Australian consumers are increasingly disengaging from brand communications that fail to feel timely or relevant, as new research highlights a growing gap between marketing intent and execution across Australia.
The 2026 SAP Engagement Index from SAP shows that 58 per cent of Australians say most brand emails are irrelevant, while just 16 per cent report reading subject lines at all.
At the same time, 46 per cent of consumers say they now care less about the brand itself and more about the overall experience, underscoring a shift in how loyalty and attention are being earned – or lost.
The findings come as brands continue to increase the volume of messages across email, mobile and digital channels. However, SAP warns that rising output is not translating into better engagement, with fragmented data systems, disconnected platforms and siloed teams preventing true personalisation from being delivered in real time.
Instead, many so-called personalised messages are arriving out of context – disconnected from live customer behaviour, service interactions or purchase intent – and are therefore being ignored.
Despite this, consumers are still responding positively when relevance is achieved. The research found that 60 per cent of Australians value localised content, 54 per cent appreciate highly personalised engagement, and 56 per cent want personalised product recommendations, indicating that attention is still available for brands that can deliver it in the moment.
“The divide we see isn’t creativity or ambition,” said Sara Richter, CMO of SAP Emarsys. “When customer, operational and content systems don’t talk to each other, engagement becomes guesswork. That problem only grows as we move towards agent-driven shopping, where relevance is decided instantly.”
Richter said the core issue is no longer strategic understanding of personalisation, but operational execution – with many organisations unable to act on live data quickly enough to influence customer experience while it still matters.
The challenge is becoming more pressing as artificial intelligence reshapes how consumers discover and evaluate products in real time. SAP’s research suggests that brands unable to respond dynamically risk becoming invisible in increasingly automated, intent-driven environments.
That shift is also reflected in SAP’s expanding partnership with Google Cloud, which is focused on helping marketers unify customer data and activate insights faster across SAP CX systems and AI tools such as Joule with Gemini Enterprise. The integration is designed to allow brands to move from insight to action in real time, rather than reacting after engagement opportunities have passed.
“For marketers, this isn’t about sending more messages,” Richter added. “It’s about using AI to turn live signals into meaningful experiences at scale. Brands that can do that will stand out; those that can’t will increasingly be ignored.”
In the retail sector, Freedom Furniture points to the operational complexity driving the need for more advanced systems. “When you’re managing 70,000 products and customers expect tailored experiences across every touchpoint, AI-driven enterprise-wide solutions aren’t optional – they’re operational,” said Federico Jalil.
“The scale of what customers demand has simply outgrown traditional tools and human effort alone.”
