Wunderkind and Cordial Research Finds Consumers Want Value, Convenience While Marketers Invest in Personalization, AI

Customer expectations and marketing priorities diverge across price, communication channels, personalization and AI

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Wunderkind and Cordial release "The Customer Marketing Gap", a report examining where consumer expectations and marketer priorities align and where disconnects remain across purchasing decisions, digital experiences, communication preferences, personalization, trust and AI.

• For more information and to download the full report, visit cordial.com/resources/the-customer-marketing-gap.

According to surveys of 1,000 U.S. consumers and 150 U.S.-based senior marketing professionals, both marketers and consumers want better experiences, but they define value differently:

• Price represents one of the clearest disconnects: 56% of consumers identify the lowest price as a leading consideration when deciding where to buy online; just a quarter of marketers believe price is a top consideration.
• The same gap appears in brand communications: 50% of consumers say discounts are among the strongest factors determining whether they pay attention to a brand message, while just 26% of marketers see discounts that way.
• Consumers favor direct communication channels: 82% prefer email, and 64% prefer SMS, whereas marketers place greater emphasis on social media (74% of marketers vs. 39% of consumers).

"Closing the customer marketing gap requires connecting customer identity, behavioral insights and reliable data to make better decisions about what customers need, when they need it and how brands can deliver value across every interaction," said Rob Garf, chief strategy officer at Cordial.  "AI and personalization have significant potential, but only when they are built around a clear understanding of the customer."

The research also reveals a gap between how marketers measure the impact of personalization and how consumers experience its value. While 61% of marketers say relevant product recommendations have a major impact on conversion, only 32% of consumers say recommendations make shopping easier. Consumers place greater value on experiences that reduce friction, including saved carts (48%) and faster checkout (48%).

AI highlights another expectation mismatch between marketer ambition and consumer confidence. While 59% of marketers expect AI-powered personalization to have the biggest impact on customer marketing over the next three years, only 16% of consumers say AI currently improves their shopping experience, and 27% say they do not trust AI to personalize experiences. The findings suggest AI adoption must be grounded in transparency and customer value, rather than technology alone.

"Lifecycle marketing enters a new phase where having more data and more technology is not enough. Successful brands understand what customers actually value and translate those insights into experiences that are useful, relevant and meaningful," said Amandine Servain, VP of Marketing, Wunderkind.

Additional insights from the report include:

• Customer data remains the biggest opportunity for marketers: 42% of marketers say more accurate customer data would have the greatest impact on customer marketing performance, followed by improved personalization (37%). Limited customer data and fragmented systems are tied as the leading barriers to personalization (19% each).
• Trust is the foundation of personalized experiences: 46% of consumers say clear explanations of how their data is used would increase trust in personalization, while 41% value preference control and 41% want brands to use only information they have shared directly.
• Consumers and marketers agree on the value exchange for earning customer data: Exclusive discounts are the top incentive for consumers to share their email address or mobile number (32%), matching marketers' expectations (32%).
• AI adoption is expanding beyond content generation: Marketers most commonly use or plan to use AI for customer service/chatbots (54%), predictive analytics (49%), and product recommendations (43%).

This research follows Wunderkind and Cordial's recent partnership announcement, combining Wunderkind's AI decisioning and behavioral intent signals with Cordial's cross-channel messaging platform and AI-native CDP. Together, the integration helps brands recognize more shoppers, activate high-intent behavioral signals, and deliver more relevant experiences across channels.

About Cordial
Cordial is an agentic messaging platform with an embedded CDP, used by Levi's, Tapestry, L.L.Bean, Boot Barn, and other leading brands to power billions of personalized messages across email, SMS, and mobile. By unifying customer data, messaging, and AI in one platform, Cordial can predict buyer intent, determine next-best actions, and personalize each send, helping brands drive more revenue from every message.

Learn more at www.cordial.com.

About Wunderkind
Wunderkind is redefining agentic marketing decisioning, where identity meets AI to drive personalized performance at scale. Its Autonomous Marketing Platform (AMP) uses a proprietary identity graph—built on billions of devices and trillions of digital events each year—to transform anonymous web traffic into known customers. AMP dynamically triggers one-to-one messages across email, text, and ads, optimizing creative, channel, and timing in real time. Seamlessly integrating via SDKs, APIs, and natively with leading ESPs and engagement platforms, Wunderkind fits into any modern stack without requiring replatforming. Brands like Harley-Davidson and Kendra Scott rely on Wunderkind to unlock reach and revenue, with more than $5 billion in attributable sales annually and consistently top-ranking channel performance.

Media Contact
Ryan Hecker
PANBlast for Cordial
[email protected]

SOURCE Cordial