New Analysis Shows Most Customer Journey Expansion is in Loyalty and Growth Applications; Total Journey Interactions Quadruple

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Jul 12, 2017) - Kitewheel, provider of the leading Customer Journey Hub for brands and agencies, today announced the release of its annual State of the Customer Journey Report for 2017. This global analysis covers more than two billion customer interactions across the key vertical industries using the Kitewheel Hub through 2014, 2015 and 2016.

The report not only underscores the growing popularity of customer journeys as a winning model for customer engagement -- with total interactions quadrupling year-over-year -- but also uncovers a number of key market trends.

Key Highlights From Kitewheel's State of the Customer Journey 2017

• Total journey interactions quadrupled between 2015 and 2016 as marketers ramp up their embrace of an integrated, omni-channel customer journey approach
• Customer Journey AdTech -- the delivery of targeted and personalized ads synchronized with other channel interactions -- was the fastest growing channel, rising 14x year-on-year
• IoT, thanks to the unprecedented scale it offers, accounts for almost 30% of all interactions on Kitewheel's platform
• Social interactions are down sharply - accounting for only 5% of the overall mix in 2016, from 75% in 2014 -- due to a decline in social listening for lead acquisition tactics
• Email interactions in 2016 grew 12x over 2015, highlighting marketers' increased focus on this channel for personalized and targeted communication
• Retail marketing is getting truly omni-channel -- growing 300% between 2015 and 2016 and using an ever-richer channel mix
• Customer Journey use cases that align with customer growth, such as loyalty and cross-sell, are growing faster (400%) than those focused on customer acquisition (28%) or conversion (119%)

New Analysis: Use Cases Shift Towards Growth & Loyalty

This year's report broke down the customer journey data into three use case classes -- customer acquisition, conversion and growth. The findings reveal that growth use cases are rising rapidly, with total volume increasing almost five times year-over-year, while acquisition and conversion use cases continue to grow steadily but more slowly. As a result, more than 75% of all interactions on the Kitewheel platform are now geared towards growth use cases, underscoring a rise in data-driven, personalized channels that allow marketers to leverage existing relationships with consumers.

"As journey interactions on our platform continue to grow at an exponential rate, we're seeing a major shift in marketers' behavior as they embrace a data-driven, omni-channel customer journey approach," said Mark Smith, President of Kitewheel. "While only a few years ago, most journey marketers were mostly focused on uncovering potential new customers, today's overwhelming focus is on the later stages of the path to purchase, where highly personalized engagement leads to more consistent ROI."

For an in-depth breakdown and analysis of interaction data from Kitewheel's Customer Journey Hub over the past three years, download the free report here.

Methodology

Kitewheel analyzed and compared more than two billion interactions across the retail, auto, travel, healthcare, insurance and healthcare industries from its industry-leading Customer Journey Hub. Data from 2014, 2015 and 2016 was organized by use cases -- acquisition, conversion and growth -- as well as by channel including email, web, IoT, AdTech and social media. Findings reflect the marketing strategies of Kitewheel's broad customer base, primarily addressed through around thirty of the world's top marketing agencies.

About Kitewheel

Kitewheel orchestrates intelligent customer journeys by unifying decisions across all touch points for brands and their agencies. Kitewheel's innovative Customer Journey Hub visually unifies disparate systems, touch points and technologies to provide seamless customer experiences that drive real-time revenue as well as long term loyalty.

Kitewheel has more than 30 of the world's leading marketing agencies as active partners, including the top six agency groups Omnicom, IPG, WPP, Publicis, Dentsu and Havas, and was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2014 and a Visionary in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Hubs. Kitewheel serves its global partner and client base from offices in Boston, New York City and London. For more information, please visit www.kitewheel.com and follow Kitewheel on Twitter and LinkedIn.