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There are infinite ways to measure the success of a marketing campaign. Still, one of the marketers' top challenges comes when it's time to quantify campaign success in terms of actual revenue dollars. Making the leap between marketing metrics and business outcomes often requires collecting data from multiple platforms, connecting the dots, and filling in the blanks. 

Traditional marketing performance metrics simply aren't the most accurate for measuring business success, but newer platforms and tools enable a better alternative — incrementality marketing. Incrementality takes a different approach to metrics like attribution, lift, and ROI, which means learning new strategies and measurement plans.

What is incrementality marketing, and why is it important?

Incrementality is a way to measure the impact a certain marketing activity has on a desired business outcome. Incrementality helps marketers discern what portion of success can be attributed to campaign efforts versus which results would have occurred organically without a specific marketing interaction or touchpoint.

Collecting and using third-party data for marketing campaign targeting and optimization is increasingly difficult and costly. Privacy and tracking regulations will only become stricter in the coming months and years. With the shift toward first-party data and tracking comes the need for new tools and methodologies.

In a Cardlytics study, we discovered a major disconnect between the outcomes businesses deem important and the effectiveness of current marketing initiatives at achieving those outcomes. For example:

• 72% of retail executives said "gaining competitive market share" is one of their top three priorities from performance marketing investments.
• But 61% said current performance marketing initiatives are ineffective in terms of helping them gain a competitive market share.

Clearly, retailers are hungry for initiatives that actually drive results. The ineffectiveness of current approaches necessitates a shift to methodically shape marketing strategies and measure campaign success.

Strategies for incrementality

Incrementality marketing may seem complex, but that's mainly because it has historically been difficult to measure. There is good news, though. The shift from third-party data makes incrementality more important and easier to implement. With privacy regulations shielding customer data from marketers, incrementality measurement and first-party data will soon reign supreme.

In the past, many online marketing tools and platforms simply didn't collect the data needed to measure incrementality with confidence. This meant marketers relied on metrics like ad views and click-through rates to make assumptions about campaign performance. Now, the latest customer data platforms (CDPs) move beyond these traditional KPIs and dial into exactly which digital efforts have an impact on sales — all while providing a more seamless experience for marketers and consumers alike.

In addition to having the right tools in place to prioritize incrementality marketing and measurement, marketers need a mindset shift to understand which of their efforts truly moves the needle.

Moving from engagement to growth as KPI

Increasing user engagement is a common goal for performance marketing campaigns. Common customer engagement KPIs include:

• Email open rates and click-through rates
• Ad clicks
• Social media engagement
• Session duration

Brands want to drive customer engagement because of the assumption that engaged customers will spend more money, shop more frequently, and make recommendations to friends. These assumptions may be true, but they're difficult to prove with hard data — especially because most engagement campaigns rely on third-party data for audience targeting and tracking.

To make the shift to an incrementality mindset, move away from engagement-focused KPIs and focus on growth-focused KPIs. Growth KPIs include things like:

• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Incremental revenue
• Competitive market share
• Category wallet share

These KPIs provide a better picture of campaign success — as long as you can accurately attribute outcomes to specific marketing efforts. This ties back to the importance of first-party data. Clicks, views, and other engagement metrics will never be as precise as growth metrics measured with data from first-party sources such as customer transactions.

Focus on gaining competitive market share

One of the key growth-based KPIs marketers should focus on as they shift to an incrementality mindset is competitive market share. As with other incrementality measurement methods, quantifying competitive market share can seem like a tall order — especially if your current platforms and tools are limited in terms of targeting and other performance measurement capabilities.

If this challenge sounds familiar, you're in good company. For example, 76% of advertisers do not currently have the capabilities to define an audience or develop a campaign targeting high-spending shoppers in their category who have not spent with them for a defined timeframe.

This may seem like an extremely specific segment to target. Still, this level of specificity is within the realm of possibility when you prioritize marketing tools that combine strategic first-party customer data and robust in-platform intelligence.

Adopt an omnichannel approach

If you're an omnichannel advertiser, do your performance marketing and measurement efforts reflect that? Chances are, there is some disconnect between your online and in-store campaign measurement. Our study found that 84% of marketing executives cannot tie in-store purchase data directly to performance marketing campaigns.

Historically, it has been difficult — even impossible — for marketers to connect online marketing efforts to in-store sales accurately. Strategies such as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) help bridge the gap between eCommerce and in-store shopping experiences. However, there's still a disconnect between online and brick-and-mortar attribution. An omnichannel approach to sales and measurement is needed to capture your marketing efforts' impact fully.

How do you measure incrementality?

Measuring incrementality requires comparison and experimentation, typically with split-testing and control groups. As you begin, you'll first need a baseline understanding of expected revenue without any marketing efforts. You may need to pause your marketing efforts for a time to collect accurate data.

Next, pick an audience to segment into a test group and control group, and serve your marketing campaign to the test group only. Comparing the two groups' conversion rates will help you determine the incremental impact of the campaign.

Driving incremental revenue is a major priority for business executives and marketing leaders, but the two groups disagree on exactly how to measure it. There's a further issue — many businesses measuring incremental market share are not satisfied with their methodology.

• 81% of executives say that incremental market share is important
• 69% do not measure it
• Of those that do measure it, 83% are dissatisfied with how they're measuring it

Some of this disconnect arises because most traditional performance marketing metrics are simply inadequate for measuring incrementality. Any brands seeking to learn how to measure incrementality should start with revising their performance evaluation methodologies.

Attribution vs. incrementality

Attribution is the practice by which marketers discern which marketing touchpoints lead customers to a particular action or event. According to our study assessing over 250 business and marketing executives, 86% are currently relying on classic attribution methods, such as:

• Single-touch attribution models assign 100% of the credit for a conversion to one marketing touch point, such as the first or last touch.
• Position-based attribution splits the credit for a sale between the first and last touchpoints — also known as a U-shaped attribution.
• Multi-touch attribution models distribute attribution between various touch points.

The problem with these attribution models is that they can only approximate a digital campaign's impact and can't account for a buyer's full journey. They also don't account for offline touchpoints such as print ads, in-store signage, or promotions.

There is a more robust alternative to these attribution models: closed-loop attribution. Closed-loop attribution is a data-backed way for marketers to know exactly how a specific marketing channel or campaign contributed to sales and revenue. With closed-loop attribution, marketers can connect actual online purchases to specific digital campaigns to gain a clearer picture of the impact of their initiatives.

ROAS vs. iROAS

Another shift marketers need to make on their way to better incrementality measurement and analysis is the move from traditional return on ad spend (ROAS) measurement to incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) calculations. 

Calculating ROAS is straightforward. You simply divide the revenue attributed to your marketing campaign by the cost of that campaign:

Revenue / campaign cost = ROAS

ROAS is a classic way to measure the success of an ad campaign, but it doesn't take incrementality into account. To find your iROAS, the formula is very similar:

Incremental revenue / campaign cost = ROAS

The main difference in the incrementality model is the understanding that only a portion of your campaign revenue can be confidently attributed to your paid marketing efforts and would not occur without your campaign. Realistically, a portion of your campaign revenue would have come through regardless of your paid marketing efforts, and iROAS accounts for that.

Cardlytics is the incremental marketing tool you need

Your incrementality efforts will only be as good as the tools you use to craft and measure your campaigns. Cardlytics helps marketers measure the true impact of their digital campaigns — not just overall sales increases but incremental returns. With access to 179 million bank customers' real transaction data, Cardlytics gives brands a goldmine of first-party data, omnichannel attribution opportunities, and streamlined performance measurement and reporting.

More precise targeting based on first-party data

Third-party data is more expensive to attain and less accurate than first-party data. Also, third-party data is dying. With Cardlytics, campaign targeting is informed not by third-party data but by one out of every two card swipes in the US. 

Cardlytics worked closely with Dunkin' Donuts to identify which customers were most likely to be repeat customers based on first-party data — specifically, past purchase behavior with Dunkin' and its competitors. Cardlytics targeted this "likely to return" customer segment with cash-back offers via their online banking platforms, giving them an incentive to buy themselves a treat at Dunkin'. This campaign would not have been possible if Dunkin' had only relied on third-party data.

More accurate omnichannel attribution

What typically happens when someone sees an ad for a retailer online but then purchases in the brick-and-mortar store? There has historically been no way for that purchase to be accurately tracked and attributed to the online touchpoint. Cardlytics changes that. 

Because Cardlytics campaigns are based on bank transaction data, it doesn't matter where those transactions occur. Every time a customer swipes their card, there's a new data point Cardlytics can use for campaign targeting and reporting.

Straightforward performance measurement

Cardlytics eliminates the need for data interpretation, estimation, and assumptions. Our data comes from real purchases made by real people. Our campaign reports are based on real transaction data from people who saw ads on our digital ad platform. It's all first-party data, and it's easy to see results. When you launch a campaign with Cardlytics, we'll be able to report on growth-based KPIs such as:

• Long-term customer value
• Incremental return on ad spend
• Impact on overall market share 

With Cardlytics, retailers become market leaders well-positioned for omnichannel success.

Taking the next step with Cardlytics

It's hard to imagine marketing without third-party data and traditional KPIs, but the marketing landscape is changing whether we like it or not. Retailers must embrace incrementality and first-party data to remain competitive in the coming years. Learn more about marketing solutions and campaign measurement from Cardlytics, and contact us for more information.

The past year has seen consumers making up for lost time when it comes to eating out, with the industry experiencing a boom as pubs and restaurants reopened. 

Cardlytics spend data across 24 million UK bank accounts showed that overall spend across the dining sector increased 22% between 2021 and 2022 as people looked to make the most of socialising post-covid. Pubs and bars saw the largest spend increase of 12031% followed by casual dining restaurants (748%), coffee shops (63%) and quick service restaurants (40%).

Despite this general uptick in eating out over the past year, total spend across the sector is still down when compared to pre-pandemic levels. 

In comparison to 2020, Cardlytics data shows that spend in 2022 is still down across casual dining (-15%), pubs and bars (-7%), coffee shops (-5%) and quick service restaurants (-2%). 

As the cost-of-living reaches a crunch point and disposable income shrinks, hospitality is often the first in the firing line. Consumers will be making difficult choices to cut back their spending, meaning brands may face further hurdles in returning to pre-pandemic spend levels. 

Competition for customers is reaching a peak, and as consumers look to prioritise essentials like grocery shopping and energy bills over a meal or drink out, how can dining brands hold their market share? 

Invest in delivery options

Between 2020 and 2021, lockdowns drove an astronomic rise in spend across delivery platforms as customers had to experience their favourite foods from the comfort of home. Cardlytics spend data shows that delivery platforms saw a 110% rise in spend between 2020 and 2021. 

However, as restrictions lifted and customers sought to eat out rather than order in, these brands struggled to live up to their lockdown success leading to a spending decline of 5% between 2021 and 2022.

But the tide is changing. With increasing numbers of customers looking to cut back spending on more ‘expensive’ meals out but still wanting to treat themselves to a ‘cheaper’ takeaway at home. 

Casual dining is already starting to see the impact of the cost-of-living and tighter budgets with Cardlytics spend data showing that total spend fell 2% in the past 6 months compared to the previous 6 months. 

Investing in delivery options will stand dining brands in good stead to capitalise on this shift, as prices creep up and consumers cut back on trips out.

Diversify your offer with cheaper, smaller items

During times of financial difficulty, consumers still want ways to treat themselves but with smaller, less extravagant items. This means people are more likely to turn to coffees and snacks rather than a full three-course meal. 

Brands should look to diversify their offer with smaller items or options, whether that be a lunchtime deal, a discounted menu or takeaway options at reduced prices. This will help to keep customers returning in the short term and show that the brand understands and can meet their new needs. 

Invest in loyalty 

As the cost of living continues to rise, we’re likely to see people shop and spend in savvier ways. Our recent consumer poll of 2000 UK adults shows that 73% of consumers are planning to shop around more for the best deals. We’re already seeing the tangible impact of this at Cardlytics with the number of dining offers activated through banking app reward programmes having grown by a staggering 784% between 2021 and 2022. 

If dining brands want to retain customers in this difficult time, they need to tap into the deal-savvy customer base by offering tailored cashback and discounts to customers to engender more loyalty and spending. 

By utilising banking channels, brands can target customers by frequency and segment and firmly establish themselves as a favourite and the go to option for a treat during these difficult times.

As marketers, we all face the same question – How do we know that sale wouldn’t have happened anyway? There is always a need to prove marketing efforts accomplished something that would not have happened organically.

That is where we can lean on incrementality.

In our latest webinar, Juliana Lupinacci, VP, Agency Partnerships, speaks with leaders in the agency space, Matt Wool, CEO at Acceleration Partners and Kristen Pulver, VP, Affiliate Marketing at Horizon Media, about how advertisers can drive meaningful incremental revenue results through incrementality and how Cardlytics can help!

https://youtu.be/VLRC697oBUg

Finding and connecting with your target audience can be complicated in today's digital landscape. There are nearly unlimited options regarding the various channels and platforms consumers use to view content, interact with brands, and make purchases. At the same time, changes to internet privacy protocols are making digital marketing trickier than ever.

With consumers' attention split in so many ways, single-channel marketing is no longer a sensible option. You'll need a multichannel or omnichannel marketing strategy to reach your audience where they're at.

What is multichannel marketing?

Multichannel marketing is the practice of promoting products and services and engaging with customers across multiple marketing channels. With multichannel marketing, businesses may use different strategies and campaigns depending on the channel. Common marketing channels include:

• Social media
• Website
• Email
• Radio
• TV
• Digital ads
• Paid search
• Print materials
• In-store ads

What is omnichannel marketing?

Omnichannel marketing helps businesses promote their products and services across various channels, providing customers with a seamless brand experience with many touchpoints. With omnichannel marketing, businesses implement one strategy or campaign across all channels, creating a more cohesive experience. 

This marketing approach is designed to give customers consistent, regular exposure to your brand, building customer relationships, brand authority, and sales.

Three key differences between omnichannel and multichannel marketing

At first glance, multichannel and omnichannel marketing seem very similar. In fact, some marketers use these terms interchangeably. While both approaches rely on promoting across various marketing channels, the approaches are very different. Here's a list of several differences between omnichannel and multichannel marketing:

1. Irregular vs consistent strategy

Multichannel marketing handles channels separately when it comes to strategy. A business may use several channels in its marketing efforts, but each channel has its own strategy. Without an overarching strategy, campaigns and messaging across different channels can vary significantly. 

On the other hand, omnichannel marketing aims for consistency and a comprehensive strategy to be implemented across all channels. While the content and messaging may still vary slightly, there's an overall strategy tying everything together.

2. Siloed vs integrated distribution

In addition to the irregular strategy, multichannel marketing content distribution tends to be siloed. Different departments may handle different parts of distribution, which leads to a feeling of disconnection across channels. While a customer may encounter promotional material through multiple channels, it doesn't feel cohesive or connected.

By contrast, omnichannel marketing intentionally provides an integrated, holistic experience across all channels and platforms. The omnichannel approach creates a more seamless customer journey.

3. Broad vs personalized experience

With multichannel marketing, the goal is often to reach as many customers as possible through as many channels as possible. Many businesses prioritize quantity over quality with this approach, and results suffer when the net is cast too wide.

Omnichannel marketing isn't focused as much on the volume of customers engaged. Instead, it focuses on the quality of the customer experience. A solid omnichannel strategy builds trust, loyalty, and brand authority among target audiences, leading to increased sales and better retention rates.

Benefits of omnichannel marketing

Although omnichannel marketing requires more research and strategic planning investment, the value outweighs the effort. With a well-prepared omnichannel strategy, you'll see results beyond what's possible with multichannel marketing. The top benefits of omnichannel marketing include:

Cohesive brand strategy and identity

Omnichannel marketing strategies help you build a stronger brand. To create an omnichannel strategy, you'll need to make intentional decisions about your brand's tone and messaging across all channels.

A stronger identity will make your brand more memorable, and a cohesive brand strategy will make it easier to create comprehensive campaigns.

Improved customer experience

Unlike multichannel marketing, omnichannel efforts are focused on the customer, not the channel. An omnichannel approach helps create a seamless customer journey with consistent messaging and convenient touchpoints. Omnichannel marketing meets customers where they are — in both online and offline spaces — and makes it easy to complete purchases without friction.

Increased traffic and sales

When you create a more cohesive brand and improve the customer experience, you'll see results — an increase in traffic, repeat customers, and sales. Brands must meet customers where they're at, and in today's marketplace, that's everywhere. Omnichannel strategies are the way of the future. 

Many best-in-class brands have seen great success when implementing omnichannel marketing strategies. Solutions like Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ support omnichannel efforts by helping brands understand exactly where and when customers are making purchases. With these insights, brands can implement precise audience targeting and create promotional offers designed specifically for the customers most likely to convert.

Improve your omnichannel marketing efforts with Cardlytics

Multichannel marketing reaches customers through various channels, but omnichannel marketing takes that concept to the next level. With an omnichannel marketing strategy, you'll build a more cohesive brand, improve customer experience, and see tangible results.

Cardlytics offers unmatched support for your omnichannel efforts. With our access to real customer transaction data, we provide insights that shape actionable marketing strategies — all while protecting consumers' private, personal information. Contact us today to learn more about how Cardlytics can boost your omnichannel strategy.

Consumers are increasingly embracing the omnichannel shopping experience, and many retailers have risen to the challenge. Omnichannel retailing helps brands reach customers in new and creative ways, which can pay off in big ways in today's competitive digital marketplace.

So what are effective omnichannel retailers doing to leverage their online presence and capture customers' attention? It starts with channel integration.

What is omnichannel retailing?

Omnichannel retailing is a marketing approach wherein retail brands connect with customers via various channels and platforms. While it has similarities to multichannel marketing, omnichannel retail strategy differs by connecting cross-channel efforts with an overarching strategy.

Potential channels in an omnichannel retail strategy include:

• In-store experience, messaging, and signage
• Brand website
• Mobile app
• Social media profiles
• Traditional channels, such as TV, radio, and print

Omnichannel strategies provide a seamless, integrated experience across all channels. In the modern marketplace, customer expectations are high, and competition is fierce, so brands should take advantage of all available channels and platforms to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Let's look at some tips to help retailers get a leg up with their omnichannel efforts.

Three tips for omnichannel retailing

Get to know your customer

Every omnichannel retail strategy should start with the customer. If you already have customer profiles or personas in your marketing efforts and ad targeting, that's a great place to start. If not, you need to spend time creating your ideal customer personas. Identify basic demographic information like age, gender, location, and income, but don't stop there. Answer these questions to get to know your ideal customer on a whole new level:

• Where do they shop?
• What channel do they shop through — online, in-app, in-store, or a combination?
• How much do they typically spend on orders?
• Do they have seasonal spending trends?

You can get this information through customer surveys or through a solution that provides real bank transaction data from real shoppers, like Cardlytics. No matter which method you use to collect this information, these data-based insights are essential as you grow your omnichannel retailing efforts.

Make all channels shoppable

There was a period in history when a "shopping channel" was a TV network where you could watch product presentations and order items over the phone. Now, a retail shopping channel is any means by which consumers can purchase goods or services. And to succeed as an omnichannel retailer, brands need to take advantage of every channel to sell. This includes:

• Brick and mortar storefront(s)
• Website
• Mobile app
• Social media platforms

You may be using most of these channels already, but if customers can't make purchases through them, you're missing out on sales. Build ecommerce into your website and app, and implement shoppable social media posts and ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Create cross-channel touchpoints

To take your omnichannel retail strategy to the next level, create a variety of cross-channel touchpoints. The more you can offer a combined offline and in-store experience, the more seamless your customer experience. Curbside pickup, also known as buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) is a great example of a cross-channel touchpoint. Other ideas include:

• Real-time inventory updates online for in-store stock
• In-store signage with social media tie-ins
• A mobile app customer loyalty program that can be used both online and in-store
• Digital gift cards and coupons for in-store use

Cross-channel touchpoints create an integrated experience for customers, and they also create a sense of personalization.

Benefits of being an omnichannel retailer

Omnichannel retailing sounds exciting, but is it worth the effort? Here are several of the benefits of implementing an omnichannel retail strategy.

Competitive advantage

Even if you aren't an omnichannel retailer, your customers are omnichannel shoppers. Many customers use more than one channel during a single transaction. If you offer a convenient and compelling omnichannel experience, you'll gain a competitive edge over brands that haven't caught up.

Better results

Omnichannel retailing offers more opportunities for customers to buy from you, which naturally leads to more sales. Other results brands see when they go omnichannel include:

• Increased operational efficiency
• Increased customer retention
• Overall better customer satisfaction

Better customer experience

In addition to the benefits for business, omnichannel retailing leads to many benefits for shoppers. Omnichannel efforts give customers more purchasing options, more brand engagement, and more overall convenience. The positive customer experience makes consumers more likely to repeatedly shop with you and recommend your brand to friends and family.

Better data

With omnichannel retailing, you gain access to more data than ever before. This cross-channel data helps you refine and optimize your strategy, leading to even better results.

Use Cardlytics to launch your brand into the future of omnichannel retailing

With the right tools and solutions in place, your omnichannel efforts can transform your business. Cardlytics supports omnichannel retailers with powerful insights based on real customer transaction data. Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ can help you get to know your ideal customer and craft customizable, cross-channel offers for those most likely to buy. Learn more about Cardlytics today.

Ecommerce’s share of total retail sales has grown immensely in the past decade and will only keep growing. Omnichannel marketing helps businesses meet customers where they are — both online and in stores. To capture audiences’ attention in today’s distraction-filled world, brands must adopt an omnichannel strategy. This means implementing data-backed promotional and shopping campaigns across a variety of platforms.

We’ve devised a set of clear, simple steps for creating an omnichannel strategy for your business.

Seven steps for creating an effective omnichannel strategy

1. Define your ideal customer

The first step in creating an omnichannel marketing strategy is identifying and defining your ideal customer. While multichannel strategies are broad and channel-centered, omnichannel strategies are specific and customer-centered. The more specific you are about your target audience, the better. Ask these questions about your ideal customer:

• What do they care about? 
• Where do they shop?
• Where do they get information?
• What annoys them?

There are many more questions to explore when getting to know your ideal customer, but these are a good place to start.

2. Find your ideal customer

Once you’ve outlined your ideal customer and target audience, you need to know where they spend time. This isn’t just where they physically live but also where they hang out online. Answering these questions can help you find your ideal customer:

• Do they primarily shop online, in stores, or both?
• When do they shop?
• Do they shop with your competitors?
• How much do they spend?

To answer these questions, use whatever data you can access — website analytics, social listening tools, surveys, social media, and more. If you can get your hands on customer transaction data, you’ll receive valuable insights into spending habits and trends.

3. Choose your channels

Based on the insights you’ve gathered, select which marketing channels and platforms you’ll use for marketing to your customers. A successful omnichannel strategy should have a mix of digital and traditional channels. Examples of potential marketing channels include:

• Social media
• Brand website
• Mobile app
• Email
• Broadcast — radio and TV
• Digital ads
• Paid search
• Print materials
• In-store ads and promos

An effective omnichannel strategy needs to integrate multiple marketing channels seamlessly and give customers multiple options for where to make purchases. An example of this is a loyalty rewards program customers can use via website, mobile app, and in-store.

4. Enhance your online presence

Your online presence is extremely important, even if your brand primarily operates as a brick-and-mortar business. You must ensure your digital efforts align with in-store branding and messaging.

Make sure your brand image is cohesive, and the user experience is pain-free across all channels and platforms. When consumers interact positively with your brand across multiple channels, your reputation grows, and you stay at the top of their minds. Here are a few things to look for as you audit your online presence:

• Consistent imagery and messaging across social media platforms
• Mobile-friendly website with simple UX and clear CTAs
• Frictionless experience within your app
• Seamless integration with relevant third parties, such as delivery apps for restaurants

5. Map the customer journey

As you build your omnichannel campaign, you’ll find many moving parts across the various channels. Create a map of your customer’s journey, highlighting which channels customers will encounter along the way. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes will bring clarity to your omnichannel efforts and help you shape your messaging to speak to the right audience at the right moment.

Mapping the customer journey also helps you find potential pain points and inconveniences that could deter customers from engaging with you. As you create your map, look for ways to encourage crossover between online and offline experiences — offering in-store pickup for online orders is one example.

6. Prioritize customer support

A customer’s journey doesn’t end when they make a purchase. Customer support is an important part of the customer experience. A strong customer support strategy can turn casual shoppers into loyal customers — and a poor customer support experience could turn someone away forever. Provide support through multiple channels, and create a personalized experience through warm, friendly support specialists.

7. Collect and protect customer data

As you implement your omnichannel marketing strategy, you’ll undoubtedly need to tweak your targeting, messaging, or other elements of your strategy. Rather than basing changes on trends or assumptions, make data-driven changes based on the results you’ve seen so far. 

In addition to your own customer data, investigate solutions like Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ to gain powerful insights based on real customer transactions and purchase habits.

What a successful omnichannel marketing strategy looks like

Once you’ve implemented your omnichannel strategy, how do you measure success? Since your campaign spans multiple channels and marketing platforms, cross-channel or aggregate, metrics are important. Some KPIs to consider when evaluating your omnichannel efforts include:

• Cross-channel pageviews
• Social media engagement metrics
• Cross-channel conversion rate
• Average order value
• Churn rate

Your KPIs will differ depending on your overall campaign goals and which stage of the customer journey you’re looking at. Additionally, an effective omnichannel strategy may look different depending on your industry vertical — travel brands will craft a different customer journey than restaurant brands, for example.

Make Cardlytics part of your omnichannel marketing strategy

A successful omnichannel marketing strategy is key to reaching your target audience where they’re at. Cardlytics can provide marketing insights based on over 179 million consumers’ actual transaction data — all while protecting customers’ identification and personal information. Reach out today to learn more about how Cardlytics can enhance your omnichannel efforts.

Brands favor omnichannel marketing strategies for many reasons, including the opportunity to reach more customers and make more sales. However, in addition to business benefits, omnichannel efforts can greatly improve the customer shopping experience.

A well-crafted omnichannel customer experience can help you build a satisfied, loyal, and enthusiastic customer base.

What is the omnichannel customer experience?

The omnichannel customer experience is simply a way of describing how customers engage with and interact with brands through several channels. This is also known as the omnichannel customer journey. 

An effective omnichannel strategy should include a customer journey map, with details about which channel(s) the customer interacts with at each stage in the purchasing process.

What do customers really want?

To provide an exceptional customer experience, you need to understand what customers want and give them what they want. Some examples of consumers' customer service expectations include:

• Foresight
• Convenience
• Flexibility
• Reliability
• Empathy

With a well-crafted omnichannel strategy, you'll have various resources at your fingertips to meet and exceed these expectations, ultimately providing a satisfying, elevated experience that keeps customers coming back.

Meeting customer needs with your omnichannel customer journey

Adopting an omnichannel approach is the best way to serve your customers and improve their overall experience with your brand. Here are some ideas for crafting an omnichannel customer experience that meets and exceeds customers' expectations.

Foresight — anticipating needs

Customers want brands to anticipate their needs, not just respond to them — but brands aren't mind readers. To effectively anticipate customer needs, you need an in-depth understanding of your customer, which you can get through data and customer feedback. Some ways to improve foresight include:

• Soliciting customer feedback across multiple channels — add a link to a survey on printed receipts, in order confirmation emails, and on social media posts
• Including proactive outreach as a part of your customer communication
• Analyzing cross-channel customer data and looking for patterns

Swift, thoughtful responses are now the bare minimum in customer service. To really connect with customers, use data and feedback to anticipate their needs.

Convenience — reducing friction

Customers expect convenience when shopping in-store and placing orders online, and even small inconveniences can cause them to shop elsewhere. Your omnichannel customer journey should be streamlined and optimized to provide the level of convenience customers want. Here are some ways to achieve a more frictionless customer journey through your omnichannel efforts:

• Optimizing your digital platforms — website, mobile app, social media profiles, Google My Business profile — for speed and usability
• Giving customers a real-time view of inventory to see what's in stock
• Streamlining the ordering and checkout processes

You can see increased sales and more repeat customers by improving convenience and optimizing your customer journey.

Flexibility — providing options

The more options you offer, the more personalized your customer experience. As you create your omnichannel customer service strategy, look for opportunities to offer a variety of options, such as:

• Allowing customers to make purchases through any channel
• Allowing all forms of payment
• Offering a variety of shipping and fulfillment options

Customers have unique wants and needs and are more likely to shop again when their preferences are accommodated.

Reliability — being consistent

Consistency can be challenging with an omnichannel strategy because you may have many channels to coordinate and integrate. Try these tips to increase your reliability across your omnichannel efforts:

• Consistent branding and brand messaging across channels — your presence and promotions should be instantly recognizable no matter where customers encounter you
• Fast response times across all customer service channels

When you provide an exceptional customer experience, you'll gain a reputation for excellence. Maintain and grow your brand's reputation by being consistent and reliable with branding and customer service.

Empathy — showing you care

Although you may handle a large volume of customer inquiries, each customer wants to feel like you care about their specific question or issue. To show you care and to build trust with your target audience, incorporate these things in your omnichannel customer service strategy:

• Warm, friendly customer service representatives
• Multiple customer service channels — email, phone, online chat, social media, in-store
• Creating customized responses to customer reviews

When consumers feel cared for, they develop an emotional connection with your brand, and they're more likely to return and share their positive experiences with others.

Provide a better omnichannel customer experience with Cardlytics

A well-executed omnichannel strategy can transform the customer experience into a seamless series of touchpoints where you're meeting customers' every need. Solutions like Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ offer transaction-based data and insights that can boost your omnichannel efforts and drive results. To learn more about how Cardlytics can help meet your customer's needs and expectations, reach out today.

Did you know that omnichannel customers–those who shop through multiple channels- spend nearly twice as much as traditional brick-and-mortar customers?

Post-COVID pandemic recovery in the retail sector was fueled largely by omnichannel retail strategies. As consumers returned to their favorite retailers, they increasingly turned to digital channels to find store locations, compare prices, read reviews, and get discounts. 

It turns out that double the exposure meant double the spending. During the holiday shopping season, these omnichannel customers spent twice as much as their single-channel shoppers. That is a profit-driving trend that can’t be ignored.

We saw similar themes in food and beverage, with online ordering reaching 26% of the food order share in 2020–and showing no signs of slowing down even as restaurants opened their doors for traditional dining options.

In this guide, we’ll discuss what you need to know about omnichannel marketing–what it is, why it’s important, and how to use it–to serve a growing consumer base that prefers to blur the lines between e-commerce and traditional retail.

What is Omnichannel Marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is an all-encompassing marketing strategy designed to provide a seamless brand experience across multiple touchpoints. 

It begins with the fundamental understanding that customers may choose to engage with your brand in a variety of ways, like mobile shopping, social media engagement, and in-store experiences. Because these channels are not mutually exclusive–consumers often use multiple touchpoints.

For brands, it’s important that wherever and whenever customers engage with the brand, their experience is consistent. It’s also a growing necessity. The pandemic era push towards digital enablement brought a new level of comfort across multiple channels for brands and consumers.

Omnichannel marketing is a trend that’s here to stay. According to Cardlytics data, online spending has maintained increases between 90-130% YoY even as most consumers have returned in person. This means that customers are no longer either online or in-person. And that shift is reshaping how companies market to these consumers.

Omnichannel marketing vs. multichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing occurs across multiple channels, creating some confusion between these two terms. Let’s look at how they’re different.

Multichannel marketing refers to using multiple channels to promote products and services, often with independent strategies optimized for each channel. This means different campaigns for different audiences in print, media, and digital formats. 

A multichannel strategy tends to be broad in scope and siloed, with each channel performing independently to reach as many customers as possible.

With omnichannel marketing, the strategy utilizes multiple channels,  but the focus is on consistency across all of those channels.

Brands using omnichannel strategies favor an integrated approach with personalized experiences that prioritize customer loyalty over exposure.

Brands that take advantage of omnichannel marketing benefit from strong, cohesive brand identity, better customer experiences, and more engagement leading to more traffic and better sales. In 2018, back-to-school shoppers proved that omnichannel marketing is more effective, with 48% more spending by omni-shoppers.

Learn more about omnichannel marketing vs. multichannel marketing.

How to create an omnichannel marketing strategy

Omnichannel retailers see benefits beginning with the ability to meet consumer expectations. A positive customer experience drives sales and loyalty, giving these brands a clear competitive advantage.

Here’s a quick look at how to get started.

1. Study Your Customer Data

2. Create Shoppable Touchpoints

3. Connect the Dots

Customer data is key

First, look at who your customers are and where they engage. Comparing sales from online orders, in-app purchases, and brick-and-mortar transactions will give you an idea of what channels to include in your strategy. Customer demographics will clue you into how to reach them. Take time to map the entire customer journey from first look to post-purchase retention.

Create shoppable touchpoints

Next, embrace the idea that revenue-generating transactions can look like many different things, depending on where they originate. Your in-person store experiences can look like racks of product and lanes of cashiers–or it can look like personal shoppers and QR codes. 

Augmented reality can redefine e-commerce transactions, and your social media ads can transform into shoppable, influencer-driven sales. Bring the focus of your digital presence to revenue-generating activities by making every channel shoppable.

Connect the dots with omnichannel integration

Finally, connect your shoppable touchpoints. Find ways to engage app users in the store, direct social media traffic to your website or cue up discount codes scanned from smartphones in the checkout lane. In the delivery, prioritize customer service to balance the human interaction element and collect data to measure and monitor effectiveness.

When you get it right–you’ll see the difference in cross-channel pageviews, social media engagement, cross-channel conversion, average order value, and churn rate. Dig deeper with an easy step-by-step plan to create an omnichannel marketing strategy.

Benefits of omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing strategies are a consumer-driven sales optimization tool offering plenty of benefits for shoppers and retailers. Let’s look closer at how each party benefits.

Consumers get a better experience

Omnichannel marketing enables brands to provide what customers really want–offering positive, personalized experiences.

What does that mean?

For consumers, it means that brands proactively anticipate their needs even before they shop. And meet them with:

• Convenience
• Flexibility
• Reliability
• Empathy

In the moment, consumers want convenience–or the ability to get exactly what they want without waiting. To follow through, customers want flexibility–or the option to choose when, where, and how they will make a purchase. And to keep coming back, consumers want reliability–or trust that they will continue to receive the same experience each time.

But it’s not enough to go through the motions. Consumers want all of this–with empathy. The difference between a good experience and a brand loyalty-worthy experience is feelings. Consumers need to know that your brand cares about meeting their needs. 

Omnichannel marketing enables customer-driven service models so that brands can balance automation, optimization, and human interaction to provide a positive customer experience.

Businesses get a better image and a healthier profit

Why are so many retailers going to great lengths to create positive customer experiences? It’s simple–catering to the demand for personalized experiences drives business.

An omnichannel marketing strategy can:

• Identify New Customers (Opportunities)
• Nurture Customer Loyalty (Efficiency)
• Increase Sales (Profit)

When retailers take the time to study their shoppers, digging into data-driven insights, they can discover entirely new subsets of customers they didn’t even know existed. Identifying these customers and their unique needs is the first step in reaching them with personalized service and driving more sales.

For example, Cardlytics data shows that online shoppers spend more by an average of $15 per basket. Still, three-quarters (75.1%) of shoppers remain loyal to the in-store shopping experience. Using an omnichannel approach, retailers can supplement the in-store shopping experience with digital channels to add convenience and flexibility for the customer, netting higher sales for the retailer.

Another key business benefit is optimizing the lifetime value of a customer. Retail businesses know exactly how much it costs to gain, service, keep, and lose an individual customer. And time and again–the data proves that the lifetime value of loyal, repeat customers is the key to sustainable growth.

When you know who your customers are–and you’re making an effort to give them what they need–you’re effectively driving sales. See how the omnichannel customer experience captures what the customer wants to increase sales with this in-depth

The takeaway on omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing is an opportunity for retail brands to reach new audiences, drive loyalty, and achieve sustainable growth by improving the customer experience. It’s an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage using convenience, flexibility, consistency, and empathy. Cardlytics’ solution can support your omnichannel marketing strategy with transaction-based data that provides real insights into what your customers want most.

The rise of digital marketing has evolved side by side with third-party cookies. And now–they're parting ways. 

Evolving privacy concerns are shaping policy decisions across the big tech landscape that will change how marketers handle digital channels. An entire industry is shifting from reliance on cookie-based marketing data to a future that currently feels a bit unclear.

You have options, but if you're asking—now is the time to support an omnichannel cookieless marketing strategy.

In this guide to a cookieless strategy, we'll discuss why third-party cookies are a thing of the past and how performance marketing programs with an omnichannel approach are the path forward.

What is cookie-based marketing?

In the digital world, a cookie is a small piece of code designed to store user data. In 1994, when a Netscape engineer invented the cookie, the goal was to improve the user experience on the web. 

Cookies can track things like:

• Page Visits
• Length of Time on Page
• User Location
• Income 
• Gender
• Interests
• Social Media Likes
• Age

By 1996, developers had figured out how to use cookies to extract valuable data for marketers, and by 1999 the third-party cookie had revolutionized digital marketing capabilities. For the last two decades, the marketing world has revolved around cookie-based marketing, often at the expense of data privacy.

As momentum grows behind data privacy as a human right, fueled by policies like the General Data Protection Rights act passed by the European Union in 2018, Big Tech is feeling the pressure to take third-party cookies out of the equation–leaving marketers no choice but to adapt.

Preparing for a cookieless future

The end of third-party cookies is a significant change for digital and programmatic advertising. Without cookies, marketers must find new ways to gather demographic and psychographic data to build complex customer profiles. 

The ability to track attributions to measure campaign effectiveness or to retarget and redirect traffic effectively will also be diminished. This means that return on investment for ad spend will suffer as conversion rates decline.

The fallout from the depreciation of third-party cookies will force change as the marketing world explores new options to recover lost ground in audience profiling, retargeting, and attribution tracking.

Alternatives to third-party cookies include:

• Cultivate First-Party Data Streams
• Utilize Aggregate First-Party Data Sources 
• Pair Contextual Targeting with First-Party Data
• Watch for New Sources

How big tech is moving us towards cookieless marketing

Once a place of anonymity, the internet has morphed into a world full of tools to track every click and pixel for someone else's benefit. 

It's an invasive practice that grew alongside the internet while effective data privacy policies were slow to adapt. That is–until Big Tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook made policy changes that would push us towards a cookieless future.

Apple set a precedent with its iOS 14 updates. For the first time, this tech giant rolled out changes designed to protect its users' privacy. An App Tracking Transparency Framework (ATTP), Wifi MAC address randomization, and Apple App Store permissions and disclosures put iPhone users in control with who they shared their data with.

Google matched suit by developing Google's Privacy Sandbox to foster innovation and facilitate the development of privacy-first marketing solutions in preparation for a cookieless future. This tech-facilitated development project produced several great ideas, including:

• Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC)
• TURTLEDOV
• SPARROW
• Dovekey
• PARRROT
• Fledge

Each of these initiatives addresses a different area of concern for digital privacy, providing an alternative that serves as building blocks for future cookieless tech stacks.

The innovation process is experimental. Every new advancement is a learning opportunity to discover what works and what doesn't. Google FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) was the first attempt at a true cookieless alternative. 

FLoC was designed to protect data privacy, but it was quickly discovered that a fundamental design flaw actually made it easier to fingerprint and track users. Google suspended development on FLoC in July 2021, effectively shifting resources to Google Topics API instead.

This proposal utilizes a temporary, browser-based solution that shares topical interests safeguarded with pro-privacy protections. With Google Topics API, advertisers can access the important data they need for audience targeting and retargeting without third-party servers.

Policy moves towards privacy, limiting cookie-based marketing

Policies that protect personal privacy aren't new. As far back as 1789, the US Constitution included amendments addressing these protections. The only thing that has changed since then is how information is collected, stored, and used. 

The digital world is continuously evolving, and along with it, how we apply policy changes. More recent legislative actions like the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) or CCPA (US) are modernized policy updates to protect personal privacy as a human right in the digital age.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, policy moves established a National Do Not Call Registry and the Health & Medical Privacy (HIPAA). When Web 2.0 arrived in the 2000s, many states adopted data breach notification laws. And as recently as 2018, the EU passed a first-of-its-kind privacy act for the digital world, setting a precedent for other global leaders to follow suit.

With each new policy, the rights of individuals gain a little more protection, and the responsibilities of organizations that collect, use, and store personal data become greater. After the GDPR went into effect (2018), most online websites began displaying opt-in notices regarding cookies. 

This was one significant step in bringing personal privacy concerns out of the peripheral and into focus for everyday users. In the US, California was the first state to pass privacy-specific legislation similar to the GDPR, with a few states like Colorado and Virginia following suit. These policy changes designed to give individuals control over how, when, and with whom their information is shared have a naturally limiting effect on the function of cookie-based marketing systems. So, that is to say, every step in the direction of pro-privacy interactions is a step away from cookie-based marketing.

A cookieless marketing strategy for the future

Not all cookies are getting the crunch. Pro-privacy maneuvers are specifically targeting third-party cookies that collect and share unauthorized data. That means it will take a little more effort to collect data–but quality, first-party sources are still out there.

Customer loyalty programs provide a path forward

In a high-effort, high-reward environment, customer loyalty programs shine as a quality-rich data source. This sets the stage for building a cookieless marketing strategy that prioritizes personalization and engagement over blanketed demographic reach. 

With this level of detail, the downfall of third-party cookies is enabling the rise of omnichannel integration. We're moving away from generalized tactics and siloed strategies fed by voluminous third-party data streams. And we're working towards hyper-personalization that caters to a specific, highly-engaged, opt-in audience.

Personalization is great, but efficiency is still important

Without third-party cookies, marketers are apprehensive about finding cost-effective ways to reach their audience. These feelings are valid–the cost of curating first-party data streams can be higher and is often spread across a much smaller audience.

But what if you can grow the lifetime value of a customer to offset the cost? An omnichannel marketing strategy that relies on first-party data fed from a well-designed loyalty program offers a cyclical, self-feeding sales cycle that can extract that value.

What if your customers received a notification reminding them of special offers in your app when they stepped foot in the store? With geo-location data, it's possible. What if your purchase decision process in the store was facilitated by scannable QR codes that helped your customers find the things they really wanted? 

And what if they received an SMS follow-up after leaving the store, giving a time-based second chance offer on something they shopped for but didn't purchase? With an omnichannel strategy, it's all possible.

It's time to rethink the customer journey

The key to a loyalty-driven cookieless strategy is to redefine the customer journey. Instead of focusing on the 'awareness to conversion' journey, the new strategy will focus on the 'conversion to advocacy' journey.

Nurturing your most loyal customers with a seamless experience that transitions easily between digital and physical touchpoints will be the key to success in a post-cookie world.

How Cardlytics can support your cookieless strategy

The end of third-party cookies signals a major shift in how brands market their products and services. This change doesn't necessarily mean the end of targeted campaigns. If you look at the end of cookies as an opportunity, it's a better chance to serve your best customers with highly personalized experiences. 

When you invest more into serving your loyal fanbase, brand affinity grows naturally. Those satisfied, engaged customers are more than happy to share their positive, attention-grabbing experiences across various social platforms to bring you new traffic in a very authentic way.

The first step to building your cookieless strategy is to find a high-quality source of first-party data. With the power of firsthand Purchase Intelligence™ provided directly by banks, Cardlytics provides exactly what brands need to make the switch.

Our platform has been built with a pro-privacy mindset from day one. By partnering with top banks, we can provide access to high-quality first-party data from real consumer purchases, providing valuable insights to share of spend across brands and competitors. Our data is vital to growing a healthy, sustainable loyalty program, providing you with a high-value audience to power your cookieless strategy.