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

Rhea-AI Summary

Braze released its Global Customer Engagement Review, highlighting the importance of AI, new channels, and data agility in customer engagement. The report shows that 85% of brands succeeding in customer engagement exceeded revenue goals in 2023. Marketers are embracing AI but struggle with creativity and ROI. Personalized experiences require first-party data agility. Consistent cross-channel messaging is vital for long-term loyalty. The report also includes industry-specific insights and case studies.

Positive

• 85% of brands excelling in customer engagement surpassed revenue goals in 2023.
• Marketers are facing challenges in bridging creativity and ROI using AI.
• Only 24% of brands are effectively leveraging first-party data for personalization.
• Consistent cross-channel messaging leads to a 6.5X uplift in purchases per user.
• Financial services brands excelling in collaboration and data agility outperform other industries.
• Retail and eCommerce brands are increasing marketing budgets significantly in 2024.

Negative

• Marketers struggle with demonstrating the ROI impact of creativity.
• Only 6% of brands apply customer insights to their product and brand approach.
• 37% of brands prioritize consistency in cross-channel messaging.
• 33% of brands rely on multiple isolated point solutions for cross-channel experiences.

Market Research Analyst

The recent findings from Braze's Global Customer Engagement Review highlight a significant shift in marketing strategies, with an emphasis on leveraging AI and first-party data to enhance customer engagement. The report indicates that brands embracing these technologies and strategies are more likely to surpass their revenue goals, suggesting a correlation between advanced customer engagement practices and financial performance. This underscores the importance for businesses to invest in AI and data analytics capabilities to stay competitive in the market.

Moreover, the report's insights into industry-specific trends, such as the increased synchronization among financial services teams and the growth in marketing budgets for retail and eCommerce sectors, provide a valuable benchmark for companies within these industries. These trends could influence investment decisions, as stakeholders may consider allocating more resources towards technologies and strategies that have shown to increase revenue and customer retention.

From a market research perspective, the adoption of AI and data-driven marketing is likely to become a standard, with companies that fail to adapt potentially losing market share to more agile competitors. This could lead to a reevaluation of current marketing budgets and a push for innovation within the sector.

Data Analytics Expert

The emphasis on first-party data agility and the unified customer view presented in the report is a testament to the evolving landscape of data utilization in marketing. The ability to map customer behavior and sentiment and subsequently apply these insights to product and brand strategies, is becoming increasingly crucial. This trend is not only enhancing the customer experience but also providing measurable business outcomes, such as improved retention and monetization metrics.

As companies collect vast amounts of data, the challenge lies in effectively analyzing and acting upon it. The reported 6.5X uplift in purchases per user with cross-channel messaging strategies demonstrates the tangible benefits of a data-driven approach. These findings suggest that companies not currently leveraging data analytics may need to rapidly evolve their capabilities to remain competitive. This evolution will likely impact stock valuations for companies in the tech sector that provide these data analytics services, as demand for their offerings could increase.

Technology Adoption Strategist

The integration of AI into marketing strategies, as reported by Braze, signifies a broader trend in technology adoption across industries. The fact that 99% of marketers are using AI in some capacity indicates a near-universal recognition of its value. However, the struggle to bridge the gap between creativity and ROI presents an opportunity for companies that can offer solutions to these challenges.

AI's role in automating routine tasks to free up time for creative thinking is a critical insight for businesses seeking to innovate their marketing approaches. The potential for AI to enable more strategic and impactful marketing efforts could lead to increased investments in AI technologies, potentially affecting the stocks of companies that specialize in AI-powered marketing solutions. Furthermore, the shift towards personalized, consistent cross-channel messaging could drive demand for platforms that can seamlessly integrate various marketing channels, thereby influencing the market dynamics within the marketing technology sector.

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

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Braze (Nasdaq: BRZE), 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.

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 the full report and download the 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review.

Survey Methodology

The Braze Customer Engagement Review survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 1,900 marketing executives with a minimum title of VP, working at B2C companies with an annual revenue of $10M across three global regions: The Americas (Brazil, Mexico, and the US), APAC (Australia, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea), and EMEA (France, Germany, Spain, the UAE, and the UK). The survey was conducted December 5–15, 2023, using an email invitation and an online survey. Global quotas of at least 100 respondents were set for each of the following industries: CPG, financial services/FinTech, health and wellness, media and entertainment, retail and eCommerce, and QSR and on-demand food/beverage delivery.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated performance of, and benefits from, certain customer engagement strategies, including those powered by the Braze platform and products. These forward-looking statements are based on the current assumptions, expectations and beliefs of Braze, and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information on potential factors that could affect Braze results are included in Braze’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended October 31, 2023, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on December 7, 2023 and the other public filings of Braze with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the views of Braze only as of the date of this press release, and Braze assumes no obligation, and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

About Braze

Braze is the leading customer engagement platform that empowers brands to Be Absolutely Engaging.™ Braze allows any marketer to collect and take action on any amount of data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels from one platform. From cross-channel messaging and journey orchestration to Al-powered experimentation and optimization, Braze enables companies to build and maintain absolutely engaging relationships with their customers that foster growth and loyalty. The company has been recognized as a 2024 U.S. News Best Technology Companies to Work For, is a 2023 UK Best Workplace for Women by Great Place to Work, and was named a Leader by Gartner® in the 2023 Magic Quadrant™ for Multichannel Marketing Hubs and in The Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Marketing Hubs, Q1 2023. Braze is headquartered in New York with 10+ offices across North America, Europe, and APAC. Learn more at braze.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227698557/en/

Simone Illsley, Communications Manager

press@braze.com

Source: Braze

FAQ

What percentage of brands exceeded revenue goals in customer engagement in 2023?

85% of brands that successfully embraced customer engagement exceeded their revenue goals in 2023.

What are the primary challenges marketers face in leveraging AI?

Marketers struggle with creativity and ROI when using AI, with 41% lacking appropriate technology for execution and 40% having difficulty demonstrating ROI impact.

How many brands effectively leverage first-party data for personalization?

Only 24% of brands are effectively leveraging first-party data for personalization.

What uplift in purchases per user can be seen by transitioning to cross-channel customer journeys?

Brands can see a 6.5X uplift in purchases per user by transitioning to cross-channel customer journeys.

Which industry is more likely to sync across teams weekly and use multiple data sources for campaigns?

Top-performing financial services brands are 20% more likely to sync across teams weekly and 25% more likely to use multiple data sources for campaigns.

Which industry is increasing marketing budgets significantly in 2024?

Retail and eCommerce brands are 75% more likely to have their marketing budgets increase significantly in 2024.