Decoding Gen Z: Marketing Analytics For The Next Generation Of Consumers

Abstract

Generation Z's follow up as the major consumer audience has changed the game of marketing strategy, moving from emotional-driven efforts, to data-based decisions. This paper looks at how marketing analytics can unlock the changes in consumption, digital behaviors and brand expectations of Gen Z consumers. We are studying this reference group to show that impossibly difficult-sounding advanced analytics (big data, predictive models and sentiment analysis) can provide practical insight into the preferences of tech-savvy, socially-aware and engagement- hungry millennials. At the methodological level, the paper takes a secondary research perspective and leverages case vignettes of global brands using machine learning algorithms and real-time dashboards to increase personalization, optimize touchpoints, track campaign effectiveness in omnichannel ecosystems. Results imply that not only can analytics provide a more sophisticated awareness of Gen Z’s triggers to purchase, but deeper loyalty via relevance, authenticity and purposeful alignment. The study contributes to the literature by outlining a framework that combines consumer psychology and marketing analytics, providing organizations with a blueprint to re-image customer engagement activities. These have implications for marketers, academic researchers, and policy makers who wish to develop sustainable businesses that are conducive to new age digital consumers along with addressing the issues of privacy, ethics and data transparency. The limitations acknowledge reliance on secondary data and the need for longitudinal, cross-cultural empirical studies to validate findings. The novelty of this article rests in positioning Gen Z not merely as passive consumers but as co-creators of market narratives, whose behaviors can be decoded through analytics-driven intelligence, thus offering fresh insights into the evolving marketing landscape.