CleverTap, the digital marketing platform specializing in user retention and engagement, has just published a report on the top five trends that could define the customer marketing and engagement market in 2025. The material offers insights into the strategies companies should adopt next year to succeed in business.
Once celebrated, Generative AI (GenAI) saw the excitement around it diminish in just one year. With that, here are some of the key customer engagement and retention trends that will certainly impact 2025:
- From ‘push’ to ‘pull’: The wave of interactions driven by GenAI
With the mass adoption of GenAI in 2024, communication became customer-led. Industries witnessed a shift, with consumers using queries as the primary way to interact with brands. In 2025, this movement will solidify even further, moving from click-and-touch-driven interactions (push) to dynamic experiences based on conversational prompts and driven by GenAI (pull). Despite the reduction in touchpoints for marketers, the quality of interactions will become more important as companies learn to optimize them. GenAI will continue to increase efficiency, allowing brands to gain real-time insights and feedback, making improvements more effectively and quickly.
- Personalization versus privacy: Balancing the approach
Personalization is essential for marketers. However, for today’s customers, hyper-personalization only works when it’s contextual and transparent. Thus, marketers will need to adopt an approach that prioritizes privacy when creating meaningful experiences. Investing in mechanisms for first-party and zero-party data collection will be key. By prioritizing transparency and protecting user data, companies can strengthen customer trust and loyalty.
- Martech evolution: From a fixed tech stack to a living cartography
The Martech landscape is rapidly changing to meet new demands, but many companies still operate with fragmented technologies, composed of isolated tools. This creates challenges, as the failure of one effective solution can cause a domino effect across the entire system. The concept of ‘living cartography’ emerges as a promising solution. This approach envisions a dynamic, interconnected ecosystem where tools adapt and evolve in real time. For marketers, this means greater agility to meet growing customer demands.
- The rise of AI agents
AI agents represent the next evolution in this scenario and are expected to grow significantly in 2025. They go beyond basic responses, enabling smarter interactions. Companies will invest in this type of functionality to analyze sentiment in real time, personalize recommendations, and provide 24/7 multilingual support. Additionally, we will see AI profiles for marketers in activities such as customer support and sales. These so-called ‘copilots’ will give companies a competitive edge by automating tasks and optimizing workflows.
- Focus on retention over acquisition
The current economic and geopolitical situation, along with shifts in customer priorities, has made acquiring new users more expensive and challenging. As a result, companies are recognizing the value of consumer loyalty, replacing the ‘growth at any cost’ mindset with a focus on retention. Beyond hyper-personalization, brands will continue to innovate in their loyalty programs and incentives to meet expectations.
Anand Jain, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at CleverTap, comments:
“The promise of AI in marketing will truly come to life in 2025, evolving from a mere disruptor to a trusted enabler, fostering authentic, customer-led engagement. As brands face this new paradigm, success will depend on genuine connections and balancing personalization with privacy, while remaining adaptable to customer demands. At CleverTap, we remain committed to guiding companies through these transformations, helping them advance their capabilities and build lasting, meaningful relationships with their customers.”
Click here to download the report: The Customer Engagement Crystal Ball: Top Trends to Watch Out for in 2025.
