Guide for Personalized Omnichannel Communication

With CDPs (Customer Data Platforms) challenging traditional marketing automation platforms, interest in omnichannel personalization has skyrocketed. Even though there's a lot of buzz around this topic, not many truly understand what it means or how to actually use it to create real business value and better customer experiences. This guide is here to clear things up and point you in the right direction.

Business challenges driving omnichannel personalization

Several business challenges are driving the need for omnichannel personalization. This includes reaching customers at different stages of their journey and across multiple touchpoints, overcoming a lack of relevance, and struggle to use data across channels. Many also struggle to act in real time and react to customer behavior, while scalability and efficiency become painful when using a messy mix of platforms.

CDPs open up new possibilities

Omnichannel personalization is more than just talking to customers in multiple channels. It also means:

Using data from relevant channels, touchpoints, and platforms to trigger and personalize customer interactions.

Profiling customers and triggering interactions based on their behavior, intent, and predictive models, resulting in personal communication in all relevant channels.

Running dynamic, multi-step campaigns across channels, where the response in one channel shapes the next message in another.

Tracking and reporting on all customer interactions across all channels to properly measure the real impact of specific touches and your overall communication.

Achieving omnichannel personalization with a CDP

The rapid growth of new martech brings plenty of exciting opportunities. It's key to understand what these are and how to use them. When choosing a CDP for your organization, make sure it supports your most critical requirements. For the implementation phase, we recommend taking it step by step to start unlocking business value as quickly as possible.

A deeper look at the business challenges

Most businesses talk to their customers through various channels, but each channel is usually treated as its own separate island. Under the hood, personalization—if it exists at all—is based on limited data from each individual channel. Customer data sits scattered across multiple platforms rather than being linked into one clean, single view.

Many organizations struggle with targeted, data-driven customer communication. In fact, many campaigns have limited impact. Unpersonalized, broadly segmented email campaigns usually yield a conversion rate of just 0.5-2%, with a real lift of less than 1%—and sometimes close to zero.

Reach is another big hurdle. Without a unified customer view and the ability to customize messages across channels, the number of customers you can actually reach is limited. To make up for low email open rates, businesses need to be able to reach identified customers via the web, mobile apps, POS, customer service, and paid media.

Creating a relevant customer experience is also a challenge. Without a unified customer view and cross-channel personalization, customer interactions will inevitably miss the mark. Plus, without cross-functional collaboration between channel teams, creating a seamless experience across all touchpoints is nearly impossible.

We often see that a lack of real-time capabilities is another obstacle

Being able to react to customer behavior and start communicating within hours or minutes is crucial, often driving 5 to 10 times better results than traditional campaigns. However, many marketing automation platforms lack real-time capabilities, like using data from one channel to instantly trigger messages in another.

Companies also struggle with efficiency when setting up and managing campaigns. A heavy focus on manual, calendar-based communication eats up lots of resources for one-off campaigns that lose value once they end. Shifting to trigger-based, always-on campaigns ensures your team's efforts keep delivering value over time.

Managing campaigns in separate platforms also leads to extra work and wasted time.

By consolidating more of this work into a single platform, you can save a lot of time.

Measuring impact across channels is another hurdle. When you talk to the same customers through multiple channels at once, you can't measure the results in silos. Touches in one channel inevitably impact results in another. Orchestrating and tracking all campaigns from one place makes measuring actual performance much easier.

Recent tech advances have unlocked new possibilities for omnichannel personalization that simply weren't possible before.

New business-driven platforms like CDPs have changed the game by speeding up implementation and putting personalization power directly into the hands of business users—with much less relying on IT and BI teams. CDPs also come with built-in analytics models and often cost less than traditional MA platforms.

Personalization tools for websites and mobile apps have also evolved, offering better personalization, A/B testing, and built-in tracking and reporting.

Event-driven IT architecture has made real-time actions based on customer intent and behavior possible. This setup updates customer data instantly and triggers communication right after a transaction, instead of waiting for slow batch updates.

Additionally, cross-functional and agile ways of working have emerged to help different teams collaborate. Teams are put together to cover key customer journeys or lifecycles. Each team includes experts for each channel, along with analyst, content, and business development resources. These teams own the key KPIs across all channels and touchpoints.

Together, these advancements let business users take control of omnichannel personalization with less relying on IT.

Key elements of omnichannel personalization

Omnichannel personalization is a hot topic, but it's important to have a clear understanding of what it actually involves.

It all starts with data

The foundation of omnichannel personalization is data. It’s all about gathering relevant info from different touchpoints and plugging it together to build a complete 360-degree view of your customer. With this, you can deliver personalized messages based on real behavior and needs.

Plus, personalization needs to happen across all channels, including email, SMS, websites, mobile apps, in-store/POS, call centers, and paid media. This opens up new ways to communicate. For example, personalized calendar and customer lifecycle campaigns—which used to only happen via email and SMS—can now run on websites, mobile apps, and paid media. On websites and apps, you can run personalized calendar campaigns, onboarding flows, engagement campaigns, and proactive service messages for recognized users. You can also run targeted ads in paid media, using real-time website and app behavior rather than just relying on old third-party data.

The POS channel is also great for targeted, personal communication, where shop assistants can tailor the in-store experience using personalized recommendations, discounts, lifecycle offers, and engagement dialogues.

Every type of customer dialogue in every channel

In the past, personalized campaigns like calendar mailings, customer lifecycle journeys, and engagement campaigns were limited to email and SMS. But with the data available today, these can live on your website, mobile app, and paid media. Being able to act on web or app behavior also brings fresh opportunities to email and SMS.

For customers identified on your website or app, you can trigger calendar campaigns, lifecycle dialogues (like onboarding), personalized engagement campaigns (like promoting your loyalty program), and proactive support messages.

In paid media, you can run personalized calendar and lifecycle campaigns that react to visitors' live web and app behavior, rather than just relying on third-party data from external platforms.

The POS channel offers a great touchpoint for targeted, personal communication. By pushing targeted offers directly to the checkout screen, store staff can deliver a personalized touch—including tailored recommendations, local discounts, onboarding activities, or updating contact details.

Moving from calendar campaigns to trigger-based, always-on campaigns

The traditional way of doing data-driven marketing relies heavily on manual calendar campaigns, which is a struggle. A lot of time and money is spent on one-off messages that lose all value once sent. By using trigger-based, always-on dialogues, your campaign investments can keep driving revenue for a long time. These campaigns use different triggers, such as behavioral, "act-on-intent," and predictive triggers. Behavioral triggers track changes in shopping habits, like purchase frequency, buying a new product category, or visiting a new store.

Dialogues triggered by intent are usually the most effective. In our experience, "act-on-intent" communication regularly yields 5 to 10 times higher results. These campaigns fire when a customer shows a clear intent to buy or engage with your brand on your website or app. You can respond in real time, personalizing the digital experience instantly, and follow up in other channels like email and paid media. These are also known as channel-triggered campaigns.

Predictive triggers rely on analytical models that estimate future customer behavior. The most common are churn prediction models. A lost customer is very hard to win back, so the goal is to take action before they slip away.

For most businesses, calendar campaigns will still be part of their marketing mix. However, the number of these campaigns can be reduced to save time, free up resources, and create a better experience for the customer.

Technical capabilities needed for omnichannel personalization

To make omnichannel personalization happen, you need a few key technical functions. This includes being able to collect data from different channels and systems, including both customer and business data. Business data includes product details, store locations, and content, while customer data covers transactions, web/app clickstreams, and customer service records. Keeping compliant with GDPR is crucial when moving customer data into a new platform, so a legal and risk analysis must be done beforehand.

Data management capabilities are also necessary to clean and transform data for personalization. For example, you need to be able to create aggregated data points, like the number of transactions over the last 30 days.

Another key feature is profile unification, or creating a single customer profile. Customers often have multiple profiles in a database (e.g., loyalty program details, online shopping accounts, web logins, and newsletter signups). To get a complete picture, these identities must be merged through identity resolution, linking profiles with matching email addresses, names, or phone numbers.

Additionally, analytical tools for customer profiling are needed to understand preferences and behaviors, such as customer DNA, segmentation, predictive models, and customer lifetime value. This helps businesses analyze their customer base and support activation and personalization.

The activation phase comes next. To enable personalization, target audiences are built using different data points (like analytical models or business rules) and triggers (like calendar events, lifecycles, behaviors, intent, or predictive scores).

Even if two customers receive the same campaign, the messaging should be personalized. This means using business rules, segmentation, and predictive models to decide on the best personalized experience for each customer—from offers and content to product recommendations.

The real magic of omnichannel personalization happens when a customer dialogue spans across multiple channels. The ability to orchestrate these multi-step journeys is key, as is being responsive to how a customer reacts to communication in the previous step.

Finally, it's vital to look at the data and run analyses to measure the results of specific campaigns and the overall impact of your programs.

The business case for omnichannel personalization

The business case for omnichannel personalization boils down to three main points. First is turning up the volume of relevant interactions. Reaching customers across multiple channels and touchpoints creates more personal, data-driven experiences, which drives higher lift, loyalty, and lower churn. Second is boosting your lift. By using more relevant data, every interaction becomes more impactful. Third is cutting campaign management costs. More automation and always-on, trigger-based campaigns help lower operational costs, while using a CDP lets you manage multiple channels within a single platform.

How to get started

Here are some key recommendations for kickstarting your omnichannel personalization journey:

• Define your goals and key strategies. Identify the main goals for your organization, like increasing cross-selling, reducing churn, improving customer experience in key areas, or strengthening teamwork between channel teams. This will help guide your team throughout the project.

• Define the capabilities you need. Choosing the right tech to support your journey is crucial. When picking a Customer Data Platform (CDP), it’s important to understand the different features and integrations available. Avoid picking a CDP solely based on shiny demos and recommendations, as this can lead to a dead-end.

• Map capabilities against your current IT setup and identify gaps. You need more than just a CDP to run omnichannel personalization. Evaluate your current IT architecture to spot any missing pieces.

• Build a business case. To get approval for a big project, you'll need numbers. Use a bottom-up approach to estimate customer interactions across channels and estimate the conversion lift for each touchpoint.

• Create a holistic roadmap. Your timeline should include all the puzzle pieces needed for success, including resources, skills, and new processes. Avoid making this a pure IT project without a clear business use for it.

• Continuous optimization. Don't assume the job is done once the software is installed. You need a solid foundation to build on, along with budget and resources set aside for continuous optimization.

• Cross-functional collaboration is key. No matter how you handle data, analytics, and IT platforms, a cross-functional approach is vital for success.

Success factors for omnichannel personalization

• Involve key stakeholders early on and educate them on what omnichannel actually means. It can be hard to get buy-in from people who don't fully grasp the concept.

• Keep a business-driven focus and let your main goals guide the project. Don't get bogged down in technical details—focus on measuring results and delivering value early.

• Avoid treating the project as a pure tech initiative. Data integration and IT platforms are important, but success relies heavily on business skills, smooth processes, and cross-team collaboration.

• Do your research before choosing a CDP or other platforms. If you don't define your requirements before talking to vendors, you might end up with a platform that doesn't fit your business needs.

• Go with a phased approach instead of a "big bang" launch. It's hard to know the perfect setup before you start. Beginning with easy-to-implement, high-value use cases and adjusting as you learn is usually the most effective strategy.

A CDP brings massive opportunities to your omnichannel strategy, enabling almost any customer dialogue across any channel. To make the most of it, key players in your organization must understand the possibilities a CDP brings.

When choosing a CDP, do your homework. There are huge differences between platforms, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Make sure you map out your requirements before meeting with vendors. Unfortunately, many companies realize too late (during implementation) that their new CDP does not support their key business requirements.

Treat omnichannel implementation as a business project, not an IT project. Setting up the martech is just a small part of the work. Make sure your business teams are fully on board and that your daily workflows are adapted to support the omnichannel strategy.

When launching your new use cases, we highly recommend taking it step by step. Learn more about this in our white paper, "Scaling up your CDP initiative."