EFFECT OF DIGITAL MARKETING ON CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ANDSALESPERFORMANCE IN RETAIL BUSINESSES IN BAUCHI METROPOLIS

This study investigated the ef ect of digital marketing on customer engagement andsalesperformance among retail businesses in Bauchi Metropolis. The study was guided by four mainobjectives: to assess the influence of social media marketing on customer engagement; toexamine the ef ect of email marketing on sales performance; to determine the impact of searchengine optimization (SEO) on customer engagement and sales performance; and to identifythechallenges af ecting the adoption and utilization of digital marketing tools amongretail businesses. Correspondingly, four null hypotheses were formulated and tested at a 0.05level of significance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design, and data were collected throughastructured questionnaire administered to 100 respondents, purposively selected fromWunti Market, Central Market, and Yelwa Business District in Bauchi Metropolis. Descriptive statisticssuch as mean and standard deviation were used to summarize responses, while inferential statistics including Pearson’s correlation, linear regression, and t-test were employed totest thehypotheses using SPSS version 26.0. The reliability of the instrument was confirmed throughapilot test with a Cronbach’s Alpha coef icient of 0.82, indicating a high level of internal consistency. The findings revealed that social media marketing had a strong positive and significant influenceon customer engagement (r = 0.674, p < 0.05). Email marketing significantly improvedsalesperformance (R = 0.512, R² = 0.262, p < 0.05), indicating that 26.2% of the variationinsaleswas explained by email campaigns. Similarly, SEO had a significant positive correlationwithboth customer engagement (r = 0.594, p < 0.05) and sales performance (r = 0.557, p