A new report from Wunderkind and Cordial highlights a gap between what consumers value in digital shopping experiences and where marketers are concentrating their efforts. Based on surveys of 1,000 U.S. consumers and 150 U.S.-based senior marketing professionals, The Customer Marketing Gap finds that shoppers prioritize low prices, discounts and convenient checkout experiences, while marketers place greater emphasis on social media, personalized recommendations and AI. The findings suggest that customer marketing strategies may need to put practical value and reduced friction ahead of technology adoption alone.

Price, Discounts and Direct Channels Matter to Consumers

Price is one of the clearest differences between consumer priorities and marketers' assumptions. In the survey, 56% of consumers identified the lowest price as a leading consideration when deciding where to shop online, compared with just 25% of marketers who believed price was a top consideration.

Discounts also influence whether brand communications receive attention. Half of consumers said discounts were among the strongest factors affecting their engagement with brand messages, while only 26% of marketers identified them as important in this context.

The channel findings reveal another disconnect. Email was preferred by 82% of consumers and SMS by 64%. Marketers, meanwhile, placed greater emphasis on social media, with 74% highlighting it compared with 39% of consumers.

The results do not mean brands should abandon social platforms or rely exclusively on promotions. Rather, they suggest marketers should validate channel and incentive strategies against customer preferences instead of assuming that investment priorities match audience behavior.

Convenience May Outweigh More Sophisticated Recommendations

The report also identifies a gap between marketers' confidence in personalization and consumers' experience of its benefits.

While 61% of marketers said relevant product recommendations have a major impact on conversion, only 32% of consumers said recommendations make shopping easier. Consumers gave more weight to practical conveniences: 48% valued saved carts and an equal share valued faster checkout.

That distinction is important for marketing and commerce teams. Personalization can help shoppers discover relevant products, but it may have limited value if the purchasing process remains slow or requires customers to repeat information.

The findings support evaluating personalization alongside usability and conversion performance. Saved carts, simpler checkout flows and relevant messaging can be measured against outcomes such as completed purchases and abandoned transactions, rather than judged by the sophistication of the underlying technology.

AI Adoption Faces a Consumer Trust Test

AI is another area where marketer expectations run ahead of reported consumer sentiment. According to the survey, 59% of marketers expect AI-powered personalization to have the greatest impact on customer marketing over the next three years. Yet just 16% of consumers said AI currently improves their shopping experience, and 27% said they do not trust AI to personalize experiences.

The figures indicate a challenge for brands seeking to scale AI-driven customer engagement: deploying more automation does not necessarily make the experience more useful or trustworthy.

The research also points to data quality as a constraint. Forty-two percent of marketers said more accurate customer data would have the greatest impact on customer marketing performance, ahead of improved personalization at 37%. Limited customer data and fragmented systems were tied as the leading barriers to personalization, at 19% each.

Consumers identified specific conditions that could build confidence. Forty-six percent said clearer explanations of data use would increase trust in personalization, while 41% valued control over their preferences and the same proportion wanted brands to use only information they had shared directly.

The results reinforce the importance of making data practices understandable and giving customers meaningful choices. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission likewise advises businesses to communicate clearly about how personal information is collected and used.

Lifecycle Marketing Needs to Connect Technology With Value

The report's findings point toward a more integrated approach to lifecycle marketing, where customer data, channel selection, offers and purchasing journeys work together.

Wunderkind and Cordial say their research follows their partnership, which combines Wunderkind's behavioral intent signals and AI decisioning with Cordial's cross-channel messaging platform and customer data platform. The integration is intended to help brands recognize more shoppers and deliver relevant experiences across channels.

The survey reports that marketers most commonly use or plan to use AI for customer service and chatbots (54%), predictive analytics (49%) and product recommendations (43%). This suggests AI is being considered for a wider range of marketing and service functions, rather than content generation alone.

However, the report is based on surveys commissioned or released by vendors with commercial interests in marketing technology. The supplied announcement does not detail the complete survey methodology, question wording or margins of error. Its percentages should therefore be treated as reported survey findings, not as proof that all consumers behave alike or that one strategy will outperform another across every business.

Market Landscape

Marketing teams increasingly have tools to combine customer data, predict intent and automate communications. But the report raises a practical question for marketing leaders: are these capabilities solving customer problems, or primarily reflecting internal priorities?

The findings suggest that marketers should assess channel investments against customer preferences, examine whether offers provide meaningful value and measure whether personalization reduces friction. They also highlight the importance of data quality and transparent data practices when deploying AI-powered experiences.

Strategic Outlook

The report's central implication is that personalization should be judged by customer benefit, not by the volume of data used or the sophistication of the model.

For marketing leaders, a practical response is to test AI-powered recommendations against simpler improvements such as faster checkout, saved carts, relevant discounts and better-timed email or SMS messages. Teams should measure conversion, customer satisfaction and repeat purchase behavior, while tracking opt-outs and complaints as signals of whether communication is becoming excessive.

The competitive advantage may come less from adopting every new AI capability and more from matching the right experience to the customer's needs. Brands that connect accurate data with useful offers, convenient journeys and clear privacy choices will be better positioned to make personalization meaningful.

Top Insights

• Price remains a major purchase factor: 56% of surveyed consumers cited the lowest price as a leading online buying consideration, compared with 25% of marketers who identified it as a top consideration.

• Email and SMS remain important channels: Consumer preference for email and SMS contrasts with marketers' stronger emphasis on social media, highlighting the need to validate channel strategies.

• Convenience competes with personalization: Saved carts and faster checkout each mattered to 48% of consumers, while 32% said product recommendations made shopping easier.

• AI expectations exceed current consumer confidence: Although 59% of marketers expect AI personalization to have the greatest impact over three years, just 16% said AI currently improves shopping.

• Trust depends on data transparency: Consumers cited clear explanations of data use, preference controls and reliance on information they directly shared as ways to build trust.

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