The top customer marketing trends to expect in 2024

As we approach 2024, economic uncertainty, tightening data privacy laws, and the impact of AI are at the forefront of every brand’s mind. But amid these challenges lies new opportunities to innovate, personalize, and redefine the customer experience.

In this blog post, we tap into the expertise of Jason Davis, Simon Data’s Co-Founder & CEO, and our partners to learn what trends lie ahead and how marketers can adapt and implement new strategies to succeed next year. Our panel of experts includes:

• Steven Aldrich, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Ragnorak
• Brant Cebulla, Co-Founder, Scalero
• Onil Gunawardana, Head of MarTech and Customer Data, Snowflake
• Will Pearson, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Scalero
• Sara Varni, CMO at Attentive
• Scott Zakrajsek, VP of Data Intelligence, Power Digital

Navigating marketing budget constraints

Across all industries, marketing budgets will continue to shrink, so companies will seek to streamline their operations and force marketers to develop innovative solutions that have the same impact on the business as they would with a large budget.

One way to streamline processes and stretch the marketing budget, argue Will Pearson and Brant Cebulla of Scalero, is to reduce the number of software platforms marketing teams use in 2024, creating an opportunity for platforms that offer comprehensive solutions and eliminate the need for multiple tools — like CDPs — to shine.“The expectation in marketing tools, including CDPs, is that the more they can do, the better. Consolidation streamlines their workflows and makes budgeting simpler,” says Brant.

In addition, marketers should also look to leverage AI within marketing operations, campaigns, and execution to help smaller budgets go further.

“CDPs like Simon that have a warehouse-centric approach are the real lifeline here. Budget pressure isn’t just on marketing — it’s across all functions, and showing ROI for all areas of investment is critical,” says Jason at Simon. “Zero-copy warehouse approaches win on both sides by aligning marketing and data tech investments for cost reductions, as well as bringing a next-generation of personalization to drive incremental conversion rates & ROI.”

In 2024, the keys to marketing success will be simple: Focus on profitability, make smart financial decisions, and be prepared to provide strong financial cases for whatever you need next year.

Data privacy and compliance: A rising tide of regulations

The tightening grip of data privacy regulations, such as GDPR, is another critical trend that will continue into 2024. Europe and consumer expectations in particular are driving significant change when it comes to data privacy, and gone are the days when CDPs and SaaS platforms stored their own data in siloed environments.

So, what does the future look like? Jason’s take is this: “Architectures will need to enable businesses to fully control their data when it comes to how it’s locked down, where it lives, and what is (or more importantly, isn’t) stored.”

Companies that fail to comply with these regulations may face hefty penalties and damage their brand’s reputation, according to Scott at Power Digital. “Data governance and compliance have been creeping up for years, but most brands are way behind. 2024 is the year when brands will need to get serious about how they collect, store, and handle their customers’ first-party data,” he says.

Sara Varni at Attentive agrees. She believes that stricter regulations and consumer expectations will require marketers to find innovative ways to personalize campaigns while respecting privacy boundaries.

Beyond these restrictions, customers are also getting smarter and more empowered when it comes to how their data is managed. Moving forward, brands will need to collect only the minimal data required to make it simple and easy for customers to view, update, and opt out of data sharing, all while ensuring transparency around what and how that data is collected.

Measuring success beyond vanity metrics

In an era of economic uncertainty, marketing efforts must demonstrably contribute to the bottom line. “It sounds obvious, but is your marketing spend driving profit? The cost of capital at the moment is too high for marketers to be operating otherwise,” says Will of Scalero.

Experts emphasize the need for marketers to focus on profitability, thoroughly understanding unit economics, and measuring success through metrics like customer lifetime value (CLTV) and return on investment (ROI) next year.

Of course, customer loyalty and retention will be the name of the game, and Scott at Power Digital suggests that brands will steer away from using deterministic attribution models and “look toward experiment-driven approaches that measure incrementality and provide a more accurate picture of marketing effectiveness.”

“Businesses are going back to the basics. In today’s economy, it’s all about the bottom line. If you run an ecomm business with 20% margins and your acquisition strategy relies on coupons for 15% off, you’re cutting profit on these sales by 75%,” says Jason. “This change is fundamental relative to how marketing measurement works today, and it will require a shift in the data and systems used for measurement.”

Next year, marketers must overcome the challenge of not having access to real-time and granular data by building trusted partnerships or using comprehensive platforms if they want to succeed.

AI: The powerhouse driving efficiency and innovation

AI is no longer just a buzzword, argues Sara at Attentive, and, in 2024, it will revolutionize the way marketing teams work by automating mundane tasks, optimizing campaigns, and generating personalized content.

AI will empower marketers to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, with those who embrace it gaining a significant competitive advantage over those who don’t.

Attentive has already seen the impact of AI within its customer marketing efforts. During BFCM, over 218 million text messages were influenced by AI, and just over 10% of all SMS campaigns were created using Attentive’s AI copy assistant. The benefits far outweigh the downsides, and Attentive has found that:

• AI allows brands to deliver 1:1 messages to each customer, personalizing the experience based on individual behaviors
• Generative AI can be conversational and act like a real person because it looks at a customer's purchase history and preferences and responds with personalized and accurate recommendations using customer data
• Customers are comfortable engaging with AI — 45% of Attentive concierge conversations were powered by AI, delivering a 2.4x higher conversion rate than those powered by humans alone

Looking ahead, AI will provide marketing teams with the opportunity to differentiate and innovate. “In the past, marketers have had to rely on data scientists to pull insights from customer data. But now, with predictive AI marketers can spot key trends, like who is most likely to make a purchase, and send them the right incentive,” explains Sara.

Gen AI is a disruptive force, and businesses are looking to innovate and purchase products that offer AI. “We’ve shipped some foundational features in 2023 that allow our customers to leverage Gen AI for code generation to affect some incredibly powerful personalization,” says Jason at Simon. “The next frontier in Gen AI is 1:1 personalization, which represents the intersection of current content creation workflows that we’re familiar with, coupled with deep access to customer data."

However, embracing AI creates another challenge marketers will need to tackle in 2024: reconciling data privacy regulations with AI ethics to ensure data is being used responsibly. Sara predicts that CMOs and CIOs will need to work together to incorporate AI into their marketing strategies.

Powering the personalized customer experience

In customer marketing, one truth remains unchanged: brands need to know their customers to reach them. In 2024, success will hinge on the ability to access high-quality, real-time data and deliver a 1:1 personalized customer experience.“​​With the growth of the CDP category over the last 2 years, we have seen the underlying quality of data used for marketing is generally not good enough to power deep personalization use cases,” says Steven Aldrich at Ragnarok.“

In 2024, especially with the growth of AI requiring great data to leverage effectively, we expect to see marketers drive change by bringing more transparency to how data is collected organization-wide and to structure it so that it is more actionable for personalization at scale,” he suggests.

Brands that harness AI for personalization power will be able to replicate the in-store sales associate experience online by answering shopper questions and suggesting products as if it were an in-person sales associate. AI is also available 24/7, improving global reach and the potential for more sales, unlike a physical store with limited hours.

When it comes to AI, Onil Gunawardana, Head of MarTech and Customer Data at Snowflake, expects it to impact personalization the most. “We expect AI to have the most significant impact on customer 360s first. Building an intelligent, privacy-first Customer 360 — the first foundational step in the end-to-end enterprise marketing lifecycle — remains one of the biggest challenges for marketers,” says Onil.

Incorporating a CDP into marketing strategies to collect real-time data and ingest it from multiple sources, then provide semantic unification, entity resolution, and fine-grained consent management will significantly improve the personalized experiences marketing teams need to deliver to customers.

Using the combined power of customer data and delivery will also drive cross-collaboration within the business. Steven at Ragnarok expects marketing teams to have increased pressure to deliver more when it comes to the customer experience but will result in more collaboration and shared goals with the product team.

But even with AI rapidly changing how customer marketers work, understanding your customer and crafting compelling brand narratives remains paramount.

Scott at Power Digital stresses the need to differentiate your product through targeted branding and creative, catering specifically to your ideal customer profile (ICP). This requires marketers to go back to the basics of customer marketing, conducting in-depth customer research, and developing a deep understanding of customer needs, desires, and online behavior.

Data quality can be a limiting factor in powering personalization, and that challenge is often unrecognized. Today’s businesses are fully omnichannel, but the data collection, identity modeling, and centralization process is complex.“Ultimately, personalization is an outcome, but it’s limited by the data that’s a core input. Winning businesses will align people and technology in a way that sets their data strategies to drive the right personalized outcomes,” argues Jason at Simon.

Preparing for a new era of customer marketing

As we navigate the dynamic landscape of 2024, marketers must accomplish more with less, adapt to emerging technologies, and focus on delivering measurable results in an increasingly challenging and noisy environment.

By focusing on profitability, harnessing the power of AI, and cultivating 1:1 customer experiences, marketing teams can drive innovation and thrive in 2024.

‍Learn how Simon Data can power customer marketing teams in 2024.