Craft of Customer Engagement and How that Helps 85% of Top Brands Surpass their Revenue Goals

Braze Customer Engagement Review shows how top brands are embracing AI, new channels, and data agility

Braze, the leading customer engagement platform that empowers brands to Be Absolutely Engaging™, today released its fourth annual Global Customer Engagement Review, examining customer engagement trends over the past year. The report dives into the evolving world of customer engagement, uncovering what marketers need to know—from the rise of new AI tools, to the challenges associated with supporting truly cohesive experiences across platforms and channels. Also included is the Braze Customer Engagement Index which assesses the maturity of brands in terms of their customer engagement activities—showing that 85% of brands that successfully embrace the craft of customer engagement to power first-party relationships exceeded their revenue goals in 2023.

“Today’s marketers are facing growing expectations from an increasingly connected consumer, who expects value in exchange for their attention,” said Astha Malik, Chief Business Officer of Braze. “Marketers are utilizing the power of AI to ignite creativity and craft personalized experiences that resonate with today’s consumer. And by tapping into valuable first-party data and fostering cross-functional collaboration, marketers can transform this data into captivating campaigns that build loyalty and growth.”

This year’s report uncovered key trends, including:

Marketers are embracing AI, but can use it to more effectively bridge the gap between creativity and ROI:

• Nearly all surveyed marketers (99%) are using AI in some capacity and are interested in further exploring its full potential. However, research found that marketers are also struggling with many areas where AI can help, particularly when it comes to creativity and strategy.
• Separately, a majority of marketers—98% to be exact—reported issues that prevent them from being more creative and strategic, with 41% of respondents claiming they lack the appropriate technology to execute creative ideas, and 40% citing difficulties demonstrating the ROI impact of creativity.
• The primary obstacles cited are spending excessive time on routine execution and tasks (42%) and an overemphasis on KPIs which restricts a focus on creativity (42%).
• Promising to see, many marketers recognize the promise of AI—79% of respondents applaud AI’s ability to automate routine tasks and free up time for creative thinking. Bridging the gap between creativity and ROI with AI can help marketers push boundaries while gaining a clearer view of their campaigns’ impact.

Read More: Forter Announces Next Generation Solution to Block Policy Abuse from Checkout to Post-Purchase

Creating personalized experiences requires a unified customer view and first-party data agility:

• While new technologies have opened up engagement opportunities, many brands lack a strategy that truly grasps who their customers are by leveraging first-party data for personalization. Only 24% are mapping customer behavior and sentiment and even fewer brands (6%) apply customer insights to their product and brand approach.
• However, there are signs that marketers are beginning to improve the way first-party data is leveraged to better understand customer behavior and use data to drive business outcomes, as 54% of marketers aim to boost both upstream and downstream (e.g. retention, monetization) metrics.
• With personalization more important than ever in driving customer loyalty, marketers must have the necessary tools to immediately access rich first-party data, understand where customers are in their journey, and then quickly act on that data to craft truly meaningful experiences at scale.

Consistent cross-channel messaging is the key to long-term loyalty and retention

• The rapid global expansion of new channels also means marketers have a big opportunity to focus on experience consistency and cohesion. Only 37% of respondents say their brands have made consistency a top priority, and 33% rely on multiple, isolated point solutions to manually piece together a multi-channel experience rather than a seamless cross-channel experience.
• Today’s most successful brands are diversifying their channel investments and prioritizing personalized, consistent messaging as a way to build retention. By transitioning to cross-channel customer journeys, brands can see a 6.5X uplift in purchases per user compared to solely in-product messages (such as in-app messages), according to Braze customer data.

The 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review also shares findings across five different industries—financial services, health and wellness, media and entertainment, QSR and delivery, and retail and e-commerce—and case studies featuring e.l.f. Cosmetics, Joe & the Juice, Second Dinner, Sonder, and Wealthsimple. Each industry breakdown also features insights and tactics for how marketers can uplevel their customer engagement strategy to drive retention and business value.

Notable industry findings include:

• Top-performing financial services brands are 20% more likely to sync across teams at least once a week and 25% more likely to use multiple data sources to shape user campaigns. That puts them at the forefront when it comes to collaboration and data agility and contributes to overall performance in the financial services sector, which was 25% more likely than other industries to greatly exceed revenue goals last year.
• Retail and eCommerce brands rank highest in multiple channel usage, relying especially on out-of-product channels like email and SMS. These brands will have more resources for growth and innovation in 2024 as retail and eCommerce brands are 75% more likely to have their marketing budgets increase significantly this year (the highest of any industry).

Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Yifat Baror, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Osa Commerce