Engage, convert, repeat: The UAE's winning formula for brand loyalty

UAE brands Majid Al Futtaim and Floward create exceptional cross-channel engagement that drives conversions and loyalty. How can ambitious brands in the region replicate their success? New research from Braze reveals best practices and strategies to follow

The UAE is synonymous with world-class shopping and high consumer expectations. While the region’s physical stores remain iconic, drawing footfall from locals, expats, and international visitors - digital opportunities are redefining the shopping experience.

Today’s customers may be hyper-discerning, but they don’t distinguish between a brand’s physical and digital experiences. When UAE shoppers use a website or app, they expect the same personalised service they receive in-store, however and wherever they engage. Moreover, they expect brands to understand their needs, preferences, and relationship on each channel, seamlessly switching between devices and platforms to complete their goals.

Businesses that fail to create personalised, relevant, and rewarding interactions across channels risk losing sales and loyalty. But are the region’s brands delivering in this demanding landscape?

Research finds gap between aspiration and execution

Braze partnered with Wakefield Research to survey 2,300 global marketing leaders. The results reveal that the UAE is at a pivot point in its approach to customer engagement. While the region lags behind global benchmarks in some areas, it leads in others - presenting clear opportunities for businesses to strengthen their strategies by learning from high performers.

Although the UAE market is leaning into data-based personalisation, send-time optimisation, and AI analytics, many brands still lack the foundational elements needed for impactful cross-channel engagement. The key challenges include:

• Cross-functional ownership – Siloed ownership stymies cross-channel effectiveness

• Real-time personalization – Delayed behavioral insights hinder timely interactions

• Technology limitations – Disjointed tools create fractured customer journeys

Based on these findings, Braze has identified three key opportunities for UAE retailers to transition from reactive and disjointed marketing strategies to proactive and personalised engagement models.

Unified experiences require a unified system

From in-store visits to apps, websites, and social media, customers expect a seamless cross-channel experience. However, 39% of surveyed UAE brands (vs. 32% globally) are hampered by technology, relying on multiple channel-specific solutions to implement their strategies.

According to Braze, businesses that unify their tech stack are more likely to deliver cohesive customer journeys and reap the benefits of real-time engagement.

Channel-specific tools create data silos and disjointed communication efforts, leading to fragmented customer experiences. In contrast, a centralised platform enables marketers to access real-time data and create integrated cross-channel campaigns.

Gifting brand Floward recognised this as it approached the busy Valentine’s season. Facing high churn from new users and low re-engagement from lapsed ones, the brand needed to revamp its engagement strategy or risk revenue loss.

By adopting Braze as its single customer engagement platform, Floward launched a fully integrated Valentine’s campaign across WhatsApp, push notifications, in-app messaging, and email, maximising reach and effectiveness.

Using Braze’s unified data capabilities, Floward applied Recency, Frequency, and Monetary (RFM) analysis to segment customers and personalize outreach. With WhatsApp as a key touchpoint, the campaign achieved notable increases in revenue and conversions, especially among previously inactive users.

The campaign didn’t just deliver a seasonal spike in sales; it laid the foundation for long-term customer relationships, loyalty, and retention.

Cross-channel journeys need cross-functional teams

Unifying technology is not enough. Legacy team structures must also evolve to center around the customer journey, replacing siloed departments with collaborative, cross-functional teams.

This is where the UAE has room to improve.

Globally, high-performing brands manage customer engagement through multidisciplinary teams that include marketing, product, engineering, IT, and other stakeholders. Yet in the UAE, 67% of businesses still consider engagement to be the sole responsibility of the marketing team. This outdated approach increases the risk of disjointed customer experiences.

Retail and hospitality giant Majid Al Futtaim unified all of its brands on Braze to improve data collection and campaign execution for its SHARE Rewards program. But this transformation wasn’t led by marketing alone. Instead, a dedicated cross-functional Marketing Technology Team, comprising members from marketing, tech, and data collaborated to ensure seamless execution and optimal results.

Within the first year, Braze enabled the brand to centralise communication, expand its channel mix, automate 110 lifecycle campaigns, and reach over 5.5 million recipients.

While UAE brands do show better interdepartmental collaboration than their global peers, true cross-functional ownership is still lacking. Reorganising teams around customer needs rather than internal structures ensures a more cohesive, impactful brand experience.

Latency limits live interactions, costs conversions

One of the greatest advantages of a single engagement platform is the ability to centralize data for real-time analysis and action. Data collected through digital properties or volunteered directly by customers can help brands segment audiences and tailor messaging for maximum impact.

UAE brands show strength in leveraging AI analytics, with 45% of surveyed businesses using the technology, compared to 39% globally. Additionally, 40% of UAE brands use first-party data to personalise content and power paid media, surpassing the global average of 35%.

However, there’s a missed opportunity in real-time engagement.

UAE brands are more likely than global peers to use past behaviour to personalize messages (48% vs. 45%). Yet they lag behind when it comes to using live behaviour to trigger real-time messaging - only 39% do this, compared to a 47% global average.

This latency means brands miss key moments like sending in-app messages while a customer is actively browsing, increasing the chance of conversion before they exit.

To unlock this potential, brands must move beyond siloed tools and batch data processing, and instead adopt a system that enables live data streaming for in-the-moment interactions.

Final thoughts: Advance your customer engagement in 2025

To thrive in the UAE’s fast-evolving retail and digital ecosystem, brands must rethink their approach to customer engagement:

• Establish cross-functional ownership – Transition from single-team ownership to cross-functional collaboration that brings together tech, insights, and strategy.

• Unify engagement technology – Ditch fragmented systems in favour of a single platform for managing all channels, customer data, and campaigns.

• Leverage real-time data – Implement platforms that support live data streaming to enable immediate, personalised interactions.

• Lean into AI – Expand AI adoption to uncover new insights and efficiencies, from intelligent data collection to generative AI tools for creative execution.