About Forrester
Forrester Research, Inc. is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.

Shar serves Marketing Leadership professionals. She is a leading expert on how businesses can leverage interactive marketing channels and technologies to drive sales and deepen customer relationships. During her 12 years with Forrester, Shar has been instrumental in the development of many of the company's interactive marketing program evaluation methodologies, training courses, and marketing planning tools and has also been part of Forrester's sales and consulting organizations.
Shar's research focuses on overall interactive marketing strategies; crafting efficient, effective interactive programs; organizing for interactive marketing; and integrating interactive channels into the rest of the marketing mix. Specific subjects addressed in Shar's research include email marketing, online advertising, search engine marketing, ad serving and targeting, interactive budgeting and forecasts, and interactive marketing organizational models.
Shar returned to Forrester in 2004 after several years away working in marketing consulting. Shar served as research director for marketing research boutique, TideWatch, where she led internal strategy efforts and client strategy projects. Shar was also a consultant with Carlson Marketing Group's Business Strategy Consulting team, developing CRM and email programs for clients including British Airways, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and Home Depot. Shar began her career at Forrester in 1997 during the early days of the Internet and has written research on customer loyalty, ad networks, and marketing measurement and planning.
A popular speaker, Shar has been seen on stage at ad:tech, MITX, DMA, and the Email Service Provider Coalition events, among others. She is on the board of SEMPO — the search engine marketing professionals organization — and is also widely quoted in the press including such media outlets as BusinessWeek, Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and is a frequent guest on CNBC and National Public Radio.
Shar is a graduate of Harvard University.
How Research Touchpoints Affect Consumer Spending
Consumers connect with brands throughout the customer life cycle — they discover, explore, buy, and engage using a multitude of touchpoints. In the explore phase, consumers use a variety of...
Disruption Drives 12 Trends In Digital Insurance Agendas
There's one word that sums up what's going on in the business of insurance right now: disruption. There are four drivers behind the state that the industry is in, all of which have implications...
Forrester conducted an online survey fielded in March 2013 of 5,504 Canadian individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size (N = 5,504), there is 95% confidence...

Consumers' preferences for customer service channels are rapidly changing. And it's not just the younger generation of consumers — there's disruption and change across all ages and...

European eBusiness Executives Must Embrace A Multi-Touchpoint Reality
European retail eBusiness executives face a time of unprecedented change. The range of touchpoints that customers use to discover, explore, buy, and re-engage with brands is growing by the day. New...
Forrester Research conducted an online survey in December 2012 of 4,108 consumers ages 18 and older in metropolitan China (including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenyang,...
Forrester conducted an online survey fielded in January 2013 of 14,228 European individuals in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. This survey is based on an online...
Global Consumer Technographics®
In 2012, the majority of consumers in the US, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Latin America owned a mobile phone. However, the ways in which global consumers use their phone varies across countries....
Vision: The Contact Centers For Customer Service Playbook
As organizations strive to succeed in the age of the customer, business and IT professionals responsible for customer service struggle to understand changing customer behavior, re-engineer end-to-end...

Forrester conducted an online survey fielded in February 2013 of 4,549 US individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size (N = 4,549), there is 95% confidence...
Business Case: The Customer Experience Ecosystem Playbook
This report is an update to "Why Customer Experience? Why Now?" originally published on October 4, 2011. We've entered the age of the customer — an era where a focus on customers matters more...
North American Technographics®
In this demographic overview, we take a look at US young professionals — an ambitious group that seems to embody the "work hard, play hard" lifestyle. Forrester defines young professionals as...
A Global Consumer Technographics® Report
Based on sheer geographical size, Russia is the largest country in the world. It spans nine time zones, represents a diverse ethnic population, and is on track to be one of the five largest economies...
Countries included: UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden
Vision: The Innovation Playbook
Now is a critical time for CIOs to focus on innovation. The pace of change is too fast, the opportunities too great, and the risks too dire to relegate it to the annual funding process. Digitally...
Global automotive markets are being transformed by the combined effects of environmental concerns, the fast growth of emerging markets, and changing consumer behavior. In particular, the automotive...

Forrester Technographics Digital Consumer Community Report
Tracking and managing personal health information — with technology or without — is not a mainstream consumer activity today. There are multiple reasons for this: Consumers lack...
Freeware solutions, device proliferation, consumerization, the app Internet, and new entrants offering adjacent consumer privacy and security offerings have and will continue to change consumer...
North American Consumer Technographics®
This report is a graphical analysis of Forrester's North American Technographics® Online Benchmark Survey (Part 1), Q2 2012 (US, Canada). It provides a generational overview of US consumers'...
A Forrester Technographics Digital Consumer Community Report
In recent years, we have seen a continued increase in online shopping around the holidays. Forrester's US Online Holiday Retail Forecast, 2012 again showed an increase in consumer spending; online...
A Technographics® Data Essentials Document
2012 was undoubtedly a pivotal year for tablets. With double-digit growth in tablet uptake across Western Europe, about one in seven online Europeans now owns a tablet. And with further double-digit...
Landscape: The Mobile Insurance Strategy Playbook
Insurance companies are rolling out a widening range of mobile insurance functionality for both consumers and agents. While there's substantial consumer interest in mobile insurance, actual use is...

A Technographics® Data Essentials Document
Brand loyalty and price sensitivity guide consumers' purchasing decisions, but these qualities also create unique audiences that embody distinct social attitudes, technology engagement, and...
North American Technographics®
This demographic overview highlights the unique behaviors and attitudes that characterize US online Hispanics compared with their non-Hispanic peers. US online Hispanics lead the way in mobile device...
Forrester conducted an online survey fielded in January 2013 of 1,051 affluent US individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size (N = 1,051), there is 95%...