Why is consumer behaviour becoming harder to predict?
Consumers are changing faster than marketers can keep up. Economic uncertainty, AI-powered shopping tools, and shifting media consumption habits are making traditional audience segments less effective.
Mike Ford, CEO of Skydeo, says the old purchase funnel is dead.
“People bounce between TikTok, an AI assistant, a store, and an app — sometimes in the same hour — and change their minds mid-stream. Demographics won’t save you anymore. You have to read what someone is actually doing right now, because that’s the only reliable signal of what they’ll buy next,” he said.
Ford said AI-powered shopping tools are the biggest shift since mobile.
“Shopping is becoming a conversation instead of a search. Nobody’s comparing 40 products anymore. They ask an AI and it hands them one answer. So the new fight isn’t for a search ranking. It’s to be the recommendation. And the whole journey collapses from days of research into a single conversation.”
So what data signals should retailers and brands prioritize today, and which traditional metrics are becoming less reliable?
“Behaviour beats demographics, full stop. Someone who searched hiking gear, walked into an REI (Recreational Equipment store), and bought a tent is telling you exactly what’s next. Knowing they’re 35 and live in a certain ZIP code tells you almost nothing. Impressions and clicks are the metrics I’d trust least. They measure attention, not intent,” explained Ford.
He said the best retailers stopped treating channels as separate campaigns.
“A customer might find a product through an AI assistant, check it on social, touch it in a store, and buy it in the app. The winners build for that whole path. They’re also using AI to adjust creative and targeting in real time instead of waiting for the quarterly review, and investing in audience intelligence so they catch trends before their competitors do,” added Ford.
“The challenge is speed. Consumer behaviour is changing faster than most marketing orgs can react. The opportunity is that brands have never had richer behavioural data. Combine purchase data, location, and search behaviour and you can anticipate what customers need instead of chasing them after the fact. The whole game is moving from understanding audiences to understanding intent. The brands that make that jump win.”
Skydeo is a U.S.-based audience intelligence and data analytics company that helps retailers, brands and marketers identify and target consumers based on real-time behavioural signals rather than traditional demographic data.
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