Brands today lose millions in revenue due to poor cross-channel execution and a lack of real-time customer insight.
As the customer journey grows more complex, many teams without connected systems and data are plagued by fragmented customer experiences that erode trust and loyalty over time. For this reason, omnichannel marketing strategies have become the modern marketer’s biggest asset—offering actionable insights, hyper-personalization and cross-channel orchestration.
According to our research on personalization, 91% of survey respondents stated that they see at least one irrelevant ad every single day. For brands looking to create truly connected experiences, an omnichannel marketing strategy—fueled by quality data and identity resolution—can help you deliver the right message at the right time, seamlessly.
This article offers an introduction to the key elements of omnichannel marketing and provides an overview of what goes into establishing effective omnichannel campaigns that will benefit your business.
People move from touchpoint to touchpoint—and they do it fast. What makes omnichannel different from multichannel strategies is its power to unify your brand’s messaging—making it possible to truly connect with your customers with consistency and continuity—anywhere they prefer to engage.
Whether a customer starts on TikTok, finds a YouTube influencer and then reads a review on Amazon about your brand, every action should feel fluid. Your messaging should consistently encourage them to purchase your products or services and continue interacting with your brand throughout their buying journey.
Omnichannel customer journeys ensure they can:
The path to purchase isn’t linear—it’s dispersed and shaped by micro-moments that require brands to be present, relevant and responsive—everywhere.
The truth of the matter is that it's not enough to simply be on every channel—you must connect meaningfully at every given opportunity. This means switching from multichannel—which serves your brand message on various platforms—to omnichannel, which unifies across channels to serve your customers’ needs.
Omnichannel marketing strategies are built for ongoing consumer-brand interactions to happen without friction. With the right technology, you can recognize customer intent and deliver relevant messages—regardless of whether someone chooses to browse anonymously or land on a site from an SMS notification they received a month ago.
Successful omnichannel execution takes more than great strategic thinking. It requires a solid foundation—the right data and technology, with cross-channel orchestration mapping abilities, and AI-driven insights to deliver what customers expect: speed, relevance and consistency.
The root cause of fragmented experiences is data that’s scattered across touch points—like digital customer experience platforms, in-store interactions, social media channels and analytics dashboards. Gaps in the experience, missed opportunities and inconsistent messages lead to growing frustration—on both sides of the consumer-brand exchange.
Data is the important piece that connects it all—and unifying data so that it can elevate first-party data strategies is at the core of everything we do. Investing in a solution that’s recognized as an industry-leader for helping brands bridge the gap between adtech and martech, will help you build digital customer experience strategies that truly reflect your customer.
Turning moments—when someone switches from browsing on their phone during a commute to searching on their laptop at home—into a synced cohesive journey is where advanced technology can step in and boost the brand experience.
Customer data platforms (CDPs) and data clean rooms work together for optimized, personalized omnichannel customer experiences. Let’s break it down:
The result is messages with consistent tone across channels, being able to provide offers that are tailored based on past customer interactions and smooth transitions across channels.
With integrated unified platforms, brands can activate their data on high-value audiences across channels with precision—bringing customer behavior into sharp focus to deliver better outcomes.
When a customer gets an email featuring a product they browsed earlier—and clicks through to a landing page—it picks up exactly where they left off. Later, that same customer will see an ad on a different site that speaks to their interests and aligns directly with where they sit on the buying journey.
Cleansed and unified data can ensure effective campaign execution—where your customers feel seen, understood and valued—every step of the way. Which inherently makes it a powerful driver of increased ROI and customer retention.
If you want to build loyalty for your brand, you need to recognize your audience—and customize responses in ways that resonate. In our recent research on customer loyalty, 80% of consumers surveyed stated that they like it when brands personalize their communications based on their interactions and status with their loyalty programs.
Brands like Walgreens have taken this approach by building their loyalty programs into a strong data foundation, allowing for more personalized cross-channel customer engagement. By leveraging insights from their loyalty program, they can better understand customer behaviors and preferences, creating a more unified customer view of their audience.
When brands move away from fragmented communications, they can deliver personalized experiences—designed specifically for the customer, not the channel—driving repeat purchases, increasing customer lifetime value and creating lifelong brand advocates.
An effective strategy connects acquisition, reactivation and retention through a true omnichannel experience. It’s not about one moment—it helps you deliver campaigns based on behavioral segmentation, provide AI-driven insights that recommend similar products based on customer interest and intent—ultimately, boosting conversions and driving better ROI.
The idea is that consumers have the ultimate freedom of choice on how, where and when they will embrace your message—and, hopefully, buy what you are selling.
Building a connected customer journey doesn’t happen overnight—but a successful transition to an omnichannel strategy is vital to delivering truly unified experiences—and experiencing measurable growth.
Some steps to consider:
With a customer-centric mindset, the right solutions and a shared commitment to cross-functional collaboration, you can set your brand up for long-term scalable growth.
Achieving successful outcomes requires more than just technology—it takes a shift in mindset. It requires cross-functional alignment between your adtech and martech. That means not only breaking down silos in data, but also strategy. With shared goals, you can integrate workflows for fluid campaign execution across teams, resulting in better business outcomes.
Implementing a strong omnichannel marketing strategy is just the start. The key to sustaining momentum and growth lies in your ability to prove ROI and showcase customer experience successes—ultimately, encouraging leadership buy-in. The right tools are also equipped with data storytelling capabilities, like dashboards, that illustrate how your omnichannel marketing initiatives are driving brand equity and business growth.
What if your data could think for you? Maybe it would adjust future messages for customers that completed a purchase online to suit their style and buying preferences. It might detect patterns and segment them into "seasonal shopper" audience categories.
That’s what AI-enhanced insights do—it activates in real time.
With strong foundation of data and identity resolution, AI enables personalization at scale—paving the way to dynamic content optimization and smarter segmentation, turning your data into actionable insights. It unlocks patterns, predicting behavior and identifying the next best action for your customers across touchpoints.
The state of omnichannel marketing isn’t just connected—it’s adaptive, predictive and insight-driven.
At Epsilon, data and identity resolution are at the core of all our solutions. They work together to unify data, creative and delivery across every touchpoint and ensure consistent messaging and smarter optimization. The right technology provider also has advanced AI capabilities built-in—ensuring your omnichannel marketing campaigns align with customer intent for stronger customer engagement and measurable impact across the full funnel.
Delivering a true omnichannel brand experience means more than showing up in every channel—it requires showing up with relevance. With the right tools, you can create seamless journeys that resonate and keep people coming back.
Investing in the right technology partner won’t just improve your marketing operations—they elevate how your brand is experienced. When every interaction is personalized, relevant and consistent, you don’t just meet customers' expectation—you deliver on them. The future of marketing is omnichannel: It’s connected, smarter and person-first.
Learn more about how Epsilon's all-in-one marketing platform can help you reach new customers and engage existing ones.
This article was originally published on March 1, 2023, and has since been updated.
