Understanding Customer Engagement

How to Map and Make Sense of the Metrics that Matter

Customer engagement is a priority for most companies today. But because no two customers travel the same purchase journey, there is no single definition—or action plan—for driving customer engagement. Yet companies successfully making sense of customer engagement tend to approach it from a similar framework.

  • The most successful companies that understand and measure customer engagement have several things in common. First, they identify customer engagement goals at the business level, then at the campaign level. Once those goals are set, most then map each of the metrics required to measure that goal for each respective touchpoint and phase of the purchase journey.
  • That framework is then used to measure customer engagement. However, even companies with the right metrics and goals can fail if they don’t have the following: an advanced attribution practice; a data-driven, customer-centric strategy; and a rethinking of the sales funnel as a loop, not a linear journey.
  • Why approach customer engagement in this manner? Companies that do see better audience segmentation, personalization and greater insight into the metrics that truly matter for driving company-level objectives such as lifetime value (LTV) and loyalty.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report contains a framework for making sense of customer engagement metrics at one’s organization. It shares requirements for putting that framework to use and gives examples of companies successfully navigating customer engagement efforts.

KEY STAT: Increasing engagement was a top objective for more than half of the marketing professionals in North America looking to enhance the customer experience, according to a January 2018 poll conducted by the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) and Winterberry Group.

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25expert perspectives

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Table of Contents

  1. What Customer Engagement Is And Why It Matters?
  2. Customer Engagement: A Multilevel Framework
  3. Putting the Framework to Work
  4. A Data-Driven, Customer-Centric View
  1. Putting It into Practice
  2. Key Takeaways
  3. Related eMarketer Reports
  4. Related Links
  1. eMarketer Interviews
  2. Media Gallery

Interviewed for This Report

Laurence Blanchard
360i
Group Strategy Director
Interviewed March 21, 2018
Chris Chobanian
360i
Senior Director, Digital Analytics
Interviewed March 21, 2018
Nathalie Choy
Kia Motors America
National Manager, Digital, Social and CRM Marketing
Interviewed March 16, 2018
Randi Cohen
Neo@Ogilvy
Head of Analytics, North America
Interviewed March 21, 2018
Lisa Henderson
Epsilon
Managing Director and Chief Client Officer
Interviewed March 23, 2018
Ashwin Navin
Samba TV
Co-Founder and CEO
Interviewed March 20, 2018
Ikechi Okoronkwo
Mindshare North America
Director, Marketing Sciences
Interviewed April 6, 2018
Jennifer Zeszut
Beckon
Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer
Interviewed March 23, 2018
Sunil Bhagwan
AppsFlyer
Vice President, Sales, North America
Interviewed March 16, 2018
Edwin Bragg
Shake Shack
Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Interviewed March 15, 2018
Dr. Peter Cain
Marketscience Consulting
Founder and Managing Director
Interviewed March 26, 2018
David Dixon
Truesight Consulting
Co-Founder and CEO
Interviewed March 26, 2018
Mike Isabella
Timberland
Director, Consumer Engagement
Interviewed March 26, 2018
Lindsay Kaplan
Casper
Vice President, Communications and Content
Interviewed March 23, 2018
Glenn Kiladis
ViralGains
Vice President, Product and Strategy
Interviewed March 16, 2018
Charles Manning
Kochava
Founder and CEO
Interviewed March 19, 2018
Courtney McKlveen
Oath
Head of US Field Sales
Interviewed March 16, 2018
Jasper Radeke
AppsFlyer
Director, Marketing, North America
Interviewed March 16, 2018
Jeff Ratner
iCrossing
Chief Media Officer
Interviewed March 16, 2018
Paul Sacco
Southwest Airlines
Director, Customer Intelligence and Distribution
Interviewed March 30, 2018
Sebastian Shapiro
Truesight Consulting
Co-Founder and Partner
Interviewed March 26, 2018
Graham Stanton
Peloton
Co-Founder
Interviewed March 28, 2018
Jay Stocki
Experian
Senior Vice President, Data and Product
Interviewed March 28, 2018
Mark Weinstein
Hilton
Senior Vice President and Global Head of Customer Engagement, Loyalty and Partnerships
Interviewed March 21, 2018
Jay Curley
Ben & Jerry’s
Global Head of Integrated Marketing
Interviewed March 20, 2018

authors

Lauren Fisher

Contributors

Caroline Cakebread
Junior Analyst
Andrew Lipsman
Principal Analyst
Patricia Orsini
Senior Analyst
Nicole Perrin
Principal Analyst
Tracy Tang
Senior Researcher
Yoram Wurmser
Principal Analyst

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