Consumer behaviour is changing fast, and 2026 is going to accelerate every shift we started to see this year. From frictionless shopping and fading brand loyalty to the rise of wellness tech, smart homes, and micro-communities, the year ahead will change more than what people buy. It will change how they discover products, make decisions, and connect with brands across channels and moments. 

All kinds of turbulence surround marketing leaders’ planning process, from misalignment with C-suite counterparts to tough economic conditions and never-ending negotiations about where your organization should fall on the brand v. demand spectrum. To boot, customers aren’t just harder to reach, they’re redefining what it takes to capture their attention and keep their loyalty.

Sprout Social and LinkedIn developed this guide to explore the top social-first considerations CMOs need to make as they plan for the year ahead—from where to invest and how to best set up your teams for success, to how to prove the business impact of your work.

Explore how retail leaders are using AI to deepen customer loyalty, scale personalized experiences, unify customer data, and unlock profitable growth. This report covers how leaders in retail are using AI solutions to close the gap between customer expectations and their actual experiences in 2025 and beyond.

Explore the Adobe 2025 AI and digital trends – retail report to discover how AI and connected data help retailers drive growth by:

Discounting is tempting but erodes margin and brand equity. Here are the key steps towards a unified incentives marketing strategy that boosts the bottom line. Consumers are always on the lookout for a good deal. And with the sheer number of incentives, discounts, points and promotions now on offer – not just in the run-up to Christmas, but throughout the year – brands and retailers have taught them to become even more cost-conscious. So with 2026 on the horizon, how do brands secure loyalty and preference in consumers’ minds without joining in the discounting death spiral?

Ask a dozen marketers, and some will say the customer journey has, in turn, collapsed, condensed, lengthened, looped, died and been born anew. What’s not up for debate is that it has fundamentally changed. That’s what Global CMO of Assembly Bria Bryant helped unpack when we met for a morning of shopping and shop talk. 

“If we look at the way consumer purchase behavior was back in the day, it was: You see an ad, you go to the store, you make a purchase,” said Bryant. “Now, it’s not as linear, and marketers really need to think about things more fluidly. Consumers also aren’t waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘today I’m [exclusively] a digital shopper.’” 

With not one but two Prime events taking place annually, each lasting much longer now than the original ‘Prime Day’, are retailers now caught in a discounting death spiral? Is the race to the bottom inevitable?

This Impact Report combines exclusive insights from Similarweb data and retail market research to reveal the tactics retailers can deploy to stand out during major discounting days, maintain margin and even drive market share and loyalty.

Consumer loyalty is driven by convenience, product performance and situational need and not emotion devotion. Those are top findings from a Razorfish study that revealed love for a brand may not be enough of a driving force for consumers to remain loyalty.

“Marketers often idealize loyalty as a form of emotional devotion, but our research shows it’s driven by far more practical factors — convenience, product performance, and situational need,” Nic Chidiac, chief strategy officer at Razorfish, said in a press release on the findings.

In today’s competitive market, customer loyalty is more important than ever. With rising acquisition costs and evolving consumer behaviors, businesses need to focus on building lasting relationships with their customers.

From the power of loyalty programs to the growing influence of ethical and personalized marketing, this article compiles essential customer loyalty statistics that will help your brand navigate 2026 and beyond.