A newsletter for modern marketers.
Industry benchmarks for peace of mind.
Live strategy sessions with industry leaders.
Insider intel from the most disruptive brands in ecommerce.
SEE LATEST POSTS:
Creating a Seamless Omnichannel Marketing Strategy: Tips & Best Practices
The modern customer journey is non-linear and multidimensional.
They might discover a product on TikTok, research it through Google, get retargeted via Instagram, hear about it on a podcast, and finally convert through an email promo.
Yet, many brands still treat each channel separately, missing out on the full and holistic scope of the customer journey.
An omnichannel marketing strategy ensures every touchpoint works together, delivering a frictionless, personalized experience that increases engagement and revenue.
Read on to learn how to build a seamless omnichannel strategy that actually works.
Omnichannel vs. multichannel
Before we dive in, let’s clarify our definitions.
Many brands think they have an omnichannel strategy when they actually have a multichannel one. The difference?
- Multichannel: Brands use multiple platforms (e.g., paid ads, social, email), but they operate in silos — each channel has its own messaging and metrics.
- Omnichannel: Every channel works together as part of a unified journey, ensuring a consistent experience no matter where a customer engages.
Omnichannel isn’t just a marketing buzzword — it’s a fundamental shift in how brands engage with customers.
Consumers today expect interactions to be fluid and connected, whether they’re engaging through social, search, email, or in-store. Without a centralized measurement approach, brands risk misattributing conversions and undervaluing key channels that drive long-term growth.
The upside: omnichannel customers have a 30% higher lifetime value than those who shop using only one channel.
How to build a seamless omnichannel strategy
Unify data & measurement
A true omnichannel strategy starts with centralized data and measurement.
Tracking customer interactions across all touchpoints — social, search, email, and in-store — ensures brands understand how different platforms contribute to conversions.
Real-time attribution models, like Northbeam’s Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and Media Mix Modeling (MMM+), eliminate guesswork and provide clear insights into how each channel works together. By unifying data, brands gain a complete picture of customer behavior, leading to smarter budget allocation and more effective campaigns.
Create a consistent brand experience
While omnichannel marketing requires brands to be present across multiple platforms, it’s not about copy-pasting the same message everywhere.
Instead, brands should focus on delivering a cohesive experience, ensuring that the voice, visuals, and core messaging remain consistent.
At the same time, content should be tailored to fit each platform’s strengths: short-form storytelling for TikTok, in-depth messaging for email, and engaging visuals for Instagram.
A seamless customer journey means that if a user clicks on an Instagram ad, they should land on a personalized landing page that mirrors the messaging and design from the ad.
Leverage first-party data for personalization
As third-party cookies fade, first-party data has become the most valuable asset for marketers.
Brands should use purchase history, browsing behavior, and engagement patterns to create hyper-personalized experiences. For example, if a customer watches a TikTok ad but doesn’t immediately purchase, instead of retargeting them with another generic ad, brands can follow up with a personalized email offer based on the product they engaged with.
This data-driven personalization leads to higher conversions and keeps customers engaged throughout their journey.
Ensure frictionless cross-channel journeys
A true omnichannel approach means making it easy for customers to move between channels without interruption.
If someone adds an item to their cart on mobile, they should see the same cart when they log in from a desktop later. Brands can also use cross-channel retargeting to remind customers of the products they browsed, whether through social ads, search results, or email follow-ups.
Additionally, aligning creative strategy across channels ensures that promotions and messaging remain consistent, reinforcing the brand experience at every touchpoint.
Test, optimize, and iterate
Omnichannel strategies aren’t static — they should evolve based on real-time data.
Brands can continuously run A/B tests across platforms to understand what resonates with different audiences. By analyzing cross-channel performance, marketers can shift budget toward high-impact touchpoints and optimize campaigns accordingly.
Using Northbeam’s real-time insights, brands can make data-backed decisions about where to scale spend and where to refine strategies.
How to measure omnichannel success
Success in omnichannel marketing is measured beyond just ROAS.
Brands should track Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) to see how omnichannel customers spend over time, as well as Attribution Lift to determine whether awareness channels like TikTok are influencing conversions elsewhere.
Cross-channel ROAS helps brands understand how investing in one platform (like Meta) impacts another (like branded search), while engagement metrics reveal how customers interact with different touchpoints before making a purchase.
With Northbeam’s analytics, brands can monitor these key metrics and more in real time, ensuring their omnichannel strategy is optimized for maximum impact.
The future is omnichannel
Consumers don’t separate their experiences by channel — so neither should brands. A seamless omnichannel marketing strategy ensures that every touchpoint contributes to a unified, high-impact customer journey that drives revenue and retention.
The key to making omnichannel work is measurement. Without the right attribution tools, brands risk misallocating budgets, undervaluing critical channels, and missing revenue opportunities.
Get in touch to see how a data-driven omnichannel strategy can transform your brand.
The Marketer’s Guide to Customer Journey Mapping
In today’s competitive marketplace, understanding your customers isn’t just a luxury; it’s a necessity. Marketers who prioritize the customer journey can create meaningful, lasting connections that drive conversions and build loyalty.
In this guide, we’ll break down what customer journey mapping (CJM) is, why it matters, and how you can create your own journey map to enhance your marketing strategy.
What is Customer Journey Mapping?
Customer journey mapping (CJM) is the process of visualizing the path a customer takes when interacting with your brand, from initial awareness to post-purchase engagement.
At its core, a customer journey map identifies key touchpoints where customers interact with your business, such as social media, email campaigns, website visits, and customer support.
These maps provide a clear picture of the customer’s experience, highlighting pain points and opportunities for improvement.
For example, a simple journey map might look like this:
- A customer sees your social media ad
- They click through to a landing page
- They subscribe to a newsletter
- They make a purchase from the newsletter
- They reach out to your brand for post-purchase support
- They receive a discount code and buy an accessory for the product they purchased
By understanding these steps, marketers can refine their strategies to meet customer needs at every stage.
The Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping delivers several key advantages, including:
- Enhanced customer experience: By identifying and addressing pain points proactively, you can create a smoother and more enjoyable experience for your customers.
- Increased ROI: Aligning your marketing efforts with customer needs ensures that your resources are allocated effectively, leading to better outcomes.
- Cross-channel consistency: Journey maps help ensure a cohesive experience across platforms, from social media to in-store visits.
- Data-driven decision-making: Leveraging insights from your map enables you to make informed decisions that optimize performance.
As an example, let’s consider a company that maps its customer journey, starting from awareness to consideration and finally to conversion. This company uses analytics tools and surveys to track customer behavior between journey points to uncover areas of drop-off or pain.
Let’s take a look at these benefits in action.
- Enhanced customer experience: After identifying that most visitors leave within 30 seconds of landing on their site, the company creates mobile-friendly landing pages that better align with their ad messaging. These changes reduce bounce rates, leading to a smoother and more enjoyable experience for customers.
- Increased ROI: The company discovers that detailed product information is missing on their site, causing hesitation among shoppers. By adding ingredient details, comparison charts, and customer reviews, they increase product page conversions by 15%, ensuring their resources drive better outcomes.
- Cross-channel consistency: Aligning their social media ads with optimized landing pages ensures the company’s messaging is cohesive across platforms, building trust and encouraging visitors to progress through the customer journey.
- Data-driven decision-making: By continuously analyzing customer behavior, the company pinpoints where drop-offs occur, such as during checkout. They simplify the checkout process and introduce new payment options, resulting in a 9% improvement in conversion rates.
5 Steps to Create an Effective Customer Journey Map
Creating a customer journey map may seem daunting, but breaking it into manageable steps can simplify the process:
1. Define Your Goals
What do you want to achieve with your journey map? Whether it’s improving conversion rates or enhancing post-purchase engagement, setting clear objectives will guide your efforts.
2. Identify Your Customer Personas
Understand who your customers are by developing detailed personas. Consider factors like demographics, behaviors, and pain points at a basic level. To level up your personas, you can incorporate more detailed information like income, personality traits, favorite channels, and more.
3. Outline Key Touchpoints
Map out the critical moments where customers interact with your brand, such as visiting your website, opening an email, or speaking with support.
4. Gather Data
Combine qualitative data (e.g., customer interviews) with quantitative data (e.g., website analytics) to create a comprehensive view of the journey, including time between steps and critical drop-off points.
5. Map the Journey
Plot the customer’s path across different stages: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Retention, and Advocacy. Use visuals to make the journey clear and actionable, and outline the distinct steps that go into each stage.
6. Analyze and Act
Identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. Then, prioritize and implement changes to optimize the journey at each stage.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
While customer journey mapping is a valuable tool, there are common pitfalls to watch out for:
- Overcomplicating the map: Focus on clarity and actionable insights rather than including every minor detail.
- Neglecting data insights: A journey map is only as good as the data behind it. Ensure your insights are grounded in accurate, real-time information.
- Failing to account for cross-channel Interactions: Customers often switch between channels, and your map should reflect this complexity.
- Treating the map as static: Customer behaviors and preferences change over time. Regularly update your journey map to stay relevant.
Map with Confidence
Customer journey mapping is foundational for marketers looking to create seamless, impactful experiences and invest in continuous marketing improvement.
By understanding the path your customers take, you can refine strategies, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive sustainable growth in a way that aligns with your target audience’s wants, needs, and unique pain points.
Use this guide to drive your customer journey mapping efforts, and get in touch with the Northbeam team for personalized support and guidance.
Gardyn’s Data-Driven Bloom: How Northbeam Helped Power Their Growth
Gardyn is a trailblazer in smart indoor gardening, empowering consumers to grow fresh produce at home with innovative, tech-enabled systems. To get the inside scoop on how data drives their marketing decisions, we spoke with two key figures at Gardyn: Director of Paid Media Derek Lauermann and Marketing Analytics Strategist Andy Pham. Their unfiltered insights reveal a story of transformation—from a time of guesswork to a world of data-driven precision, all thanks to their true data partner, Northbeam.
From Guesswork to Precision: The Pre-Northbeam Struggle
Before Northbeam, Gardyn’s approach to data was more like a wild guess than a finely tuned strategy. Director of Paid Media Derek Lauermann recalls the old days:
“It was like, nothing adds up. Our process was reluctantly trusting inflated in-platform data and cross-referencing that with Google Analytics. How can you confidently attribute sales to anything that way? It was all guesswork before Northbeam. You had to kind of just test things.”
When iOS 14 hit, the cracks in the system became glaringly obvious:
“Then came iOS 14 and everything became more difficult. Data gaps made optimizing campaigns a nightmare.”
In those frustrating moments, the need for a clear source of truth became undeniable. Northbeam stepped in, providing a granular look at every channel. As Derek explains:
“Northbeam really solved that problem by showing us, granularly, which channels were driving quality traffic.”
This shift from a guessing game to precise, data-driven decisions not only clarified Gardyn’s marketing strategy—it redefined it.
Metrics Tell the Story
The impact of this transformation is best seen in the numbers. Gardyn’s strategic reallocation of their media spend is a testament to the power of understanding data deeply. Derek lays it out:
“We took 70% of spend down year over year on Meta—69.4%, to be exact—without sacrificing revenue. And, our MER is up in the high double digits, year over year.”
And it wasn’t just about cutting costs. The quality of traffic improved dramatically:
“Our Cost Per New Visit is down 48%, and our Add to Cart Rate is up 94%, which is huge. It’s about quality traffic driving efficiency.”
Shifting budgets from Meta to channels like Google, TikTok, Amazon, and YouTube wasn’t a shot in the dark. TikTok, for instance, saw a mind-blowing 1,478% increase in spend—from practically nothing to over 6 figures, year to date. These figures aren’t just impressive stats; they’re the foundation of real, actionable insights that have transformed Gardyn’s marketing game.
Northbeam: The Daily Data Check
For the Gardyn team, Northbeam is not a once-in-a-while dashboard—it’s part of their daily ritual. Every day, they check in on a suite of metrics that keep their strategy nimble and effective. Derek describes his routine:
“I have two different views I check daily: my Cash Reporting View versus my Media Buyer Accrual View. We’re able to see if the funnel is healthy, and if it’s not where we want it to be, we can immediately adjust and optimize for any cracks we may find. It’s not about one metric—it’s the whole picture. I’m tracking everything from Cost Per New Visit to Add to Cart rates. That waterfall of data tells me if our funnel is healthy.”
Andy adds:
“It’s crazy, because even though many brands might slash their spend and see a drop in new visits, we’re seeing almost flat new visits with dramatically reduced costs. That’s the magic of understanding every single data point.”
These everyday check-ins aren’t just about numbers—they’re about crafting a strategy that’s agile, informed, and ready to pivot at a moment’s notice.
Northbeam: The Decision-Making Tool
Gardyn’s partnership with Northbeam goes beyond mere data visualization—it’s about having a reliable partner in every strategic decision. Derek sums it up perfectly:
“I honestly couldn’t imagine running our campaigns without Northbeam. It’s not simply a tool; it’s a true data partner that transforms raw numbers into actionable insights.”
He doesn’t hold back:
“When it comes to strategic decision-making, Northbeam is the only companion I trust. I rely on it every single day, and my team wouldn’t be where we are without its insights. In our fast-paced world, having such a robust partner is priceless.”
This isn’t just a nod to a great tool; it’s a declaration of faith in a platform that stands at the core of their entire marketing strategy. Northbeam is the engine that powers their decisions, the silent partner behind every successful campaign.
Bringing It All Together
Gardyn’s story is one of transformation powered by a deep, trust-based relationship with Northbeam. Their journey shows that when you truly understand your data, every decision becomes a chance to innovate and improve. As Andy and Derek have demonstrated, every metric plays a critical role in shaping a strategy that’s both efficient and effective. And when you have the right data by your side, you’re not just surviving—you’re thriving. Every day, decisions fueled by Northbeam’s insights, ensure that every marketing dollar Gardyn has is invested wisely. And at that point, data moves from just a set of numbers, to the lifeblood of growth.
In the end, it’s clear that for Gardyn, Northbeam isn’t just another tech stack addition—it’s the source of truth that drives every strategic move.
Product
RESOURCES
Partners
Legal
Follow us
.svg)
