Forrester wrote this headline in its report The Future Of Omnichannel Media Buying Is Programmatic more than 3 years ago, justifying the statement by explaining that people, processes, and technology issues stand in the way of omnichannel advertising.

“People are isolated in channels, processes are immature, and the tech landscape is saturated”, Richard Joyce, the lead author of the report explained, and encouraged marketers to opt for programmatic approaches to adapt to dynamic customer behavior and external change from adtech, publishers, and agencies.

Highlighting that a customer’s experience is fragmented and continues to get more fragmented with the prospect of smart refrigerators, virtual reality, and self-driving cars, marketers’ omnichannel execution will get more complicated. Hence, Forrester recommends in its report three steps to help orchestrate omnichannel digital media buys by:

1. Experimenting with ad sequencing across a few channels

Ad sequencing in one channel is a thing of the past since marketers must now experiment with a few channels to evaluate how connected experiences improve business outcomes. For example, try synchronizing ad delivery — delivering a specific display ad based on a customer watching a specific video ad to completion — then look for lifts in performance against customers that were only exposed to one channel. These smaller tests will prove out the value of the omnichannel buying process over time, and prepare you for new digital touchpoints that continue to fragment the customer experience

2. Rationalizing ad technology across channels

Marketers will benefit from managing multiple channels through a single ad technology — think operational efficiency, cross-channel optimization, better measurement — but most importantly, a single platform allows for greater control of the brand experience. Using point solutions can reduce control of message frequency, lead to mixed messages based on differences in how a customer is identified, and limit how quickly you can respond to a customer action in another channel.

3. Adopting unified marketing impact analytics (UMIA)

Marketers that use UMIA mix the best qualities of attribution and marketing mix to create a deeper understanding of marketing performance. Within omnichannel digital media buying, attribution measurement techniques quantify the impact that digital touchpoints have on business outcomes, while identifying common customer experience paths. Grabbing the attention of the entitled customer will require a deep understanding of how customers use different media and where you can provide value at those digital touchpoints

According to Forrester, marketers need to embrace dynamic budget allocation to respond to real-time customer signals, develop deeper partnerships with ad technology providers, and partner with publishers to enhance addressable customer identity. The report concludes that those marketers who can create these partnerships can use publisher data to stitch together customer identity for delivering and measuring omnichannel brand experiences. (Source: Forrester)

By Daniela La Marca