Braze sees strong customer engagement picture for retail and e-commerce brands

The overall customer engagement picture for retail and e-commerce brands is positive, with brands in the industry 19 percent more likely to anticipate an increase in their marketing budget over the next year compared to other verticals, according to Braze’s 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review.

Braze is an American customer service platform used by companies for multi-channel marketing.

Positive points to focus on are data-driven personalization, frequent and effective collaboration, and moving beyond vanity metrics.

Thirty-six percent of retailers scored as for segmentation maturity, and 22 percent scored as for message personalization, the second-highest score among industries for both competencies.

Additionally, 36 percent of retailers surveyed can segment users in real time as new data is collected, allowing for messaging to be delivered at the pace of the entire shopping process.

Forty-eight percent of retail and e-commerce brands sync their teams at least once a week, the highest rate of any industry.

Seventy-eight percent of retailers surveyed have moved beyond vanity metrics and are now evaluating the impact of their customer engagement programs on monetization and retention, according to Braze in its white paper, “Mastering Customer Engagement: The Key to Success in Retail and E-Commerce.”

Practical solutions to drive growth include taking full control of your purchasing process, working smarter, not harder, and spending more time being creative.

Only 37 percent of retailers use (or plan to use) in-app/browser messaging, the second lowest rate of any industry, highlighting a significant gap in within-product channel capabilities.

Half of retail and e-commerce brands use either a single primary channel or a combination of different, siloed point solutions to reach users, making it difficult for them to deliver a unified brand experience.

According to the Braze report, 48% of retailers said the impact of creativity on return on investment is a barrier, the highest among all industries.

Retailers are also more likely than any other industry (64%) to use modeling, such as predictive buying, to support campaign effectiveness and are the most likely (55%) to use business intelligence platforms to perform advanced analytics on customer engagement results. If any industry is positioned to optimize its marketing efforts, it’s this one, Braze added.