Blog Post

5 Ways Omnichannel Marketing Technology is Used to Support Data Driven Decisions

01/19/2021 - Sierra Ducey

Data-driven marketing solutions are transforming the way brands advertise. Data-driven solutions allow advertisers to reach an engaged audience at the right time and with the right message. And, as a result, it benefits the brand’s overall ROI and business goals. Invespo found that marketers that exceeded their revenue goals were using personalized techniques 83% of the time, and businesses that employ data-driven personalization delivered five to eight times the ROI on marketing spend.

Rather than playing guessing games, testing different advertising techniques, it’s time to invest in solutions that are backed by data. One of these data-driven advertising solutions is omnichannel marketing. Omnichannel marketing technology allows advertisers to address the consumer journey across every channel (desktop browser, mobile, retail, social media, podcast, and any others they might use) and how they move through these channels and interact with the brand. This creates one unified customer experience across all the different channels, rather than fragmented experiences that seem disconnected. Consumers are no longer just rely on one shopping experience, and omnichannel marketing technology meets these omnichannel shoppers with a solution that matches.

And as mentioned above, the backbone of this advertising technique: data. Data is used throughout omnichannel marketing campaigns to target the right consumers, to then track these customer journeys, and arguably the most important use, to optimize towards channels that are working best.

As your brand moves towards more decisions backed by data, omnichannel marketing supports these initiatives. Below, we’ve outlined five ways omnichannel marketing technology is used to support data-driven decisions.

Keep in mind upcoming changes to consumer data policies

During any data management discussions within your organization or with outside partners, it’s important to remember the importance of consumer privacy and your role in protecting it. Stay up to date with the latest changes in customer privacy and resources to help you prepare for said changes on our Future of Third-Party Cookies hub.

Five ways that omnichannel marketing technology can be used to support data-driven decisions. 

1.Continuously Improving Data

A brand’s insights are only as useful as the data that backs them. In the world of digital advertising, with continuous emerging channels and technologies, it’s essential to have a constant source of data. Data-driven decisions supported by data from 5 years ago may not warrant the best results. Omnichannel marketing technology forces you to continuously garner, update, and implement new and improved data.

That’s not to say that the data from 5 years ago, for example, isn’t useful. Having a year-over-year outlook on how your consumers have evolved gives you great insight into patterns and trends. The key to these insights is continuously fostering this data and using it to better your organization. You don’t want gaps in consumer data that lead to missed opportunities – and that is where omnichannel technology comes in with continuous data generation and implementation.

2. Unified Data Storage

Similar to the point above, just as harmful as gaps in data, so too is fragmented data storage. The average marketer is now keeping track of customer information from an average of 15 different data sources. And, as you begin to dive headfirst into a data-driven organization, you may realize that your consumer data has historically been stored on individual spreadsheets. 

Omnichannel marketing technology pushes advertisers to establish a unified data management workflow. As data is gathered, it is audited and organized in a unified workflow set up to best support your organization. This process will ensure that all data from all channels is found, viewed, and analyzed, all in one place. Although it might require some work upfront, this organizational tool that is a direct result of omnichannel marketing will have an immediate and long-term positive impact on your marketing campaigns, and in turn, your brand.

3. Establishes Attribution 

Omnichannel marketing technology allows all channels to fire together for the best customer journey experience. Although, there is another crucial advantage brought about by this marketing strategy: better attribution studies.

Many brands have already discovered the benefits attribution and analytics can bring to their digital advertising campaigns. And, you may already be using these resources across some of your channels or campaigns. An omnichannel marketing solution will allow these analytics and attribution studies to showcase critical insights across all campaigns, channels, and tactics. With this holistic view, gaps that may have previously been hidden now won’t be overlooked. 

4. Smarter Investments

With every channel connected through omnichannel marketing technology, you will be able to see which channels are best supporting your KPIs. As mentioned above, new technologies and channels are always emerging in digital advertising. As advertisers, it is our job to stay up-to-date with these channels and ensure our campaigns take advantage of these features. One of the most significant benefits of omnichannel marketing is that you can quickly test these channels and realize if they work for your brand. Your audience might not be on that new channel yet, so as tempting as the new hot thing is, if it isn’t supporting your bottom-line goals, the money can be better spent elsewhere.

This smart investment strategy can also support better creative investments. People probably don’t connect the creative team with data, but omnichannel marketing technology will promote more informed content creation backed by data. Omnichannel marketing technology allows you to see which creatives are working best across which channels. You no longer have to wait for a creative flight to run its course; instead, you can quickly identify any messaging that isn’t resonating with consumers and quickly shift towards creatives that yield success. As you continue to create new ads, this data can be shared with your creative team to inform them and guide them for future campaigns.

5. Better Management Decisions

As clearly outlined in the sections above, omnichannel marketing technology promotes more informed, data-driven decisions to improve your consumer’s journey with your brand. This insight can trickle down to the management team to give them a better perspective of what is working well within the organization, highlight opportunities for the future, and showcase where resources need to be invested to improve the brand. These are insights that may have been lost without omnichannel marketing technology.

Take this scenario of a clothing brand, for example. This brand’s native display ads featuring its new spring line have a great click-through rate. And when utilizing a retargeting feature, consumers tend to add a specific dress (highlighted in their campaign) to their cart. However, you notice your brand is facing extremely high cart abandonment rates. Your organization may think they need to invest in better virtual assistants to support consumers through the checkout process. 

But, omnichannel marketing technology tells a different story. These same customers that abandon their cart make an in-store purchase the next time they head to the mall. The shipping charges deterred them from making online purchases. Without omnichannel marketing solutions, the brand would have mistakenly invested in a virtual assistant rather than figuring out a pricing structure or loyalty program to better support reduced or no shipping charges. Omnichannel marketing technology supports data-driven decisions across every level of an organization, not just marketing.

Omnichannel Marketing Partners Provide Data-Driven Support

As you begin to more seriously research omnichannel marketing and the benefits it will have within your organization, you may be overwhelmed by the different intricacies and expertise required for this type of advertising. If you know that your team does not have the internal bandwidth to properly execute a successful omnichannel marketing strategy, it may be time to look to a partner. 

Omnichannel marketing companies can handle everything from social media and SEM to analytics and attribution to CTV and digital audio. Having a team of experts who specializes in data-driven omnichannel marketing technology will ensure that your campaigns are optimized and on track to support your digital advertising goals and your brand’s overall goals.

Best-in-Class Omnichannel Marketing Technology with Digilant

Data backs every decision that Digilant makes; after all, one of our four core principles states, “lead decisions with data.” From the moment we start working with a brand, we are passionate about uncovering new data points and implementing already established strong data points to push digital advertising campaigns forward. And this data-driven mindset doesn’t stop. Our always-on, holistic analytics features give brands a transparent view into their campaigns. We understand what a digital media strategy requires – radical transparency and a team of agile and flexible experts. If you’re interested in learning more about how Digilant’s data-driven omnichannel marketing technology can boost your digital media, let’s talk.

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