Global Customer Engagement Review from Braze Finds Marketers are Prioritizing Increased Investments in Customer Retention

Research shows that 99% of marketers say they will shift their customer engagement strategies as consumers tighten their everyday spending

Braze, the comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and the brands they love, today revealed findings of its third annual Global Customer Engagement Review. The report examines customer engagement trends over the past year, as customer acquisition costs have soared to unsustainable highs while cost-conscious consumers are faced with more choices than ever in a volatile environment. Findings from this year’s report indicate that even more marketers are investing in tools and strategies that drive activation and loyaltyto meet consumers’ demands.

“Consumers today have high expectations for real-time, personalized communication, seamlessly choreographed across the channels and platforms they prefer, in a way that feels relevant and human. At the same time, marketers are under tremendous pressure to deliver greater return-on-investment, often with smaller teams,” said Bill Magnuson, Cofounder and CEO of Braze. “More than ever, it’s important for brands to invest in effective tools that enable teams across an organization to combine efforts to quickly reach shared goals. With the right tools, strategies, and expertise, brands can create meaningful experiences that delight consumers, drive value and loyalty, and drive long-term revenue growth.”

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Key findings from the report include:

The rise of retention as a strategy for marketers to defend their base

The report shows that brands are increasingly focused on defending their base, which is no surprise given the current environment. By pivoting to a retention-led strategy, marketing leaders acknowledge that delivering customer value helps build brand value and loyalty over time — and marketers are prioritizing their spend accordingly. In 2022, 45% of brands said they spent more than half of their marketing budget on retention, up from 33% in 2020. Over the past three years, Braze has seen a 36% rise in the percentage of surveyed companies that are investing the majority of their marketing budget in connection with customer retention. And overall, data shows 83% of the surveyed global companies say that their marketing budgets will actually increase in the next 12 months, suggesting a major surge in marketing spend as compared to 2020, when only 60% of surveyed companies said they planned to increase their budgets.

Leveraging personalization can help marketers break through the noise to reach consumers

One of the most impactful ways marketers can retain and defend their customer base is through personalized, relevant engagement that better meets customers’ needs and provides exceptional experiences at the right time, in the right place. As 99% of surveyed marketers say they will shift their customer engagement strategies as consumers tighten their everyday spending, brands should be well-positioned to better meet customers’ needs and provide exceptional experiences that drive growth. Additionally, brands that leverage cross-channel strategies can drive a 55% higher retention rate across a 90-day span, as compared to engaging via just one channel.

Understanding real-time data is crucial to executing personalized retention strategies

Brands today struggle with data management, and effectively understanding and activating data – especially real-time data – is a crucial part of executing personalized retention strategies. Without a thoughtful data management strategy, marketers cannot gather or act on real-time insights, and can struggle to create revenue-driving consumer experiences, hindering overall performance. Strikingly, 80% of surveyed companies say that they are collecting too much data, resulting in information on hand that they can’t use effectively. As a result, marketers need to be more intentional about what data they collect, while also prioritizing a thoughtful data management strategy that can turn this data into real-time, actionable insights.

In order to combat these data gaps, brands also need to break down the silos between data, engineering, and marketing teams to become more interdisciplinary in their customer engagement strategies. Globally, 60% of surveyed brands say that customer engagement is something owned primarily by the marketing team. Notably, 42% of surveyed marketers said the top challenge around using data for customer engagement is working with internal data scientists/business intelligence teams who don’t understand marketing priorities, while 38% cited a lack of data skills among marketing talent. Now more than ever, marketers that strive to build closer relationships with their data counterparts will be able to better test, experiment, and evolve customer experience in order to improve successful business outcomes.

The 2023 Global Customer Engagement Review also breaks down tactics that drive business goals—and revenue—across industries such as financial services, health and wellness, media and entertainment, QSR and delivery, and retail and ecommerce. In addition, each industry breakdown features a case study from a leading brand, including Gympass, HBO Max, Hugosave, KFC Philippines, and Majid Al Futtaim. The findings reflect results of global research of 1,500 VP+ marketing decision makers across 14 countries done in partnership with Wakefield Research, combined with customer insights from the Braze platform.

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