Brand owners talk a good game on personalisation, and the vast majority of marketers believe real-time experience data is critical, but in reality less than half are collecting this information, with automation and audience segmentation causing major headaches.
That is according to a new study by global marketing and customer engagement provider Acoustic, conducted by Forrester Consulting, which finds there are significant gaps in brands’ customer data strategies amid the turbulent privacy landscape.
The study, Strengthen Customer Retention And Engagement With Behavioural Data, explores how over 1,200 marketing decision-makers collect customer behavioural signals and apply the data to their brands’ customer engagement and retention strategies.
As brands look to gain visibility into customer engagement and grow customer lifetime value, being able to collect behavioral data and derive insights from it is critical to optimising the customer journey. Yet the study found that marketers struggle to leverage this data at all stages of the customer journey, limiting the personalisation they can provide.
In fact, three-quarters (75%) of marketers say collecting real-time experience data is critical to the business, but less than half (47%) are doing so. By understanding customer behaviours “in the moment”, the report maintains that marketers can better meet their needs at the right time in their purchase journey.
Meanwhile, only 45% of marketers are doing any kind of journey orchestration, using customer behavioural signals. With marketers mostly focusing on the early stages of the customer journey, this leaves a substantial gap in creating data-driven experiences at each touchpoint with a brand.
The report states that personalising customer outreach (67%) and analysing customer data and signals (66%) are among the top challenges facing marketers today. Notably, marketers are also concerned with marketing automation (73%) and audience management and segmentation (69%).
This indicates a lack the necessary tools to create personalised customer experiences based on consumers’ behaviours, Acoustic claims.
The company’s chief executive Mark Cattini said: “As brands attempt to navigate the changing privacy landscape, investing in first-party data strategies that enable privacy-compliant personalisation is critical.
“Yet Forrester’s findings demonstrate that marketers continue to struggle with collecting and leveraging customer behavioural signals throughout the customer journey. Without the right technology and strategy in place, this gap will only grow as third-party cookies deprecate and marketers lose visibility into customer engagement.”
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