The second annual Braze 2022 Customer Engagement Review reaffirms that customer engagement is made possible through real-time data collection, orchestration and activation.
With major tech titans tightening data privacy features in 2021, we’re seeing more brands invest in Zero- and First Party Data Strategies and with that “brands listed customer data platforms (CDPs) as a top area for increased investment during 2022, reflecting a renewed focus on holistic data management”.
But it’s not just the age-old Signal Loss challenge that CDP solves for. We’re also embarking on a new reality where customer engagement happens in a Metaverse environment, where cross-channel commerce is tracked through NFTs and predictive analytics are hyper-tuned to micro events.
Looking to CDPs to drive customer engagement today is a #1 business imperative, but what the Braze 2022 Customer Engagement Review really tells us is that it is just further infrastructure development, as exponentially more complex media and marketing mixes become brass tacks. We can see this illustrated in a few different areas of the report:
Brands who are confident in customer engagement exceed revenue goals
“On average, each additional channel you add to your messaging mix results in 4.3X more purchases per user and a 2.8X lift in likelihood to buy.”
The customer journey is only getting more complex and nuanced, and brands must continue to meet their customers wherever they are to exceed revenue goals. As complexity mounts, the collection, unification and activation of behavioral data across channels becomes even more important.
As third-party data declines, zero and first-party data becomes more essential
Brands who have not taken action to reclaim their data strategy from 3rd party sources are already (way) behind the competition, but this is yesterday’s news.
In the Braze 2022 Customer Engagement Review we learn that due to the retirement of third-party cookies and new consumer-centric privacy features, “96% of brands plan to increase their marketing budgets, with 42% boosting how many channels they use and 38% putting more emphasis on zero-party (i.e. shared by users) and first-party (i.e. gathered with user consent) data collection methods.”
With the privacy wars waging amongst tech titans, consumers are also becoming more savvy about how their data is being used. With that, expectations for more frictionless, consented and personalized experiences will also grow.
Data management is now the top challenge for brands
This couldn’t be better illustrated than in the Health & Wellness vertical where challenges around data sensitivities related to HIPAA, and the way that Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI) can be collected are a continuous strain on accelerating digital strategies and transformation.
As preferred partners, Tealium & Braze together provide a best of breed technology stack solution that is fully HIPAA compliant. The report identifies room for major growth in this sector as we head into 2022; “only 46% of brands [in the Health & Wellness category] stated they exceeded their annual revenue goals, almost 30% lower than the next lowest-scoring industry.”
This vertical has faced more headwinds than any other sector, and in many ways helped set the market with creative technical solutioning that maintains data collection and usage integrity. While there is room for improvement, we owe the advent of Private Cloud and Multi-Tenant solutions to the Healthcare industry.
Right on cue, the Braze 2022 Customer Engagement Review shows market alignment with this in mind, stating “47% have identified CDPs as a top area for investment.” As we see these brands mature across their digital maturity curve through CDP adoption, we can only anticipate further innovation that extends across channels, underscoring the importance of meeting customer expectations and evolving with multifaceted, and expanding, digital ecosystems.
Future-proofing through data is the path forward
More change is on the horizon as technology graduates from an adolescence-stat, to one of immersive and fluid digital environments. The Braze 2022 Customer Engagement Review reinforces that data management and customer engagement continue to hold-strong as key pillars to future-proofing and preparing for what’s next. Our key take-aways:
- Brands who invest in these areas drive more revenue
- Taking a sophisticated approach with best of breed partners protects against regulations while meeting customer expectations for personalization and seamless interactions
- Data management is an unparalleled challenge and the lessons we’ve learned from the Healthcare industry will start to show increased gains while continuing to inspire universal technical roadmaps
To find out more about how Tealium + Braze together help deliver seamless cross-channel strategies, reach out to our partnerships team at jenna.fair@tealium.com, we’d love to chat. For further reading on how our platforms work together today, check out our integrations page.
The full Braze 2022 Customer Engagement Review can be downloaded here.
