A bibliometric analysis of the structure and trends of customer engagement in the context of international marketing Mukta Srivastava T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal, India, and Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan Independent Researcher, Mumbai, India Abstract Purpose – Research in customer engagement (CE) has gained momentum in the last decade, thanks to its growing popularity among scholars and practitioners. The Marketing Science Institute (MSI), for instance, has been continually listing CE as part of its Tier I research priorities since 2010. CE scholars have also studied the construct in the international marketing context. Hofstede’s characterization of cultures as either individualist or collectivist helped scholars explain the need for different CE strategies across countries, and the domain seems to be evolving ever since. The ever-growing interest of CE scholars in the international market and cross-cultural scenarios requires a comprehensive and scientific review of the literature. Using bibliometric analysis, this study fills this critical gap by mapping the intellectual structure of CE research in the context of international marketing and provides future research directions to scholars in this domain. Design/methodology/approach – The authors have used VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 109 articles in the domain. Findings – The major findings include the most influential countries, journals, articles and authors, the different research streams and their development and the future research directions in the domain. When CE is considered in an international marketing context, four broad themes emerged. The first theme is about differences in customer engagement behaviors across cultures. The second theme is about the development of CE and related constructs. The third theme relates to how brands have used CE and CBE (customer brand engagement) across different international contexts. The fourth theme is all about the conceptual and methodological support for the study of CE. Originality/value – This study is a novel attempt at providing a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of CE research in the international marketing context, using a combination of VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages. Keywords Customer engagement, International marketing, Bibliometric analysis, VOSviewer, Biblioshiny Paper type Research paper Introduction Both business to customer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) customers interact with brands and companies in myriad ways. In the B2C world, consumers and shoppers are either willingly or unwillingly exposed to advertising, which, in turn, elicits a response. Responses could also be generated from point of purchase displays, PR mentions and marketing efforts on digital media. In the B2B context, customers are more likely to interact with salespeople from companies, websites or social media accounts. Recent developments in this space of interactions are the advent and rapid penetration of apps. With all these changes, interactions between brands and customers have reached hitherto unprecedented levels. Customers are Customer engagement in international marketing The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, the editor, and Professor Demetris Vrontis, the associate editor for their invaluable suggestions to improve this manuscript. Received 21 June 2021 Revised 20 October 2021 24 February 2022 Accepted 24 February 2022 International Marketing Review © Emerald Publishing Limited 0265-1335 DOI 10.1108/IMR-06-2021-0204 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0265-1335.htm