2026 customer messaging trends: The complete data 

We just published our third annual State of Customer Messaging report (all of the research and interpretations here if you missed it). In December 2025 and January 2026, we surveyed over 750 marketers, product managers, growth professionals, engineers, and operations leaders about their customer messaging strategies, challenges, and priorities.

The survey included both quantitative questions (channel usage, AI adoption, metrics tracked, future priorities) and qualitative open-ended questions about wins, experiments, and tactics. All company and individual names have been anonymized to protect respondent privacy. Below, you can see the complete results and demographic information from our research.

In addition to survey responses, this report includes:

• Analysis of Customer.io platform usage data from November-December 2025
• Customer.io Black Friday/Cyber Monday performance metrics
• Year-over-year channel growth comparisons
• Industry trends and observations from the customer messaging community

This report reflects the perspectives and practices of survey respondents, who skew toward mid-market B2B SaaS companies. The largest segments represented are sales-led (34% of marketers) and hybrid PLG + sales companies (29% of marketers). Results may not represent all industries or company sizes equally.

Survey respondents were primarily from North America, though international perspectives are included. Channel usage and effectiveness may vary by geographic region.

Survey demographics

We heard from over 750 professionals across marketing, product, growth, engineering, and operations.

• Marketing: 54%
• Growth: 12%
• Product: 8%
• Engineering: 8%
• Operations: 7%
• Other: 10%

• 51-250 employees: 28%
• 251-1,000 employees: 25%
• 11-50 employees: 18%
• 1,001-5,000 employees: 11%
• 5,000+ employees: 10%
• 1-10 employees: 7%

• Sales-led: 34%
• Hybrid (PLG + Sales): 29%
• Product-led growth (PLG): 15%
• E-commerce: 8%
• Marketplace: 6%
• Other: 9%

• B2B SaaS: 48%
• B2C SaaS: 18%
• E-commerce/Retail: 8%
• Fintech: 8%
• EdTech: 4%
• Healthcare: 3%
• Media/Entertainment: 3%
• Marketplace: 3%
• Other: 8%

• Engagement/Retention: 32%
• Acquisition: 29%
• Onboarding/Activation: 18%
• Monetization (upsell/cross-sell): 13%
• Churn prevention/Win-back: 8%

Q1: What's your primary role?

• Marketing: 54%
• Growth: 12%
• Product: 8%
• Engineering: 8%
• Operations: 7%
• Other: 10%

Q2: Company size?

• 1-10 employees: 8%
• 11-50: 16%
• 51-250: 29%
• 251-1,000: 26%
• 1,001-5,000: 8%
• 5,000+: 13%

Q3: What's your company's primary revenue motion?

• Sales-led: 34%
• Hybrid (PLG + Sales): 29%
• Product-led growth (PLG): 14%
• E-commerce: 9%
• Marketplace: 5%
• Other: 9%

Q4: Industry?

• B2B SaaS: 45%
• B2C SaaS: 18%
• E-commerce/Retail: 9%
• Fintech: 7%
• EdTech: 4%
• Healthcare: 3%
• Media/Entertainment: 3%
• Marketplace: 3%
• Other: 8%

Q5: What customer lifecycle stage is your top priority right now?

• Engagement/Retention: 32%
• Acquisition: 29%
• Onboarding/Activation: 18%
• Monetization (upsell/cross-sell): 13%
• Churn prevention/Win-back: 8%

Q6: Which channels do you currently use to communicate with customers? (Select all that apply)

• Email: 100%
• In-app messages: 42%
• SMS: 36%
• Push notifications (mobile): 30%
• Push notifications (web): 19%
• WhatsApp/Other messaging apps: 15%
• Webhooks/API-driven messages: 9%

Q7: Rank these channels by effectiveness for YOUR business (Top 4 ranked) [Note: Rankings varied significantly by business model and use case]

Q8: In the past year, how has your usage changed for each channel?

Email:

• Increased significantly: 32%
• Increased slightly: 33%
• Stayed the same: 24%
• Decreased slightly: 10%
• Decreased significantly: 2%

In-app messages:

• Increased significantly: 17%
• Increased slightly: 30%
• Stayed the same: 23%
• Decreased slightly: 5%
• Decreased significantly: 1%
• We don't use this: 23%

Push notifications:

• Increased significantly: 15%
• Increased slightly: 23%
• Stayed the same: 27%
• Decreased slightly: 3%
• Decreased significantly: 3%
• We don't use this: 29%

SMS:

• Increased significantly: 15%
• Increased slightly: 21%
• Stayed the same: 24%
• Decreased slightly: 4%
• Decreased significantly: 3%
• We don't use this: 32%

Q9: Do you run multi-channel campaigns (using 2+ channels together)?

• Yes, regularly: 50%
• Yes, occasionally: 26%
• No, we focus on single channels: 15%
• Other: 9%

Q9a: What's your go-to channel combination? (Among those running multi-channel)

• Email + In-app: 28%
• Email + SMS: 25%
• Email + Push: 24%
• Email + Push + SMS: 9%
• Email + In-app + Push: 7%
• Other combination: 8%

Q10: How do you measure messaging success? (Select your top 3)

• Conversion rates: 66%
• Click-through rates: 51%
• Revenue attribution: 34%
• Open rates: 34%
• Retention/churn rates: 32%
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): 20%
• Engagement scores: 18%
• Customer satisfaction (CSAT/NPS): 9%
• Time to conversion: 8%

Q11: Who typically creates the content for your customer messages?

• Entirely in-house (marketing team writes everything): 47%
• Mostly in-house with some external support: 24%
• Primarily AI-generated with human editing: 7%
• Mix of in-house and agency/freelancers (roughly 50/50): 7%
• It varies significantly by message type: 5%
• Mostly agency/freelancers with internal oversight: 6%
• Entirely external (agency or freelancers): 3%
• Other: 2%

Q12: How has AI impacted your messaging strategy in the past year?

• Made tactical improvements: 37%
• Made significant changes: 25%
• Completely transformed it: 12%
• Minimal impact so far: 13%
• No impact—we haven't adopted AI tools yet: 4%
• We've actively decided not to use AI for messaging: 9%

Q13: What are you using AI for in your messaging workflow? (Select all that apply)

• Writing/drafting message copy and subject lines: 61%
• Optimizing campaigns and workflows (A/B tests, journey mapping, etc.): 45%
• Performance analysis and predictions (reporting, send time optimization, etc.): 37%
• Personalizing content at scale: 29%
• Segmentation and audience building: 25%
• Generating images or creative assets: 24%
• Translation/localization: 18%
• We're not using AI yet: 3%

Q14: In the next five years, where do you think AI will have the biggest impact on your messaging? (Select up to 3)

1. Hyper-personalization at scale
2. Predictive send time optimization
3. Dynamic content generation
4. Automatic A/B testing and optimization
5. Journey orchestration
6. Customer sentiment analysis
7. Real-time message adaptation
8. Multilingual communication
9. Compliance and governance

Q16: Which personalization tactic delivers the best ROI for you? (Select one)

• Segmentation (based on attributes): 31%
• Behavioral triggers (based on actions): 29%
• Dynamic content: 9%
• Channel preference: 5%
• Product recommendations: 5%
• Send time optimization: 4%
• We don't personalize significantly: 4%
• Location-based: 3%
• Other: 9%

Q17: What type of message gets the highest engagement from YOUR customers? (Select one)

For PLG/SaaS/Hybrid:

• Feature announcements: 23%
• Educational content: 18%
• Upgrade/upsell offers: 16%
• Usage insights/reports: 15%
• Re-engagement messages: 11%
• Onboarding tips: 8%
• Other: 9%

For E-commerce/Marketplace:

• Promotional offers/sales: 35%
• Product recommendations: 22%
• Post-purchase follow-ups: 15%
• Abandoned cart reminders: 12%
• Back-in-stock alerts: 8%
• Loyalty program updates: 8%

Q19: What will be your TOP messaging priority in the next year?

• Improving personalization: 28%
• Scaling AI adoption: 19%
• Better data integration: 17%
• Multi-channel orchestration: 8%
• Expanding into new channels: 7%
• Team efficiency/workflow: 6%
• Improving deliverability: 4%
• Compliance/privacy: 1%
• Other: 9%

Q20: Which channel do you plan to invest in MOST heavily next year?

• Email: 40%
• In-app messages: 11%
• SMS: 10%
• We're consolidating, not expanding: 11%
• Push notifications: 8%
• A new channel we haven't used before: 5%
• WhatsApp/Messaging apps: 4%
• Other: 5%

Q21: How do you use messaging during free trials? (Select all that apply)

• Onboarding/activation sequences: 78%
• Feature education: 65%
• Usage-based triggers (active or inactive users): 58%
• Trial expiration reminders: 52%
• Upgrade prompts: 48%
• We don't message during trials: 5%

Q22: How do you message differently to free vs. paid users?

• Different content focus (education vs. expansion): 42%
• Different message frequency: 38%
• Free users get upgrade prompts: 35%
• More/less personalization for one group: 25%
• Different channels: 18%
• Paid users get early access announcements: 15%
• We don't differentiate much: 12%
• We only have one tier: 8%

Q21: How does your messaging support the sales cycle? (Select all that apply)

• Lead nurturing sequences: 72%
• Educational content to warm prospects: 68%
• Event/webinar invitations: 55%
• Case studies and social proof: 48%
• Product updates to keep us top-of-mind: 45%
• Post-demo follow-ups: 42%
• Re-engagement for cold leads: 38%
• Account-based campaigns for target accounts: 32%
• Our messaging doesn't directly support sales: 5%

Q22: How do you coordinate messaging between marketing and sales?

• Shared CRM visibility into all touchpoints: 45%
• Clear rules about who messages when: 35%
• Regular sync meetings: 32%
• We use lead scoring to determine ownership: 28%
• Marketing can see sales activity before sending: 25%
• Sales can pause/override marketing messages: 22%
• We don't coordinate well—it's a problem: 15%
• We don't need much coordination: 8%

Q21: What's your most effective abandoned cart strategy? (Select all that apply)

• Multi-message sequence over several days: 58%
• Single reminder within 24 hours: 45%
• Discount or incentive in follow-up: 42%
• Multi-channel approach (email + SMS): 38%
• Product recommendations for alternatives: 32%
• Social proof (reviews, popularity): 28%
• Urgency messaging (low stock, price increase): 25%
• We don't have an abandoned cart strategy: 8%

Q22: How do you use messaging around peak shopping periods (BFCM, holidays)?

• Significantly increase send frequency: 65%
• Segment-specific offers: 52%
• Countdown/urgency campaigns: 48%
• Early access for loyal customers: 42%
• Multi-channel blitz (email + SMS + push): 38%
• Gift guides and curated collections: 28%
• Post-purchase thank you sequences: 25%
• We don't change our strategy much during peaks: 12%

Q22a: How much does your message volume increase during peak periods vs. normal times?

• 51-100% increase (roughly double): 35%
• 25-50% increase: 28%
• 101-200% increase: 18%
• More than 200% increase: 8%
• Less than 25% increase: 7%
• We don't increase volume significantly: 5%

In case you missed the full report, download and read it here!