Neuromarketing Insights into Consumer Buying Behaviour: A Review of Emotional Engagement and Decision-Making Processes

Neuromarketing has developed into a multifaceted area that merges neuroscience and marketing to understand consumer buying behaviour and decision-making processes. This review examines how businesses use neuroscience technologies to analyse consumers’ emotional engagement and implicit responses during the buying decision process. Following a narrative (semi-systematic) thematic review design, 36 relevant studies published between 2010 and 2025 in diverse geographical settings were purposively selected from Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar and synthesised through thematic analysis. The results show that consumer behaviour is highly dynamic and, often, strongly influenced by emotional processes, although cognitive evaluation also plays an important role. The review concludes that neuromarketing can help firms design emotionally appealing advertising campaigns and strengthen brand-consumer relationships, and that much of the existing literature presents neuromarketing as a research-supported strategy rather than a form of manipulation. The review also discusses the ethical and methodological limitations of neuromarketing and proposes a conceptual framework in which emotional engagement links neuromarketing with consumer decision-making and buying behaviour, moderated by consumers’ ethical perceptions and awareness.