3 key insights: The Braze 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review (+ tips and tools)

The most recent edition of the Braze Customer Engagement Review (CER) surveyed 1,900 marketing executives from across 14 countries to identify key customer engagement insights that influence how marketing teams interact with their users in 2024. 

In this article, we analyze the top three trends from this report, including how top-performing companies are

• Using artificial intelligence (AI) to catalyze creative, strategic marketing approaches
• Improving brand development with first-party data
• Embracing cross-channel marketing strategies

We also explore key industry statistics and practical tips and tools for building stronger customer relationships.

Get the latest marketing insights. Read the Braze 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review. Access Now.

Trend #1: AI is the future of creative marketing strategy

According to the Braze 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review, 98% of marketing executives face barriers to creativity and strategic thinking for improving customer engagement. The top challenges include an excessive focus on KPIs, a lack of technological support and difficulty directly demonstrating return on investment (ROI).

Incorporating AI tools into teams’ daily workflows alleviated many of these pain points, resulting in benefits like 

• More time to test new ideas. 79% of organizations use AI to streamline and automate routine tasks, offering teams more time for deep thinking and experimenting with new approaches.
• Increased industry competitiveness. Top-performing brands were 20% more likely to Quality Assure (QA) their marketing content with AI, demonstrating how AI features are already a competitive market differentiator.
• Enhanced user engagement. According to Contentsquare’s 2024 Digital Experience Benchmark Report, AI-driven personalization increases conversion rates by up to 15%.

Tools and tips for using AI to improve your creative marketing strategy

• Minimize repetitive tasks. Automate time-intensive tasks like image generation, proofreading and content QA with tools like Sage AI by Braze.
• Leverage user feedback. Collect high-volume insights about user preferences and needs to drive conversions by quickly creating and distributing feedback and sentiment surveys with Contentsquare’s AI Surveys, powered by Hotjar.
• Anticipate future trends. Stay ahead of your competitors by using predictive analytics tools to analyze historical data and forecast future market trends and customer behaviors.

“When marketers treat AI as an advisor and collaborative partner, a wide range of new possibilities opens up…allowing marketers to push boundaries.” —Braze 2024 Global Customer Engagement Review

Trend #2: customer data and data agility are key to deepening user relationships

Knowing how to leverage and interpret customer data is crucial in building deep, customer relationships and driving better business outcomes. While many brands have moved beyond vanity metrics, the Braze report shows that only 24% of businesses map customer behavior and sentiment, and even fewer (6%) apply insights to their brand strategies, resulting in missed opportunities for personalized engagement and targeted marketing initiatives.

Adopting a data agility mindset addresses these challenges by ensuring a 360-degree view of core customer insights, leading to optimization opportunities like

• Enhanced audience segmentation. Top-performing companies are 16% more likely to create sophisticated customer segments, enabling them to deliver personalized experiences and relevant messages that drive engagement.
• Improved collaboration. Brands that consistently sync across teams to share key data see higher customer engagement rates, with top-performing brands 82% more likely to involve multiple teams.
• Data integration. Top-performing businesses are 11% more likely to establish direct connections between data warehouses and engagement platforms.

Tools and tips for improving your data agility

• Streamline your data sources. Connect data warehouses, business intelligence tools and other marketing tech platforms with data streaming technologies like Braze Currents.
• Organize cross-team syncs. Break down data silos by scheduling regular meetings with other customer engagement teams. The Braze study reports that 51% of teams sync at least every two weeks.
• Leverage data segmentation. Segment your data by different user behaviors and engagement metrics to tailor your marketing and product strategies according to nuanced customer actions and interests.

• Behavioral segmentation. Segment active users based on how they use your product or service, such as the features they interact with most, the pages they visit or how they engage with content.
• Technographic segmentation. Segment users based on the technologies they prefer, like device, browser, operating system, device or operating system.
• Geographic segmentation. Segment users based on the country or city they’re located in.
• Value-based segmentation. Segment users based on the profit they add to your business, like average lifetime value or loyalty program membership.

A customer segment performance report in Contentsquare

Trend #3: cross-channel messaging is rapidly expanding

Effective cross-channel messaging is key to creating a cohesive customer experience and driving engagement. Despite the importance, only 37% of brands prioritize consistency across channels, revealing that the majority of businesses still rely on multiple siloed solutions, limiting their ability to deliver seamless experiences. 

A unified engagement platform is essential to manage diverse channels and leverage new ones like messaging apps, leading to improved business outcomes like

• Increased user engagement. Brands using a combination of email, in-app and push messages see 126 times higher average sessions per user.
• Longer customer lifetimes. Customers receiving brand messages on WhatsApp have 70% longer user lifetimes, and those receiving emails have up to 86% longer lifetimes.
• Higher purchase rates. Brands using in-product and out-of-product messages see 6.5 times more purchases per user than those using just in-product messages.

Tools and tips for improving cross-channel marketing

• Track the entire user journey. Use tools like Contentsquare’s Product Analytics to capture real-time data for multi-session user journeys across different websites, apps and other branded experiences.
• Coordinate paid ads. Use tools like Braze Audience Sync to deploy automatic, targeted ad campaigns across multiple ad channels like Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok and Snapchat in response to real-time customer activity.
• Improve cross-channel messaging. Use push notifications and in-app messaging features to re-engage inactive users or alert active users about new features, promotions or updates. 

Integrating Contentsquare’s user behavior insights within the Braze customer engagement solution allows marketing and customer experience teams to build hyper-personalized marketing campaigns, leading to maximized response rates, increased conversion rates and improved customer recovery.

For example, integrate Braze and Contentsquare to

1. Tailor messages based on real-time customer behavior, feelings and intent within Braze
2. Retarget customers with contextualized messaging based on their digital behavior, hesitations or frustrations
3. Recover at-risk customers by sending more relevant and empathetic communications at the right time—and the right place

Real-time marketing notifications and messaging from Braze to a user who abandoned their cart

Use Contentsquare and Braze to optimize your customer experience in 2024

Continuously improving the user experience is the key to driving customer engagement, retention and loyalty. Combining digital experience insight platforms like Contentsquare with advanced customer engagement analytics platforms like Braze ensures seamless cross-channel marketing, precise data insights and effective campaign management. This helps brands prioritize their time and resources to drive more product innovation, curate memorable user interactions and refine their marketing tactics for maximum results.