This week, MMW was privy to the findings of a fascinating new report from Kitewheel, provider of the leading Customer Journey Hub for brands and agencies.
The company has just released its annual State of the Customer Journey Report for 2017.
“This global analysis covers more than two billion customer interactions across the key vertical industries using the Kitewheel Hub through 2014, 2015 and 2016,” the official announcement reads.
So what did we learn?
The report not only underscores the growing popularity of customer journeys as a winning model for customer engagement — with total interactions quadrupling year-over-year — but also uncovers a number of key market trends.
Key Highlights From Kitewheel’s State of the Customer Journey 2017 include:
- Total journey interactions quadrupled between 2015 and 2016 as marketers ramp up their embrace of an integrated, omni-channel customer journey approach
- Customer Journey AdTech — the delivery of targeted and personalized ads synchronized with other channel interactions — was the fastest growing channel, rising 14x year-on-year
- IoT, thanks to the unprecedented scale it offers, accounts for almost 30% of all interactions on Kitewheel’s platform
- Social interactions are down sharply – accounting for only 5% of the overall mix in 2016, from 75% in 2014 — due to a decline in social listening for lead acquisition tactics
- Email interactions in 2016 grew 12x over 2015, highlighting marketers’ increased focus on this channel for personalized and targeted communication
- Retail marketing is getting truly omni-channel — growing 300% between 2015 and 2016 and using an ever-richer channel mix
- Customer Journey use cases that align with customer growth, such as loyalty and cross-sell, are growing faster (400%) than those focused on customer acquisition (28%) or conversion (119%)
“As journey interactions on our platform continue to grow at an exponential rate, we’re seeing a major shift in marketers’ behavior as they embrace a data-driven, omni-channel customer journey approach,” said Mark Smith, President of Kitewheel. “While only a few years ago, most journey marketers were mostly focused on uncovering potential new customers, today’s overwhelming focus is on the later stages of the path to purchase, where highly personalized engagement leads to more consistent ROI.”
To learn more, download the free report here.