We reviewed 58 empirical articles from the last two decades on experiential marketing in the e-commerce context. This literature review seeks to shed light into the fields of experiential and digital marketing, addressing the gaps in experiential aspects that appear during an online shopping session found in the literature. Thus, the paper identifies the elements that create the optimal consumers’ experience together with advantages, challenges, and strategic advice associated with the overall digital experience, an aspect that develops a more sustainable relationship between customers and e-businesses. The findings reveal that the most reported advantage of the overall digital experience is that it provides enhanced satisfaction, an aspect that is crucial for both consumers and online businesses, while some noted that frequent challenges are providing high levels of interactivity and trust. We found several other advantages and challenges of online consumer experience that led to the outlining of the strategic advice for online businesses, all being discussed in detail. The paper addresses a theoretical framework of digital marketing that is relevant for both academics and practitioners, suggestions for future research directions, and key research implications being offered.

In recent years, with the remarkable growth of the global digital market, specialists took a new direction of focus in the field of marketing, considering customer experience an important differentiator in today’s digital landscape. In an online setting, in contrast to traditional marketing, the dimensions of customer experience include informativeness, entertainment, social presence and sensory, elements that create customer value. The experience is an increasingly significant component in defining the success of an online company, becoming a source of competitive advantage for any e-business. Yet, to accomplish these favorable results, a business needs to focus on customer loyalty, a concept that is understood from a relational perspective as the consumer’s preferences to sustain a stable relationship with the brand, fact that involves consistent visits of the site, and in consequence, repeat purchases. The research presented in this paper is based on the literature review. Subsequently, a conceptual model was proposed as the intersection of the online customer experience dimensions with the concept of customer loyalty, which, in turn, includes consumer’s attitudes and behaviors toward an online business. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to offer an outline of opportunities to use customer experience for increasing customer loyalty and (2) to provide managerial implications and guides future research opportunities to empirically measure the impact of online customer experience components on customer loyalty.

Monitoring the satisfaction of sales representatives is a major challenge in business based on multi-level marketing systems (MLM), as a high level of satisfaction could determine the sales representatives’ loyalty and subsequent business growth. The purposes of this study are (i) to measure the sales representatives’ satisfaction with various experiences they face within the MLM system, (ii) to identify the main satisfaction factors that synthetically illustrate the sales representatives’ experiences with the MLM system, and (iii) to determine the influence of satisfaction factors with MLM experiences on the intention to recommend the system to other people interested in joining the business. The research was based on a survey among 412 sales representatives of companies that use an MLM system in various fields of activity. The main factors that summarize the experiences that sales representatives have within the MLM systems have been identified by using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Further, the satisfaction with these factors was analyzed in relationship with the intention to recommend the system for the development of their individual business. The research results indicate three major experiences of the sales representatives: (i) experiences within the MLM system, (ii) experiences with customer relationships, and (iii) experiences with the product. The results also show that the higher satisfaction with these factors is, the higher the likelihood to recommend the MLM system. This study provides a contribution to the body of knowledge in using experiential marketing for sustainable business development and provides management insights for companies that use MLM systems.

Consumer needs change over time as a result of the fast-paced advancement in technology and the induction of the Internet, expansion that leads to a difficulty for brands to adapt their marketing promotion strategy and trying to remain innovative and effective at meeting their consumers’ expectations. This research investigates what effect experiential marketing campaigns have on both customers’ perception and business outcomes, aiming to develop a deeper understanding of experiential marketing, its challenges, and benefits, to understand customers’ reactions to experiential touchpoints, to explore what type of technology increases experiential perceived value, and to envisage the evolution of experiential marketing strategy. To capture all the important facets of the research objectives, an exploratory survey based on the voices of 31 marketing experts from all around the world was applied. By identifying the key drivers of experiential marketing campaigns in a hybrid setting, the present study highlighted the important role that experiential marketing has as a communication strategy, offering additional insights to marketing specialists on the experiential marketing implementation steps. A theoretical framework of the steps needed to put into practice an experiential marketing strategy was proposed.

One of the main objectives of today’s marketing strategy is to create holistic experiences that approach multisensory techniques, a goal that was accomplished due to the appearance of experiential marketing strategy. Despite its advantages, in Romania, this relatively new concept is not yet very popular among companies or marketing agencies. Therefore, qualitative marketing research was conducted to identify experiential marketing activities, the technology used, and marketing effectiveness metrics applied by six marketing agencies. The results have shown that experiential marketing is becoming quintessential as a modern-day communication arsenal, amplifying the customer's direct contact with a brand.