New Report From Cheetah Digital Reveals What Customers Expect From Brands Post-Pandemic

Cheetah Digital, a cross-channel relationship management solution provider for the modern marketer, unveiled the five key trends shaping the state of relationship marketing in the year ahead with the release of its 2022 Global Digital Consumer Trends Index.

Billy Loizou, Vice President of Go-To-Market APAC at Cheetah Digital, explains.

In conjunction with eConsultancy, the global report looks at consumer attitudes and year over year trends in personalisation, privacy, messaging, advertising and brand loyalty based on survey insights collected from over 5,400 consumers across six countries including the US, UK, Australia, Japan, Spain, France and Ireland.

The report details consumer preferences including:

• What they expect from the brands they buy from;
• The channels and formats they prefer to communicate
• The type of data they’re willing to share; and
• The terms under which they’re willing to share it.

Key takeaways at a glance

1. Protection of Privacy is On The Rise

As privacy regulations sweep the globe and data breaches continue to dominate news cycles, consumers are more privacy conscious than ever online. We have seen huge rises in those turning to incognito browsing (50 per cent increase), a PC cleaner (48 per cent increase), password generator (40 per cent increase), ad blocking tech (37 per cent increase), paid for premium software (31 per cent increase), and a password manager 31 per cent increase).

2. Use Data But With Permission

While most consumers will trade personal data for personalised content, they prefer brands only use data that they’ve explicitly shared directly to the brand (zero-party data). Other tactics are considered “creepy.” Among the creepiest are: ads based on location data (67 per cent), retargeting ads derived from tracking cookies (62 per cent), and ads related to something they discussed near a smart device (61 per cent).

3. Brand Loyalty Comes With Conditions

57 per cent of consumers say they are prepared to pay more to buy from a preferred brand, with loyalty metrics spiking across the board. Among the growing reasons they stay loyal are when brands understand customers as individuals (110 per cent increase), treat their data with respect (71 per cent increase), align with their personal values (58 per cent increase) and offer admirable loyalty programs (55 per cent increase).

4. Contests, Sweepstakes and Exclusive Access is in Demand

Consumers’ expectations of the loyalty programs are maturing, with a desire for contests and sweepstakes increasing 73 per cent, exclusive access and content increasing 58 per cent, and personalised product recommendations increasing 56 per cent.

5. Email Reigns

When it comes to driving sales, email remains one of the most effective channels, beating banner ads, social media ads, organic posts, and SMS by up to 108 per cent. Half of consumers report purchasing a product directly as a result of an email they received in the last 12 months.

A critical time to recalibrate

This data comes at a critical time, as the effects of the pandemic continue to reverberate throughout the marketing landscape. While some consumer behaviours and attitudes remained the same, many others changed — and quickly. Shifts that once took years to emerge are taking place in a matter of weeks, pushing brands to arm themselves with the latest data to keep up, and respond appropriately.

“The path to customer acquisition has evolved from a relatively straightforward train track to a bowl of spaghetti, with multiple channels and formats to navigate,” said Tim Glomb, Vice President of Content at Cheetah Digital.

“Brands can no longer get away with lumping customers into segments, but rather must treat them as individuals. This requires developing authentic relationships, offering real value exchange, and interpreting the right customer signals at the right time in the right channel. That’s a lot to absorb, but the Consumer Trends Index is designed to help.”

“This report offers brands an extraordinary opportunity to assess their ability to create and execute campaigns that meet and exceed consumers’ growing demand for more personalisation, more privacy and a deeper relationship with the brands they know and trust,” Glomb said.

“How brands respond will impact their bottom line in both the short and long term.”

The 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Index is free to download and can be accessed here.

Cheetah Digital is also hosting a series of webinars to delve deeper into the report’s findings, analyse the trends highlighted and offer actionable recommendations on next steps:

• “Key Consumer Trends Driving Purchase Decisions: 30 data points marketers must understand to drive revenue.” Click here to register.
• “30 Consumer Trends Across 4 Demographics.” Click here to register.

Methodology

The 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Index shares insight from 5,404 consumers across six countries (Australia, France, Japan, Spain, the U.K. and Ireland, and the U.S.) as well as by age group (18-24, 25-39, 40-54, and 55-75), gender and annual household income ($0-$25,000, $25,001-$50,000, $50,001-$75,000, $75,001-$100,000, $100,001-$150,000 and over $150,000) to help digital strategists and decision-makers understand how these issues fit together to build more meaningful and lasting relationships between brand and buyer.

The format for this version of the report focuses mainly on a global view across all demographics.

Be sure to visit www.cheetahdigital.com for additional findings from the research focused on the differences in attitudes among varying age groups, along with a U.S.-only data report (both scheduled for late spring 2022).

About Cheetah Digital

Cheetah Digital is a cross-channel customer engagement solution provider for the modern marketer. The Cheetah Digital Customer Engagement Suite enables marketers to create personalised experiences, cross-channel messaging, and loyalty strategies, underpinned by an engagement data platform that can scale to meet the changing demands of today’s consumer.

Many of the world’s best brands, including Starbucks, Hilton, Neiman Marcus, Levi’s, and Williams-Sonoma trust Cheetah Digital to help them drive revenue, build lasting customer relationships, and deliver a unique value exchange throughout the customer lifecycle.

To learn more, visit www.cheetahdigital.com.