This research aims at providing a meta-analysis of empirical findings of the literature on the characteristics of social media influencers on customer engagement and purchase intention. For this purpose, researchers derived eight social media influencers’ characteristics, i.e., homophily, expertise, trustworthiness, credibility, congruence with the product, entertainment value, informative value, and attractiveness. The current study synthesizes 176 effect sizes derived from 62 individual studies, and 22,554 individuals act as an aggregate sample. Results revealed that these characteristics have a moderate to high correlation with customer engagement and purchase intention. The entertainment value of social media influencers has the strongest association with customer engagement among all the attributes studied in this analysis. It also concluded that the credibility of influencers impacts purchase intention more than any other attribute. This work provides a novel approach to reducing the heterogeneity in influencer marketing research by empirically specifying the directions of relationships and the extent of the effect of these relationships.

Customer engagement may be defined as engaging customers with a brand as well as with other customers. In recent years, term Customer engagement has emerged in both academic literature and practitioner discussions as a customer loyalty predictor towards brand that may be superior to other traditional customer loyalty antecedents. This paper aims at reviewing available literature in this field. This study descriptive in nature and is based on secondary data which is collected from the relevant literary sources. Researchers on the basis of literature reviewed infer that Customer Engagement significantly influences Customer Loyalty.

In the new global economy, neuromarketing has emerged as a key marketing concern. It is an integrative field that incorporates elements of marketing, psychology, and neuroscience. This novel idea offers fresh perspectives and potent methods for doing marketing research, particularly on customer behaviour. Neuromarketing offers the chance to comprehend the neural level functions in customers' brains that provides insightful knowledge about the customers' cognitive decision-making system that is not normally captured by conventional management analytical techniques. This chapter aims at exploring the tools, roles, and ethical concerns of neuromarketing. Secondary sources of data like books, research papers, theses, newspaper articles, magazines, and reports etc. are utilized in this chapter. This study is relevant not only for academia but also for marketers practicing neuromarketing for identifying consumer behaviour.

In the digital era, the presence of consumers on social media platforms is increasing at a higher pace than ever before. It pushes marketers to employ new ways to endorse their products on these social networking platforms. One such digital marketing trend is the use of avatar-based influencer marketing. Virtual influencers are computer-generated influencers who have a large social media following particularly on picture-based platforms such as Instagram. Avatar marketing has gained popularity as a brand endorsement strategy. Despite the increase in popularity, there are very few studies that study the effectiveness of avatar-based influencer marketing. This chapter aims at demystifying the benefits and risks of employing virtual influencers as a marketing gimmick. Data were collected from various secondary sources, such as journals, books, theses, reports and websites using different databases like Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar etc. Findings revealed that avatar marketing, if utilized strategically, has great potential to optimize digital marketing strategy.

Technological advancements improve the knowledge potential of business and help in building interactions with the customers. Artificial intelligence is drastically changing the way businesses used to engage with the customers by extracting and analyzing tremendous data generated through customer interaction. However, this area is not much explored in academic research. Hence, this study aims at understanding the role of artificial intelligence in enhancing customer engagement. It also deals with artificial intelligence tools used for engaging customers, challenges in using artificial intelligence for customer engagement, and the future of artificial intelligence in customer engagement. This study depends on secondary data that have been gathered from various sites, journals, books, and other available e-content. This study has implications for marketers in enhancing customer engagement and for academicians as it contributes to the literature on the role of artificial intelligence in developing customer engagement.