The same brand can face completely different buying journeys depending on where its customers live. A large survey of 7109 respondents rated the importance of ten different touchpoints in the path to purchase across six global regions, and the differences are substantial. Messaging apps carry major importance in Africa and South America but barely register in North America and Oceania, while AI assistants remain a minor factor everywhere, especially in Africa.

Essential Statistics

• Messaging apps score 4.8 in importance in Africa but only 2.2 in North America, the widest regional swing measured.
• AI assistants score lowest across every region, ranging from 0.6 in Africa to 2.3 in North America.
• Physical retail scores highest overall in Africa at 4.9, while scoring 4.2 in Asia, the lowest regional score for that touchpoint.
• Social platforms score 4.7 in South America but 3.4 in Europe, a meaningful regional gap.
• Brand websites score 4.6 in North America but only 2.6 in Africa, one of the largest single-touchpoint regional differences in the data.

Key Takeaways

• Messaging apps carrying such different weight across regions suggests a single global channel strategy would badly misallocate budget if applied uniformly, overinvesting in some regions and underinvesting in others.
• AI assistants scoring lowest everywhere, but especially in Africa, suggests this channel remains an early-stage consideration globally rather than a near-term priority in most regions.
• Physical retail scoring consistently high across every region suggests in-person shopping still plays a meaningful role in the path to purchase even as digital channels expand.
• The gap between brand websites in North America and Africa suggests owned digital properties carry very different weight depending on regional infrastructure and consumer habits.
• This pattern suggests a single global media plan is likely hiding meaningful regional differences in how customers actually discover, evaluate, and purchase.

Actionable Insights

• Build region-specific channel weighting into your media plan rather than applying one global mix. This data shows touchpoints like messaging apps and brand websites carry dramatically different importance by region.
• Prioritize messaging app strategy specifically for Africa and South America, since these regions show the highest importance scores for this touchpoint by a wide margin.
• Don’t over-invest in AI assistant optimization as a near-term priority in any region, since this touchpoint scores lowest everywhere measured, particularly in Africa.
• Maintain investment in physical retail presence across all regions, since this touchpoint scores consistently high regardless of region, unlike most of the other channels measured.
• Audit your current regional media plans against this data to identify where your channel investment may not match how customers in that specific region actually discover and evaluate your brand.

‘One global media plan for every region is a guess dressed up as a strategy. Messaging apps matter enormously in some places and barely at all in others. That’s not a detail, that’s the whole plan.’ – Neil Patel