Dubai: MoEngage, the insights-led customer engagement platform, released the findings of The State of ILE Report 2022 | Middle East Edition. The report indicates the importance of actionable insights into customer behavior to build an impactful engagement strategy and provide a delightful customer experience.

Digital adoption in the Middle East is growing exponentially with a huge shift in customer preferences and buying behavior. Almost 67% of customers have shifted to digital channels to engage with brands. Therefore, marketers must design different engagement strategies focusing on digital interaction and ramp up their omnichannel customer engagement strategies. 

In well-timed research, MoEngage surveyed 2000+ male and female marketers, product managers, and C-level executives in the Middle East (from five industries: Banking and Fintech, Media and Entertainment, Consumer Shopping, Ed-Tech, and Hotel & Grocery) to understand their approach to customer engagement, the insights they currently analyze, and the engagement platforms they are utilizing.

Key Findings:  

● Almost 26% of the brands in the Middle East prefer CRM platforms, closely followed by Customer Data Platforms (CDP) and Multichannel Customer Engagement platforms (CEPs).

● The top challenge for  almost 39% of marketers was gathering ‘real-time analytics’ while ‘lack of understanding around which channels are most effective’ was the second most arduous issue (@18%). Other concerns were around inactionable data and the inability to personalize customer experiences.  

● Nearly 44% of marketers claimed that their marketing, social and mobile teams are working in silos and engaging with customers separately. Almost 28% also said that teams within brands conducted joint planning but separate execution. 

How Marketers Are Drawing the Insights

● Insights considered: Only one in four respondent companies said they measure time, capital, and resources to assess interest, choice, or affinity. This was closely followed by customer demographic data, such as name, age, and location. Only (14%-18%) claimed that their brands are studying other aspects of customer insights such as preferred channel, the probability to purchase, churn or hibernate, and segment personas.

● Communication personalization: Communication with customers is driven by customer attributes like language, channel, and content affinity, and 29% analyze behavioral-based data like recent, frequency, and monetary value (RCM). However, only 10% of the brands utilize data around churn and dormancy, while 7% prefer to use patterns of segments for personalized communication.

● Different attributes by different industries:  Media and Entertainment, Education, and Hospitality industries utilize customer attributes for personalized communication, whereas Banking and Finance and Consumer Shopping prefer behavioral-based data.

● Customer journey and engagement campaigns: Around 44% of marketers consider ‘most optimum path to conversion’ as their go-to data point while measuring journey insights, followed by drop-off moments (30%) and delightful/aha moments (26%).

● Business impact of insights: While less than half of the marketers stated that they have improved their metrics, 32% of marketers claimed that the insights they gathered were ineffective. Almost 29% of marketers were undecided about the answer. 

● Channel touchpoints used: Across all verticals and brands, the most frequently used touchpoints in a digital, omnichannel strategy remain Email, Social Messaging Apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger), and SMS. Almost 27% of marketers are using various digital channels such as social, web, and mobile, to send personalized product or content recommendations. Close to 26% of them also use these channels to educate customers, and about 31% of survey respondents prioritize channels for communication based on customer preference, closely followed by the performance of each channel (30.9%) and competitor analysis and industry best practices (30%). At the same time, factors such as behavioral attributes to figure out a channel and time preference remain the lowest at almost 8%.

Brands have to draw insights from various forms of data and their current tech stack can be a limiting factor to that. Marketers and brands need to shift to an insights-led customer engagement platform to stay relevant and create hyper-personalized experiences.

Keeping customer preferences in mind while deciding on the preferred channel is a good practice adopted by marketers. However, brands will need to draw campaign insights from attributes, purchases, likes, and clicks as well instead of just engaging customer segments. However, pivoting on just the campaign-centric insights might provide a skewed analysis.

This is where CEP goes a step further and helps build a unified customer profile and drive a personalized, omnichannel experience for customers. It removes siloed operations by bringing data from different sources under one umbrella, assisting teams to have a 360-degree view of customers.

Commenting on the relevance of the report, Kunal Badiani, Regional Head, MEA, MoEngage said: “As digital touchpoints evolve and the market becomes hyper-competitive, brands have to capture relevant data insights to provide personalized experiences with the help of new-gen technologies like analytics and predictions. Brands that adopt the right tech stack by shifting to an insights-led customer engagement platform stay relevant by knowing what their customers really want!”

 About MoEngage

MoEngage is an insights-led customer engagement platform, trusted by more than 1,200 global consumer brands such as Azadea, Landmark, GMG, Brands For Less, Mashreq Bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Batelco, and more. MoEngage empowers marketers and product owners with insights into customer behavior and the ability to act on those insights to engage customers across the web, mobile, email, social, and messaging channels. Consumer brands across 35 countries use MoEngage to power digital experiences for over 1 billion customers every month. With offices in ten countries, MoEngage is backed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, B Capital, Steadview Capital, Multiples Private Equity, Eight Roads, F-Prime Capital, Matrix Partners, Ventureast, and Helion Ventures.

To learn more, visit www.moengage.com