The Customer Marketing Gap

Consumers and marketers agree that product quality matters, but they diverge sharply on what matters beyond it. Price is consumers’ leading consideration at 56%, yet only 24% of marketers believe it is a top factor—a 32-point gap.

Marketers also underestimate the importance of fast delivery (17% vs. 34% of consumers), while placing considerably greater weight on brand trust (43% vs. 20%) and product quality (60% vs. 48%).

The findings suggest marketers may view purchase decisions through a more brand-led lens, while consumers are more pragmatic, prioritizing price, quality and fulfillment. Price sensitivity is also consistent across generations, peaking at 62% among Gen X.

Consumers and marketers agree on the importance of product reviews, but their priorities diverge elsewhere. Nearly half of consumers value saved carts (48%) and faster checkout (48%), while marketers place far greater emphasis on relevant product recommendations (61% vs. 32% of consumers).

The biggest disconnect is the saved cart: just 15% of marketers believe it has a major impact on conversion, compared with 48% of consumers who say it makes shopping easier.

The findings suggest consumers often experience personalization through its utility: remembering their journey, removing friction and helping them complete a purchase. Generational differences reinforce this. 42% of Gen Z value personalized homepages compared with 13% of Boomers, while 47% of Boomers value price-drop alerts compared with 19% of Gen Z.

Email remains consumers' clear preferred channel for brand communication at 82%, followed by SMS at 64%. Marketers recognize the importance of email at 73%, but they significantly underestimate SMS, with just 47% believing consumers want brands to use it.

The biggest disconnect is social media. 74% of marketers believe consumers want brands to communicate with them through social channels, compared with just 39% of consumers. Marketers also overestimate mobile app notifications (70% vs. 53%). Age matters, particularly for social media: preference rises from 19% among Boomers to 53% among Gen Z. Yet email remains the leading channel across every generation, suggesting direct, permission-based communication continues to have broad appeal.

Consumers and marketers agree exactly on the strongest incentive for sharing an email address or mobile number: exclusive discounts, selected by 32% of both groups. Loyalty rewards rank second, although marketers place somewhat greater emphasis on them (29% vs. 22% of consumers).

Personalized recommendations are a weaker incentive than marketers expect, selected by 8% of consumers compared with 13% of marketers. This suggests consumers are more likely to identify themselves in exchange for a clear, tangible benefit than the promise of personalization alone.

The value exchange also varies by age. Gen X is most motivated by exclusive discounts (39%), while Gen Z shows greater interest in benefits such as faster checkout and personalized recommendations (16% each).

Discounts are consumers’ strongest reason to pay attention to brand messages, selected by 50%, yet only 26% of marketers see them as a leading engagement driver. Instead, marketers place greater emphasis on product interest (42%), brand trust (40%) and relevance (38%).

Product interest is a point of closer alignment (36% of consumers vs. 42% of marketers), while marketers also place nearly twice as much weight on personalization itself (29% vs. 15%). Marketers underestimate the importance of reaching consumers at the right moment. Just 8% of marketers believe timing has the greatest impact on whether consumers engage with a marketing message, compared with 18% of consumers, and 23% of Gen Z. While marketers place greater emphasis on factors such as product interest, brand trust and personalization, consumers are signaling that when a message arrives can be as important as what it says.

The findings reinforce a pattern seen throughout the research: consumers respond to tangible value and demonstrated interest, while marketers tend to place greater weight on the marketing concepts behind the experience.

AI adoption is already widespread among marketers. Customer service and chatbots lead current or planned use cases at 54%, followed by predictive analytics at 49% and product recommendations at 43%. Just 2% of marketers say they are not using or planning to use AI.

Consumers are far less convinced of the benefit. Only 16% say AI improves their shopping experience, while 27% say they don’t trust AI to personalize their experience. Another 26% say AI can be helpful, but only when brands are transparent about how it is being used.

The disconnect suggests that AI adoption is moving faster than perceived customer value. Marketers are investing in AI to predict behavior, automate interactions and personalize experiences, but consumers are judging those capabilities by a simpler standard: does the experience actually become more useful, trustworthy or convenient?

Consumers place the greatest value on messages with a clear, practical benefit. Discounts lead at 72%, followed by price-drop alerts at 58% and order updates at 47%. Loyalty rewards follow at 32%, while product recommendations (24%) and new product launches (25%) have more selective appeal.

Age reveals a broader opportunity beyond promotions. While discounts and price-drop alerts become more important with age, younger consumers are more receptive to discovery and availability messages. Gen Z is more likely than Boomers to value product recommendations (31% vs. 18%), back-in-stock alerts (36% vs. 14%) and new product launches (32% vs. 17%).

The findings suggest that valuable communication is less about staying visible and more about giving customers a useful reason to engage at the right moment.

Consumers are more likely to trust personalized experiences when they understand and control how their data is used. Clear explanations of data use lead at 46%, followed by control over preferences and only using information consumers have shared directly, both at 41%. Easy ways to opt out are similarly important at 39%.

By contrast, just 18% say genuinely relevant recommendations would increase their trust. The findings suggest that relevance alone is not enough: consumers want transparency, permission and agency over how personalization works.

These expectations are broadly shared across generations, although Gen Z places particularly strong emphasis on brands only using information they have shared directly (48%).

Customer acquisition remains marketers’ leading priority at 51%, but growth is not solely about winning new customers. Retention ranks second at 39%, followed by marketing efficiency at 30% and customer lifetime value at 22%.

Yet more specific measures of deepening existing relationships rank lower, with repeat purchases and loyalty engagement both at 18%. This suggests marketers are balancing an increasingly broad growth mandate, acquiring customers while also getting greater value from the relationships and investment they already have.

Priorities also vary by seniority and function: SVPs place the greatest emphasis on acquisition (56%), while CMOs show stronger focus on marketing efficiency, reflecting the different growth pressures facing strategic and functional leaders.

Marketers place the greatest value on signals that reveal what customers have actually done. Purchase history and browsing behavior lead equally at 51%, making them the most used sources of data for personalization.

These signals give marketers a clearer picture of both established preferences and current intent. Purchase history shows what a customer has previously valued, while browsing behavior can reveal what they may be interested in now, creating opportunities to make experiences more relevant throughout the customer journey. Seniority and function shape which behavioral signals marketers value most: SVPs lean heavily toward established purchase history, while CMOs, and especially eCommerce teams, place greater emphasis on browsing behavior as a signal of current customer intent.

The findings reinforce a broader theme of the research: effective personalization depends on understanding the signals that reveal what matters to each customer. Behavioral data can provide valuable indicators of current intent, while other customer data can add important context around preferences and needs. Bringing these signals together can help brands make smarter decisions about what to communicate, when to communicate and how to make each interaction more relevant.

No single barrier dominates, but marketers’ biggest personalization challenges center on customer data. Limited customer data and data spread across too many systems jointly lead at 19%, followed by privacy and compliance concerns at 15% and difficulty measuring ROI at 12%.

By contrast, just 5% cite limited internal resources and 3% lack of executive buy-in, suggesting the problem is less about organizational appetite for personalization and more about having the connected data needed to deliver it effectively.

The challenge is particularly pronounced among teams responsible for activating customer data. Fragmented data rises to 33% among Lifecycle Marketing, 30% among CRM and 27% among eCommerce, while 30% of eCommerce marketers also cite limited customer data.

Marketers see more accurate customer data as the capability with the greatest potential impact at 42%, followed by improved personalization at 37%. Better identity resolution and AI capabilities tie at 27%, while cross-channel orchestration reaches 19%.

The hierarchy suggests that marketers see stronger customer understanding as the foundation for better performance. Accurate data and identity help brands understand who customers are and what they want, creating the foundation for more effective personalization and AI.

Priorities vary by leadership and function. Improved personalization rises to 48% among VPs and 44% among SVPs, while AI capabilities reach 39% among CMOs. Marketing Operations places particularly strong emphasis on both accurate customer data (43%) and personalization (42%).

AI-powered personalization leads at 59%, followed by predictive analytics at 47%. Cross-channel customer journeys (38%) and real-time marketing (37%) form a second tier of priorities, suggesting marketers expect the future to be defined by more intelligent, responsive customer experiences.

Confidence in AI-powered personalization is broad across leadership and functions, reaching 67% among SVPs and 65% among VPs, as well as 62% in eCommerce and 61% in Marketing Operations. The findings point toward AI becoming less of a standalone capability and more of an engine for understanding intent and acting on it across the customer journey.