Measuring marketing and sales results in single-channel campaigns is usually a more straightforward process: choose a goal that reflects the performance of a specific channel and, from there, calculate the ROI. But what happens when a customer researches a product on your website, asks questions to a salesperson in a physical store, and completes the purchase via the app? In omnichannel, every touchpoint matters—and this integration of channels, although valuable for boosting results, makes measuring return on investment much more complex.
In the omnichannel context, ROI evaluates how much an action integrating multiple channels, whether physical and/or digital, generated in financial return relative to the investment made. However, while in single-channel campaigns it’s possible to directly correlate investment and return, when multiple channels are targeted, the return comes from the sum of interactions across different touchpoints, often with longer and non-linear purchase journeys—making this a quite complex task for many companies.
In addition to this complexity in evaluating impacts from different channels, it’s also important to consider other significant challenges in this journey: data integration, as each channel collects information in different formats and metrics; visibility of the complete journey, since parts of the experience often aren’t recorded in a trackable and measurable way; and overlapping results that can occur without an integrated view, when the same conversion is counted in more than one channel, thereby distorting ROI.
And what are the consequences of not paying attention to these precautions, especially in a highly digital and connected market? According to a survey by ILUMEO, about 20% of media investments show no statistically significant relationship with business results, such as sales or lead generation. This means that, without proper measurement, one-fifth of the marketing budget could be wasted.
This data reinforces the importance of centralizing information from different sources into a single channel and standardizing metrics, channel nomenclature, and tracking, to achieve a 360º view of the customer journey and, with that, gain a clear and objective understanding of how much return the company obtained from each established campaign. And in this regard, we certainly can’t overlook how valuable technology can be as an ally.
There are various tools on the market capable of assisting with this measurement, such as integrated CRMs that help track all interactions throughout the customer lifecycle and consolidate behavioral, transactional, and engagement data; as well as BI solutions that contribute to transforming large volumes of data into easily interpretable dashboards. Many of them even allow mapping journeys and assigning weight to each channel, making this analysis even more comprehensive and reliable to support future decision-making.
In this sense, there isn’t just one single indicator to be used by companies—everything will depend on the strategy adopted and the objectives they aim to achieve. Despite this, there are some indispensable metrics to prioritize, such as overall campaign ROI, CAC compared before and after omnichannel implementation, LTV (which measures the total value a customer generates over the relationship), conversion rate by channel and cross-channel (identifying where consumers advance in the journey), engagement, and retention rate.
This data analysis allows for continuously testing hypotheses, adjusting messages, segmentations, and formats to create more personalized experiences, increasing engagement and, consequently, this return on investment. Conduct these checks frequently, as consumer behavior changes and this directly impacts the performance of channels within the omnichannel campaign strategy.
The most important thing in all of this is ensuring the quality and constant updating of this data, as poor data can compromise the entire ROI analysis and lead to misguided business decisions. The secret is turning numbers into insights actionable, since, by identifying which channels have the greatest impact at each stage of the funnel, it’s possible to redistribute budget and efforts more intelligently and strategically to achieve the desired results.
