Cross-Channel Marketing Approaches

If You are running an omnichannel brand, one of the most actionable and impactful analysis that you can do with your data is look at the ratio of online to offline sales, benchmarked against your national average. You can cut it by city/state/product/SKU and each cut tells you something different. Start by establishing your national average online/offline ratio. Say it's 45:55. Now look at every city, state, and product model against that baseline. Few scenarios: Scenario 1: Higher-than-average online share (say 80:20 in a city where the national average is 45:55) = distribution problem, not a demand problem Consumers want your product and that is evident from your online sales. To buy your product, they are waiting for delivery and forgoing the in-store experience. Your brand has demand in that market. What needs improvement is availability, visibility and advocacy in retail counters. Every rupee you invest in distribution here has a higher probability of generating returns because demand is pre-validated Scenario 2: Lower-than-average online share (say 10:90 in a state) = one of two things, and you need to figure out which. Either your offline distribution is so strong there that consumers don’t have too many reasons to buy online, which is the healthy version, and you'll see it reflected in strong secondary sales numbers. Or your brand simply don’t have demand/PMF and consumers aren't searching for you online or finding you offline. The way you distinguish between the two: check absolute volume. If the 20:80 market is also a high-absolute-volume market, your offline game is strong and the low online share is a sign of distribution maturity. If it's a low-absolute-volume market with a low online share, you have a brand salience and demand problem. And trying to pressurize Distributors and sales team will not work. In fact it will only lead to more churn which will further reduce the sales volume in that geography. Here the Product and marketing team needs to get to work and solve for product market fit and brand salience in that geography. Now apply the same logic at the model level. If a specific SKU has a 50:50 online/offline split nationally while the rest of your portfolio sits at 30:70, that SKU is under-distributed relative to its demand. Retailers either aren't stocking it, don't know it exists, or aren't being incentivised to push it. This is an assortment and trade marketing problem, not a product problem The beauty of this ratio is its simplicity. You don't need a sophisticated data platform to compute it. You need your e-commerce order data by pincode and your secondary sales data by pincode, both of which any omnichannel brand will always have. One simple table gives you the diagnostic. The ratio doesn't tell you why a market is over- or under-indexed. But it tells you where to look, and whether the problem is distribution, brand, or product. And that's usually enough to make the next decision.

If you’re still looking at channels separately, you’re missing out on real ROI. Here’s how to think about measurement loops instead: What’s a measurement loop? Feedback flowing between channels instead of a straight line of clicks. Why does linear attribution fail? It focuses on the channel and the last click, ignoring the influence of everything else in the journey. Closed-loop feedback works. Search informs email. Email informs social. Social fuels search again. Cross-platform tracking is key. Continuous data flow prevents drop-offs when people switch apps. The loop in motion combines channel, here are some of my favorites: - Simple but goody, Social Impressions / Landing Page Clicks - Tracking Topical Authority: A Simpler Way to Monitor a Complex KPI Topical authority is tricky but it’s one of the most useful signals you can track. Here's one way to break it down. - Start by calculating total reach across both SEO and organic social. You can do this combined or separately by SEO and social search. - Then stack that against key outcomes: -- Primary KPIs like conversions or lead volume -- Secondary KPIs like product detail views or email signups - Now take all of that and map it out in a simple waterfall-style diagram for each topic cluster weekly or biweekly, depending on how fast your content is moving. - Once you look at it this way, you’ll start to see patterns in behavior. The momentum becomes clearer. Other KPIs to track? Not last-click. Look at social-to-form starts, search-to-email reopens, and re-engagement conversions. Multi-channel measurement loops don’t just give cleaner reports. They compound impact. ------------------------ Find this insightful? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Ryan Edwards for more. Join our newsletter to get tips and tricks to help you turn data to insights and insights into strategy. Join 3,000+ other marketers https://lnkd.in/gyrXK4mf

It’s fascinating to see two very different retail narratives playing out right now in the Australian market and the common thread tying them together is how promotional activity and channel strategy impact profitability. On the one hand, Adore Beauty Group is demonstrating that a disciplined, omnichannel strategy can drive not just sales but improving margins and profit performance. After accelerating its omni-channel model, blending online strength with physical store expansion, retail media and personalised loyalty, the business reported record EBITDA and improved gross margin, with plans to scale physical stores meaningfully over the next few years. On the other hand, Adairs Retail Group shows the risk of leaning too heavily on prolonged discounting and promotional activity. While the company is on track for solid top-line growth, margin pressure from extended promotions has dented gross profitability, even as leadership works to recalibrate pricing and promotional cadence. This pattern isn’t unique to these two names. What’s interesting about Adore’s results is that their physical retail rollout is outperforming the core online business, which highlights a broader trend we’re seeing across brands like Billini, LSKD, Proud Poppy Clothing and Arms Of Eve - where well-executed store networks are proving not just additive but strategically critical. These retail footprints can capture customers and margin in ways that pure online channels alone struggle to sustain. The contrast here speaks to a broader lesson in retail today: discounting may drive short-term revenue, but it comes at a real cost to margin and long-term profitability. Meanwhile, strategies that thoughtfully balance channel expansion, inventory discipline, loyalty and customer experience appear to unlock stronger financial performance. It’s still early days in this cycle, but these case studies are already offering valuable real-world evidence for any brand thinking about how to balance promotional activity with sustainable profit growth. 

A common partnership snafu is that companies want partnership success, but don’t provide the resources to get there. I heard of a case where a whole marketing team quit, the partnerships team was given no marketing support, and they didn't yet have an integration with product -- and yet, the CEO expected the partnership strategy to deliver instant revenue. Wild. But not uncommon. Partnerships can't thrive in a vacuum. They need cross-functional support—marketing, product integration, sales enablement—all aligned to succeed. Before you set revenue targets for your partnerships, ask yourself: Do we have the resources to support them? If the answer is no, you have to help your leadership teams to reconsider their expectations. To help create the cross-functional support needed for partnerships to thrive, here are four strategies: 1. Involve Cross-Functional Leaders from the Very Beginning Bring key leaders from marketing, sales, and product into the partnership planning phase. Early involvement gives them a sense of ownership and ensures they understand how partnerships align with their own goals. Strategy: Schedule a kick-off meeting with stakeholders from each relevant department. Create a shared roadmap that outlines how partnerships will impact each team and their specific contributions. 2. Tie Partnership Success to Department KPIs To gain buy-in, tie partnership goals directly to the KPIs of each department. Aligning partnership outcomes with what each team is measured on ensures they have skin in the game. Strategy: During planning sessions, ask each department head how partnerships can contribute to their targets. Build specific KPIs for each function into the overall partnership strategy. 3. Create a Resource Exchange Agreement Formalize the support needed from each department with a resource exchange agreement. This sets clear expectations on what each function will contribute—whether it's a dedicated product team member for integrations or marketing resources for co-branded campaigns. It turns vague promises into commitments. Strategy: Draft a simple document that outlines the roles, responsibilities, and deliverables each team will provide, then get sign-off from department heads and the executive team. 4. Demonstrate Early Wins for Buy-In Quick wins go a long way toward securing ongoing resources. Identify a small pilot project with an internal team that shows immediate impact. Whether it's a small co-marketing campaign or a limited integration, these early successes build momentum and demonstrate the value of supporting partnerships. Strategy: Select one or two partners to run a pilot with, focused on delivering measurable outcomes like leads generated or product adoption. Use this success story to demonstrate value to other departments and secure further commitment. Partnership success requires cross-functional alignment. Because partnerships don’t happen in a silo.

Building a strong #partnerships #ecosystem takes a lot of work, testing and iterating - especially with limited time and often resources. So what have I seen working quite well in one of the most incredible partnership ecosystem I've ever worked in? ✨ Clarity on 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲: listen to your partners find a way to keep enriching that exchange. Some will value commercial rewards, some will value exposure more. Find what works and create processes that support that and are attached to business outcomes. 👯♀️ Sales x partners collab: joint selling is key to increase the close rate. 📊 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: identify key operational friction points and work with partner ops to address them. Developing sophistication with data/tracking is going to be a must for a long-term ride. 🏔 Setting clear 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: there's no point in overpromising or hiding business goals. Develop a joint plan with your partners and make sure you're clear on which segment of the market they can add value to customers + resource accordingly. 🤝 Partnerships between "apparently 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴" 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀: I lost count of how many times I've seen service partners operating in a similar TAM ending up shaking hands to cooperate, rather than compete. This might be unique to the Shopify ecosystem (it is a special place, not gonna lie), but I believe with the right framework, mindset and coaching other industries could benefit from this collaboration too. 🚀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 & 𝗜𝗦𝗩 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀: one can't survive without the other. Developing a strong joint GTM strategy between these two types of partners is essential to keep nurturing both pipelines. 🎉 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆: in a world where ROI has to be measured on every activity, you have to find ways to measure the impact on community events too (traditionally harder to evaluate). However, I'm a strong believer that a strong partnership community needs to be supported (be it through event sponsorship, funding, talk participation, event space lending etc) for it to keep thriving. After all, partnerships is all about relationships. And when things get hard, you need to have strong and trusted relationships that can take a tough conversation and define a way forward together. 📈 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: without data, tracking and attribution it's hard to justify recurring investment. Make sure you have clear metrics in mind (and communicate them clearly) + strategies to ensure these are measured from the get go. Iterating in time is totally fine as the business develops. After all, "companies with mature partnership programmes grow revenue nearly 2X faster than others and see up to 28% revenue increase. Partnership channel revenue growth rates for high-maturity companies outpace low-maturity companies by more than double" [Forrester research] - so if you're not investing in partnerships yet, it might be time to understand why and take action to rectify this!

**Maximizing B2B Marketing Success: The Power of Including Channel Partners in Your Strategy** In today’s competitive B2B landscape, a robust marketing strategy is essential. However, one critical element often overlooked is the inclusion of channel partners. Integrating these partners into your marketing plan can significantly amplify your reach, enhance brand credibility, and drive sales growth. Here’s why and how you should include channel partners in your B2B marketing strategy: **1. Amplified Reach and Visibility** Channel partners have established networks and customer bases that you can leverage. By collaborating with them, you can extend your brand’s reach far beyond your direct efforts. Co-branded marketing initiatives, joint webinars, and shared content can introduce your products or services to new, highly relevant audiences. **2. Enhanced Credibility and Trust** Trust is a cornerstone of B2B relationships. Channel partners often have long-standing relationships with their clients, who trust their recommendations. **3. Optimized Resource Utilization** Channel partners can provide additional resources for your marketing efforts. They can contribute to content creation, share insights on customer preferences, and participate in events or campaigns. This not only saves time and costs but also enriches your marketing initiatives with diverse perspectives and expertise. **4. Improved Customer Engagement** Channel partners often have deep insights into their customers’ needs and pain points. Collaborating with them allows you to tailor your marketing messages more effectively, ensuring they resonate with the target audience. **5. Increased Sales and Revenue** Ultimately, the goal of any marketing strategy is to drive sales and revenue. Channel partners can play a pivotal role in this by actively promoting your products or services. Their involvement can accelerate the sales cycle and open up new opportunities, leading to increased revenue growth. **How to Effectively Include Channel Partners in Your Marketing Strategy:** - **Develop a Collaborative Plan:** Work closely with your channel partners to create a joint marketing plan. Align your goals, define roles, and set clear expectations to ensure everyone is on the same page. - **Leverage Joint Marketing Initiatives:** Engage in co-marketing activities such as webinars, whitepapers, and case studies. These initiatives can showcase the combined expertise of both parties and provide valuable content to your audience. - **Provide Marketing Support:** Equip your channel partners with the necessary tools and resources. Offer training, marketing collateral, and access to your marketing platforms to enable them to effectively promote your products. - **Measure and Optimize:** Track the performance of your joint marketing efforts. Analyze the results, gather feedback, and make data-driven adjustments to continuously improve the effectiveness of your strategy.

Incrementality Factors - one of the easiest concepts to grok in theory, and most difficult to implement in practice. Some challenges we've encountered over the past few years at Haus: 1. Calibrating on ad platform reporting gives many marketers the ick due to strong conditioning to not believe it. While I think this is misguided, customers often lose interest in incrementality-adjusted attribution when we mention calibrating on platform metrics. Many want to calibrate their daily source of truth which might be MTA or last click, not platform. 2. Modeling on top of platform reporting means that changes in platform attribution definitions (e.g., Meta's recent attribution changes) create too much inconsistency. 3. Incrementality Factors are too blunt and go stale as you move through different moments of seasonality and make changes to their campaigns, media mix and even product/offering. 4. KPI Incompatibility: Customers measure incrementality on Shopify KPIs like New Customer Orders/Revenue but many teams do not instrument their Meta events to track new vs. returning orders, making it difficult to link test results to platform metrics. At Haus, we’ve taken all the learnings and have been heads down reimagining Causal Attribution. What we’re solving for: 1. Our new Haus pixel collects conversion events and marketing touchpoints directly so you do not have to rely on platform reporting. 2. Incrementality Index: ML model predictions fill in the gaps for channels/campaigns without experiments. The ML model is trained on thousands of GeoLift experiments to predict incrementality based on vertical, spend level, platform, tactic, and funnel position. 3. Regular auto-refresh and constant calibration: factors auto-refresh based on the ML model which prevents calibration from going stale as the media mix changes and more causal evidence is generated. 4. Time-Varying Factors: To solve for factors changing over time, Causal Attribution will build in time-varying factors (similar to how we solved this in MMM) rather than using 1 blunt, static factor from a single test. 5. Granular Reporting: This system allows for a cleaner linking of your Geo-Lift KPIs and your pixel conversion events. Want to learn more? We'll be unveiling our Causal Attribution product at our Haus Growth Lab Roadshow events in May.

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝟮𝗕 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 Why are Channels and Partners so crucial for B2B Sales Growth, particularly in the SMB segment and Small and Mid- Enterprises. Sales inherently has two typical problem statements: 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀 wrt today's competitive B2B landscape. That's exactly where channels and partners come in – acting as a 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿 along with your sales efforts. 1. 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: Forrester research shows that 72% of B2B buyers leverage resellers or distributors during their purchase journey. Partners provide a. established relationships and b. market knowledge, To get into geographically virgin areas and tap newer customer segments. 2. 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲: The expertise that they bring, in their own niche markets; allows: a. Invaluable understanding of customer pain points, b. tailoring solutions, and c. crusading complex buying processes. 3. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: A strong credible partner ecosystem validates your brand and offerings, as it represents shared values and beliefs in the product. A 2023 study by Edelman DXI found that 83% of B2B buyers consider recommendations from trusted business partners when making purchasing decisions. 4. 𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀; 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 & 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆:  They become your extended sales force, generate leads, and handle post-sales support. It allow your internal resources to focus on strategic accounts and high-value opportunities. 5. 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 & 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲: Partners with regional presence can provide vital on-the-ground support, especially crucial for complex B2B solutions. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗼 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆? a. 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀: 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 Seek partners with a. complementary offerings, b. strong industry reputations, and c. proven track record of success. b. 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Continuous tailor-made training and support to ensure partners get equipped with a deep understanding of your products and value proposition. c. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Establish open and transparent communication channels and collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and sales plays. d. 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 & 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵: Track key metrics like partner-generated leads and revenue. Use data to identify areas for improvement. e. 𝗥𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗟𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹𝘁𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝘀 Incentivization of the right efforts put in by the channel partners, puts a lot of trust by the partners in their OEM's. Follow #rimjhimrants for more. #B2Bsales #channelpartners #partnerships #salesstrategy #growth #ChannelSales #GrowthStrategy

📱 Rakuten’s launch of its AI Agent across mobile and web platforms is an example of how Asia Pacific retailers are moving from reactive conversational assistants to more proactive, ecosystem-driven capabilities. 👉 While Rakuten’s AI Agent is not yet “agentic AI” as per IDC’s definition, it reflects the starting point of a wider journey: adopting assistants for customer support and product discovery, then progressing toward autonomous, intent-driven agents that coordinate pricing, fulfillment, and engagement in real time. 📊 IDC’s Industry Insights 2025 – Retail Survey shows this evolution is underway: > 61% of retailers globally are piloting and deploying agentic AI > Nearly 25% of initiatives are already live > In Asia Pacific, adoption is especially visible in customer service, product discovery, and omni-channel integration 🔎 Along this path, retailers in APAC face key priorities: > Integration and Data Infrastructure – Building cloud-native and unified commerce platforms to support real-time decisioning > Personalization and Local Preferences – Balancing predictive analytics with community-driven, local brand trust > Operational Efficiency – Piloting AI in dynamic pricing, fraud detection, and workforce support, while addressing ROI and privacy concerns > Omni-Channel Intelligence – Moving from channel coordination to seamless, data-driven fulfillment and engagement > Conversational Interfaces – Preparing for customer expectations around voice, chat, and image search, which can lower friction and even reduce returns 🌏 Beyond Rakuten, we see JD.com in China experimenting with AI shopping concierges, Shopee piloting conversational agents in Southeast Asia, and Lotte in Korea exploring autonomous pricing and merchandising systems. Each step brings retail closer to the agentic ecosystems IDC describes. 📌 These developments reflect IDC’s finding that personalization, omni-channel integration, and agentic AI are converging to reshape retail operations and customer engagement. 📖 Read more in the full report by IDC's Ornella Urso: Personalized CX and Omni-Channel Integration Evolving Rapidly Alongside Agentic AI (Jul 2025 – https://lnkd.in/gSMq6eum) #RetailAI #AsiaPacific #AgenticEcosystem #CustomerExperience #IDCInsights See more about Rakuten here: https://lnkd.in/gPikKi8M 

Analytics aren’t just numbers; they’re your roadmap to publishing growth. Data isn’t power, it’s potential. For publishers, the real value lies in transforming raw metrics into repeatable growth strategies that drive audience retention, revenue, and #SEO performance. Too often, publishers collect vast amounts of data but fail to extract meaningful takeaways. The key is understanding what content resonates, how audiences engage, and where opportunities for growth exist. Collecting data is easy; extracting insights is not. Without clarity, metrics like pageviews and bounce rates become distractions. For example, a 40% drop in returning visitors isn’t just a traffic issue—it’s a retention red flag. By using the right tools and refining strategies based on real data, you can turn numbers into growth. Here are actionable strategies to turn data into action: 1. Know Your Audience Beyond Pageviews Pageviews alone don’t tell the full story. Instead, track return visitors, time on page, and scroll depth to measure true engagement. Tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Parse.ly provide deeper insights. Cohort analysis can reveal trends, millennials may prefer video, while Gen X engages more with newsletters. For example, if mobile traffic spikes by 20% after 8 PM, push breaking news via mobile notifications to capture that audience in real-time. 2. Optimise Content Performance with Behavioural Data Understanding why some content performs well helps you replicate success. Use @Google Search Console and Semrush to analyse search visibility and Hotjar Digital Marketing Company to track user interactions. For example, if "AI in media" gets 3x more shares than "content trends," double down on AI-related content. Additionally, A/B test headlines (e.g., “5 Growth Hacks” vs. “Proven Tactics”) to see what improves click-through rates. 3. Track Conversions, Not Just Traffic Traffic alone doesn’t guarantee success—conversions do. Set up goals in GA4 to measure newsletter sign-ups, paid subscriptions, or product purchases. Identify which referral sources drive the highest conversion rates, and adjust your strategy accordingly. For example, premium subscribers from "how-to guides" tend to have a 15% higher lifetime value than general news readers, meaning content type matters when driving long-term revenue. To scale what works, automate reporting with Power BI Visualization or Looker Studio to save 10+ hours per month. Analytics only matter when they drive actions. The biggest mistake any publishers can make is to treat data as a report card instead of a playbook. Start by auditing one content category this week, setting up a conversion goal in GA4, and A/B testing a headline. Data doesn’t lie, but it won’t work unless you do something. What analytics tools are you using to grow your publishing efforts? Share your go-to platforms in the comment below. #DigitalPublishing #SEO #ContentStrategy #AudienceGrowth #DataAnalytics