30-second summary:
- Finance, health, and high-tech are the most keen on planning agile marketing transformation
- 38% respondents mentioned that internal silos were a top challenge for delivering great CX
- Customer experience influenced customers more than it would have 2 years back
- 50% consumers would switch brands or spend less due to a CX that lacked personalization
- There’s a huge, yes huge gap in the engagement and send out rates clearly indicating that businesses lost out on opportunities to capture their consumers’ attention
- Given the ecommerce slump in March, April has seen a 43% thanks to users wanting to make purchases and paid advertising.
A lot can happen in a week, and a lot has happened indeed. Our weekly key insights this week brings you an eagle-eye view of the marketing space, across silos in customer experience (CX), agile marketing, and lots more.
Data and silos in CX
According to content services firm Nuxeo, 63% of UK shoppers stated that exceptional CX boosted their brand loyalty. Data is a waste unless it’s used as fuel to drive a premium customer experience (CX).
CSG commissioned a Forrester study on CX, silos, and data management. Of the decision-makers surveyed, 38% of respondents mentioned that internal silos were a top challenge for delivering great CX. These insights speak for underutilization of data for improving and personalizing customer experiences:
- 57% agreed that the CX budget was spread across various departments to create a more integrated CX plan
- 85% of companies surveyed said they had more customer data than 2 years ago
- Mere 29% said they were confident about their data quality
- 51% said they could use their data to personalize and customize interactions
- 46% agreed that their data helped them with real-time actionables
The survey also revealed that customer experience influenced customers more than it would have 2 years back.
- 53% respondents reported increased demand for quicker response times
- 59% respondents said customers demand more personalisation
- 55% said that customers showed a greater want for well connected online and offline experiences
Lack of personalised CX = Less or no return customers
A global consumer study by Kameleoon, AI-driven personalisation and A/B testing platform that ran across 5,128 consumers from US, France, Germany and Italy found that 50% of them would switch brands or spend less due to a CX that lacked personalisation. More on the survey results:
- 73% of consumers said the current digital experience delivered online will change their future spending after lockdowns end
- On the contrary, 59% consumers were disappointed by the level of personalisation and reassurance that most brands provided
- 76% said not all companies were making the effort to personalise the online experience
Opportunities businesses lost: In-app messaging and push notifications
There’s a huge, yes huge gap in the engagement and send out rates clearly indicating that businesses lost out on opportunities to capture their consumers’ attention.
Iterable dug into their own data to find that their consumers were opening push notifications 21% more than usual and read 137% more of in-app push notifications during the pandemic phase of February to April.
Iterable closely studied four key mobile marketing channels of 30 companies – push notifications, SMS, in-app and the mobile inbox mobile customer journeys to derive the following insights:
- 70% of the companies sent at least one push notification with an average of 8.4 push messages sent over the three weeks
- However, 30% of brands didn’t send any push notifications at all
- 80% of companies did not deploy SMS messages at all
- Mobile data was not incorporated in email campaigns (talking about data silos!)
- Over 50% of brands in the study sent fewer than ten emails
Ecommerce bounces back from COVID-19 slump
Even though the app economy stood strong during this COVID-19 hit, ecommerce apps were taking the brunt of the situation and saw downsized ad spends along with 35% less paid installs.
Since the beginning of April, ecommerce app installs and in-app sessions have started to show a rise, according to global app marketing platform, Adjust.
Given the slump in March, April has seen a 43% thanks to users wanting to make purchases and paid advertising.
Marketers excited about agile marketing adoption
There’s excitement in the market around agile marketing as marketers increasingly expressed interest in agile adoption across various business functions.
Leading data-driven, technology-enabled, global performance marketing agency, Merkle surveyed 400 marketers at major US and UK brands to uncover some interesting insights:
- 29% said their organization plans on adopting agile over the next 24 months (without formal plans)
- 57% said their organization has a formal plan for agile adoption over the next 24 months
- 89% of marketers said they have implemented agile in some team or function
- 88% said they use agile methodology in marketing practices
- 85% of respondents said they plan on increasing usage in the next 24 months
Agile planning industry wise
Merkle’s customer engagement survey report identified high levels of formalized plans for transformation across these industries:
These industries showed the least intentions for agile planning:
- Travel
- Media
- Entertainment
Key insights on data personalisation
In light of the GDPR and CCPA, the Merkle report also covered the use of data for personalisation and the findings are:
- 37% use first-party data
- 41% use first-party data and third-party data equally
- 21% use third-party data
Merkle did a further analysis of responses by region to find:
- First-party data: UK 39% and US 35%
- First-party data and third-party data equally: UK 35% and US 46%
- Third-party data: UK 25% and US 18%
ClickZ readers’ top picks for the week
Here are our five most viewed articles this week:
- Three steps to prepare for the post-COVID-19 business world
- Marketing strategies during – and after – Coronavirus
- Key insights: Effect of COVID-19 on consumer behavior, the world’s more video content savvy, and Apple shakes up AR
- The role of marketers in a post-COVID-19 world
- A world without third-party data: The end of personalised marketing?
As you can see COVID-19 is still the most popular topic amongst our community, with senior marketers still hungry for information on how to navigate the pandemic safely and successfully.
Also keep an eye out for our upcoming Peer Network briefing with Cardlytics’ Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Micheal Akkerman – who will talk about how the company is tracking the shifts in consumer behavior and spend, working with some of the top brands in the country to help drive commerce and growth, even amidst a global pandemic.
Over the free 30-minute session he will cover:
- The current pandemic has brought consumer spend to a halt for many industries while creating new opportunities for many more.
- How should these brands think about this newly found levels of engagement?
- How can those seeing this influx in spend retain those customers when the economy begins to open up?
- Conversely, how should brands who have seen sharp declines bring back lapsed customers?
- Most importantly, when will the economy begin opening again and which segments of the U.S. are starting to see early signs of improvement?
