Marketers aren’t thinking in channels anymore: they’re thinking in audiences.
As consumer media habits have scattered across devices, platforms and formats, brands have shifted their focus from managing one channel at a time to delivering a connected experience. That’s the core of omnichannel marketing: meeting people where they are and making each touchpoint feel like part of a larger narrative.
However, most brands still encounter the same roadblocks: siloed data, fragmented planning and tools that don’t integrate. And while the industry talks a great deal about omnichannel marketing, few are actually doing it well. The brands that figure it out won’t just reach more people; they’ll improve brand perception while improving the customer journey, achieving better outcomes, and optimizing their media spend more efficiently.
Learn more about this trend in our 2025 Digital trends and predictions report.
Why omnichannel is no longer optional
Omnichannel marketing has long been a goal, but recent shifts in media and technology now make it a necessity. According to Forrester, 21% of global B2C business and tech professionals identified enhancing omnichannel or cross-channel customer experiences as a top priority for their organization today.
Connected TV (CTV) and commerce media networks are emerging as dominant channels, necessitating the coordination of messaging across an expanding ecosystem of streaming, programmatic display, and commerce-driven environments in addition to the multitude of other addressable (and non-addressable) channels. Fortunately, identity solutions continue to evolve, enabling marketers to maintain audience addressability in digital channels even as traditional signals decline and privacy regulations intensify.
Consumers expect this kind of cohesion. They don’t see “channels” – they just see a brand. A member of your loyalty program might browse a product online, see the exact item later on their socials, and then receive an email offer. If those messages feel disconnected or out of sync, this will not be a good customer experience, and a brand risks wasting impressions and losing conversions.
Omnichannel isn’t about showing up in more places. It’s about showing up with a consistent message.
The opportunities inherent in true omnichannel execution
Despite the industry’s movement toward omnichannel marketing strategies, there are a few untapped opportunities brands would benefit from pursuing.
Break down planning silos to optimize performance
Many marketers still plan and measure media in silos: programmatic display, CTV, commerce media, search, social, email, SMS, and each might have their own budgets, strategies, and KPIs. This disjointed approach leads to inconsistent messaging, inefficient spend, and overexposure or underexposure to key audiences.
The opportunity? Shift toward integrated media planning and measurement. By aligning teams and KPIs across channels, marketers can optimize frequency, coordinate creative sequencing, and better attribute business outcomes. Breaking down internal silos improves the customer experience and drives more effective performance. With two-thirds of North American CMOs naming siloed data as their biggest obstacle, those who solve it stand to gain a clear advantage.
Encourage interoperability to activate audiences consistently
Omnichannel success depends on defining an audience once and reaching them everywhere. But in today’s ecosystem, where walled gardens control inventory and many tools remain disjointed, this is easier said than done. Just under a third of marketers say the tools they use don’t work well together.
The opportunity? Invest in interoperable systems that give you control over your data and privacy-safe solutions like clean rooms or universal IDs that enable consistent audience activation across platforms.
Advocate for a unified identity framework
Audience data remains fragmented: commerce media networks control shopper data, TV platforms hold viewership data, and walled gardens provide limited data transparency and determine which data they will share, making it difficult to recognize, reach, and follow the customer journey across digital touchpoints. Without a unified view, campaigns remain disconnected and cross-channel attribution is difficult.
The opportunity? Advocate for a centralized, privacy-conscious identity framework that bridges fragmented data sources. This would allow marketers to recognize consumers across platforms and deliver cohesive messaging.
Marketers need solutions that enable connected audience activation while respecting privacy requirements and platform-specific constraints. Without this, omnichannel remains an aspiration rather than a reality.
Data and identity: The tools you need in your toolkit to make omnichannel work
Implementing omnichannel right starts with establishing identity. Brands need a foundation that lets them connect the dots: across data, platforms and channels. Here’s how:
Build a unified identity foundation
“A single view of the customer is the foundation of a successful omnichannel program,” says Forrester in a December 2023 report on omnichannel. This begins by connecting disparate data sources, including persistent offline information, such as addresses, emails, names, and phone numbers, with digital signals, in a privacy compliant way. And this, in turn, creates a strong identity foundation. Solutions that integrate hashed email addresses (HEMs), mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), IP addresses, CTV IDs, and universal IDs enable brands to resolve customer identities across different platforms, ensuring that campaigns remain addressable as users transition between channels.
Activate audiences everywhere, without the hassle
Brands should be able to define an audience once and activate it across all addressable channels without unnecessary complexity. Interoperability between demand-side platforms (DSPs), supply-side platforms (SSPs), clean rooms, and private marketplaces (PMPs) ensures that high-quality audiences are matched with premium inventory in a targeted, transparent, and efficient manner. This connectivity helps maintain consistent audience targeting—even as consumers engage in different environments. By working with a partner that seamlessly integrates with major platforms, marketers ensure that data quality and identity resolution remain intact throughout campaigns, avoiding data loss that occurs when data is transferred between different, disparate platforms.
Measure across channels, and the customer journey
Effective omnichannel marketing isn’t just about reaching audiences—it’s about understanding how different touchpoints contribute to conversions. Advanced attribution models, incrementality testing, and cross-platform frequency management enable brands to use consistent identity across campaign planning, activation and measurement so they connect ad exposures to real-world outcomes. Achieving this requires a strong identity resolution partner—one that can unify audience data across environments and power accurate, privacy-compliant measurement at scale.
The future of omnichannel marketing
Omnichannel is becoming the baseline expectation for modern marketing. The brands that figure out how to connect the dots across the increasingly disparate media landscape will drive better performance and build stronger customer relationships.
By working with a partner that can offer you an end-to-end data and identity solution focused on consumers, not channels, you can better understand your best customers (and your next customers), reach them across channels, and measure cross-channel campaigns more effectively, making true omnichannel execution more achievable.
Get started today
About the author
Kimberley Klevstad
Account Director, Retail, Experian
Kimberley Klevstad is 25-year industry veteran with a wide range of experience driving strategic growth for global accounts across print, online, mobile, location-based and streaming audio platforms. Kimberley is currently a member of the Experian Marketing Services Retail team, advising top retail brands on data and identity strategies that will deepen loyalty and drive acquisition in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Latest posts
NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — For the second consecutive year, Tapad, part of Experian, has been listed among Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Tapad, number 147 on the 2016 Deloitte list, is the leading provider of unified, cross-device marketing technology solutions. "It is an honor to once again be recognized by Deloitte for our growth and momentum, particularly given the stature of the other technology companies on the list," said Are Traasdahl, founder and CEO of Tapad. "Our product innovation, particularly in TV analytics and measurement, is a major contributor to our progress. I'm extremely proud of our hard-working, talented team for continually executing at such a high level." "Today, when every organization can be a tech company, the most effective businesses not only foster the courage to explore change, but also encourage creativity in using and applying existing assets in new ways, as resourcefully as possible," said Sandra Shirai, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications industry leader. "This ingenious approach to innovation calls for the encouragement of curiosity and collaboration both within and outside the office walls." "This year's Fast 500 winners showcase that when organizations are open to diverse perspectives and insights, they are able to create an environment for their employees and customers to see the possibilities and ingenious solutions that might lie ahead," added Jim Atwell, national managing partner of the emerging growth company practice, Deloitte & Touche LLP. "Entrepreneurial environments foster change and innovation within businesses, and we look forward to watching these companies continue to drive change across all sectors." Contact us today
Distribution via LiveRamp enables seamless cross-device customer experiences through more platforms NEW YORK, Nov. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ – Tapad, now part of Experian and the leading provider of unified cross-device marketing technology solutions, today announced an expanded partnership with LiveRamp™, an Acxiom® company and leading provider of omnichannel identity resolution, to make the proprietary Tapad Device Graph™ accessible beyond Tapad-hosted direct integrations. Through LiveRamp, Tapad's Device Graph Access now extends to more than 400 ad tech and mar tech platforms. Tapad's Device Graph™ enables marketers to understand, monetize and measure consumer engagement across all digital channels, and Tapad's unified consumer view is recognized as one of the most accurate, scalable cross-device solutions in the market today. Through the expanded partnership with LiveRamp, the Tapad Device Graph can be distributed to the hundreds of platforms used to reach consumers on digital channels and measure campaign performance – even as devices are added daily to Tapad's extensive graph. "Increasingly, marketers want access to cross-device targeting and measurement capabilities within their preferred platforms," said Anneka Gupta, chief product officer of LiveRamp. "Our expanded partnership makes it easy for marketers to access Tapad's graph through the rapidly growing set of integrations available in our partner ecosystem." This is the latest of several initiatives between the two technology platforms designed to make the integration of cross-screen platforms seamless, privacy-safe and easy to use for dynamic and engaging marketing efforts. "During the past year, Tapad has expanded its global presence and rapidly grown its data business – Tapad Coral – doubling the number of companies integrating our device graph into their platforms and growing our annualized run rate by 210%," said Pierre Martensson, GM of Tapad Coral and APAC. "Our expanded partnership with LiveRamp positions us to meet the increased demand for Tapad Device Graph Access and enable new platforms to apply our graph with unprecedented speed." Contact us today
Cross-Screen Pioneer Explores the Power of Connected Cars as a Vehicle for Customer Engagement LAS VEGAS, NV — (October 26, 2016) –Kate O’Loughlin, GM of Media for Tapad, addressed the J.D. Power Automotive conference audience today in Las Vegas, NV. With more than 1,400 participants representing every facet of the automotive marketing profession, the conference has become the industry's leading marketing event. Bringing the unified, cross-screen perspective to the stage, O’Loughlin discussed the vital role of connected cars in the consumer engagement process. She is a founding member of Tapad which launched the world’s first cross-screen marketing technology in 2010. Tapad was acquired by the Telenor Group early in 2016. Key points from O’Loughlin’s J.D. Power 2016 address included: The marketers who deliver relevant and engaging content in a privacy-safe setting will be in the strongest position to navigate the proliferation of connected devices, including the connected points in cars. As automakers innovate the technology in cars, marketers need to be prepared for the size and diversity of data available for understanding consumers. It’s going to be increasingly difficult to wade through the data, so now is the time to build a solid framework for understanding the person behind the data. Marketers who evolve — and take a holistic approach — to their campaign measurements will achieve marked improvements in efficiency and an enhanced understanding of their core audiences. Actionable brand engagement metrics like Viewable Exposure Time (VET) will continue to overtake traditional advertising performance metrics. VET evaluates the optimal amount of time an ad is present on a screen to incite consumer action. In early testing by Tapad, campaigns that employ VET see conversion rate performance improvements from 13 to 60%. The consumer-centric technology solutions of the future need to be as scalable as they are affordable. Learn more about Tapads’ recommended Viewable Exposure Time metric contact us today! Contact us today