The consumer landscape changed dramatically in 2024 with global conflict, inflation-led economic uncertainty, a divisive U.S. and other presidential elections, the transformative impact of AI across all areas of business and life, growing distrust of media (social or otherwise) and more. These trends and events had a profound impact on consumers’ lives and, not surprisingly, how they interact with brands.
It’s more important than ever for brands to meet customers where they are with meaningful experiences on the device integral to everyday life — the mobile phone.
2025 promises even more transformation, innovation and disruption to the brand-customer relationship — from the proliferation of new marketing and social channels, soaring acquisition costs and plummeting referral traffic to the opportunities and challenges arising from AI adoption. As customer expectations reach an all-time high, brands must prioritize getting mobile-first customer experience right across all digital channels — on the web, in apps and everywhere in between.
While right can mean different things for different brands and different customers, most will agree on: seamless, unified cross-channel experiences; value and convenience throughout the customer journey; and direct and transparent digital customer relationships.
But getting mobile-first customer experience right is hard to do. Here are three things brands should be focusing on this year to drive customer loyalty.
1. Prioritize direct customer relationships.
Walled gardens are nothing new. Search engines, social networks and marketplaces offer brands massive reach for a price. Now, however, the cost is becoming untenable. Fortified by data deprecation and privacy laws, industry giants like Meta and Google will continue to tighten their grip on audiences, keeping more traffic on their pages while scraping content for large language models without an equitable value exchange. With referral traffic plummeting and acquisition costs rising, brands must prioritize direct customer relationships or risk being disintermediated. Data willingly and simply provided, and purposefully solicited, will be key to unifying experiences everywhere customers choose to interact — on the web, in apps and everywhere in between.
2. Deliver unified, mobile-first experiences wherever customers interact.
In our mobile-first world, customers expect a unified, seamless experience wherever they interact with brands. What they see from your brand in one channel should be contextually connected with what they see from you in other channels. Delivering a unified experience across every touchpoint with a richer understanding of the mobile consumer is key. Brands that get this right will enable more consistent, frictionless customer journeys that drive brand loyalty and higher customer lifetime value.
3. Let zero- and first-party data lay the foundation for personalized customer experiences.
With increased scrutiny around data privacy and inherent resistance to sharing third-party data, brands are prioritizing zero- and first-party data strategies to advance the customer experience. Zero- and first-party data will be more crucial than ever as brands navigate a world with more privacy regulations and greater customer expectations for contextually relevant experiences that earn their loyalty. Data collection strategies grounded in customer context and consent will be the foundation for personalized experiences that drive customer loyalty.
For more insights to inform your 2025 customer experiences strategy, check out Airship’s e-book: “2025 Insights & Predictions to Master Mobile-First Customer Experience”.