Throughout this mini-series about what I’m calling The Great Ecommerce Realignment, we’ve covered some pretty massive shifts happening in eCommerce right now.
We’ve talked about AI becoming your secret weapon, why digital advertising is dying a slow death, how privacy-first marketing and personalisation at scale is the only way forward, and last episode we dove deep into the creator economy takeover.
Today, the final instalment in this mini-series, we’re tackling something that every brand thinks they’re doing, but honestly? Most are getting spectacularly wrong. And frankly – I’ve had so many conversations in recent weeks where pretty much every single brand is making this mistake.
We’re talking about true omnichannel marketing strategy.
Now, before you roll your eyes and think “Oh great, another buzzword breakdown,” stick with me. Because what I’m seeing in the market right now is brands throwing around the word “omnichannel” like confetti at a wedding, but they’re actually creating these fragmented, frustrating customer experiences that are driving people away faster than a huntsman spider in your bedroom.
True omnichannel marketing strategy isn’t just about being everywhere. It’s about being everywhere seamlessly. And there’s a massive difference.
The Omnichannel Myth vs Reality
Let’s start with some brutal honesty, shall we?
Most brands think they’re doing omnichannel because they’ve got a website, an Instagram account, maybe they’re on TikTok, they’ve got email marketing happening, and if they’re really fancy, they might have a physical presence somewhere. Chuck in a chatbot and boom – omnichannel, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong.
I had a client come to me last month – gorgeous sustainable fashion brand here in Melbourne – and they were so proud of their “omnichannel approach.” They were posting on Instagram, sending weekly emails, had this beautiful Shopify store, and were even doing popup markets around Victoria.
But here’s what was happening: Sarah follows them on Instagram, sees this amazing dress, clicks through to the website, but unfortunately the Instagram ad showing this amazing dress went to a generic page and not the specific item she was interested in. Spends a minute looking but gets distracted – and honestly a bit frustrated – and doesn’t purchase.
Next day, she gets an email newsletter featuring completely different products. No mention of that dress she was looking at. Then she walks past their popup at South Melbourne Market, asks about the dress from Instagram, and the staff member has no idea what she’s talking about because they don’t have access to the website inventory system.
At no point in any of this experience was there anything other than product images with practical information like price. Sure, the images were beautiful and did enough of the heavy lifting to get the initial click, but there was no other content or messaging in there to really engage her or connect on a more personal level.
Three touchpoints. Three completely different experiences. Zero connection between them. And not a whole lot of persuasion.
That’s not omnichannel – that’s multi-channel chaos.
True omnichannel marketing strategy is about creating one seamless customer journey that flows beautifully across every single touchpoint. It’s about your customer data talking to itself. It’s about consistency in experience, messaging, and most importantly, it’s about meeting your customers exactly where they are in their journey, not where you think they should be.
It’s about embodying the phrase ‘perception is 9/10th’s of reality’. It’s about making sure every brand interaction helps your audience fall in love with your brand and products so much that the price becomes almost irrelevant, just the cost of falling in love.
The brands that are getting this right? They’re seeing vastly higher conversion rates, order values and higher customer retention rates, leading to much faster and more profitable revenue growth than their multichannel competitors. That’s not a coincidence – that’s the power of removing friction from the customer experience.
But here’s where it gets tricky…
The New Omnichannel Challenges
The game has completely changed, and most brands haven’t caught up yet.
First up – privacy regulations. Remember when we could track customers across every platform, pixel, and page view? Those days are gone, and good riddance honestly. But this creates a massive challenge for omnichannel experiences.
With iOS updates, cookie deprecation, and privacy laws getting stricter, you can’t rely on third-party data to stitch together your customer journey anymore. You need to build that complete picture using zero-party and first-party data – information your customers willingly give you because they trust you and see value in the exchange.
Second challenge – channel proliferation. It’s not just about having a website and social media anymore. Your customers are discovering you on TikTok, researching you on Google, asking questions in Facebook groups, comparing prices on Amazon, reading reviews on ProductReview.com.au, potentially visiting your physical store or popup, signing up for your email list, following you on Instagram, maybe even listening to you on podcasts.
The old top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel linear customer journey we used to rely on has become complete obsolete, with the average number of brand interactions a customer now needs before they’re likely to buy sitting at 27.
Each of these touchpoints needs to feel connected, but they’re all controlled by different platforms with different data restrictions and different user experiences. And there’s no way to actually predict in what order any one prospect will interact with them.
Third – and this is the big one – customer expectations have gone through the roof. Your customers don’t care about your internal systems. They don’t care that your email platform doesn’t talk to your social media management tool. They expect you to remember their preferences, their purchase history, their abandoned cart items, their size preferences, their delivery address – regardless of where they interact with you.
I was working with this gorgeous women’s fashion brand based in Brisbane recently, and we discovered something fascinating about their customer journey. Meet Sally – she first discovers them through an Instagram post showing real women of different sizes wearing their pieces. She’s immediately drawn in because finally, here’s a brand showing bodies that look like hers.
She clicks through to their website to see more, scrolling through the “Our Story” page because she wants to know if this brand actually gets it. She reads about their sustainable fabric sourcing and feels good about that alignment with her values. But she doesn’t purchase yet – she needs to think about it.
A few days later, she’s at their popup in Southbank, Brisbane. She’s not just checking the fit – she’s feeling the fabric quality, seeing how the pieces move on her body, imagining herself in meetings feeling confident and powerful. The staff member mentions the local artist the brand works with to create the unique fabric prints and how each artwork tells a story, which reinforces her positive feelings.
She goes home, thinks about it overnight (because let’s be honest, it’s an investment piece), then returns to the website to purchase. But now she’s also signing up for their styling newsletter because she wants to be part of this community of women who prioritise quality, originality and values over fast fashion trends.
Multiple different touchpoints. One emotional journey from discovery to community membership. And if any single step had felt disconnected – if the website didn’t reflect the values shown on Instagram, if the popup staff didn’t understand the brand story, if the purchase process felt impersonal – Sally would have walked away.
That’s the reality of true omnichannel marketing strategy.
The Four Pillars of True Omnichannel Marketing Strategy
So how do you actually create a seamless omnichannel experience? I’ve identified four non-negotiable pillars that every brand needs to master.
Pillar One: Deep Customer Research & Values-Based Journey Mapping
Here’s where most brands get it completely wrong. They map customer journeys based on what they think customers want – product features, pricing, convenience. But these days, that’s not enough.
You need to start with deep customer research to understand the psychographic factors driving your customers. What are their core values? What beliefs shape their decisions? How do they see themselves? What identity are they trying to express or achieve through their purchases?
I’m talking about going beyond demographics and diving into the emotional and psychological drivers. Are your customers driven by authenticity? Sustainability? Belonging? Status? Self-expression? Empowerment?
Once you understand these deeper motivations, you create what I call a “values-based journey map.” This isn’t just awareness, consideration, purchase, retention. This is discovery of alignment, validation of values, identity confirmation, community integration, and advocacy.
For that Brisbane fashion brand I mentioned earlier, we discovered their customers weren’t just buying clothes – they were buying into an identity of self-expression and individuality. Their journey map had to reflect touchpoints that validated those values at every stage.
Then – and only then – do you layer on the unified customer data infrastructure. Tools like Klaviyo become powerful when they’re tracking not just what customers buy, but which values-driven content they engage with, which community discussions they participate in, which brand stories resonate most.
Pillar Two: Consistent Brand Experience
Your brand voice, visual identity, messaging, and customer service quality needs to be identical whether someone’s scrolling your Instagram, browsing your website, or chatting with your customer service team.
I worked with this eco-friendly beauty brand in Brisbane, and we discovered their Instagram had this fun, cheeky personality, but their email marketing was formal and corporate, and their website copy was somewhere in between. Customers were confused. They didn’t feel like they were dealing with the same brand.
We spent three months aligning everything – same tone of voice, same visual style, same value propositions. The result? A massive increase in brand recall (which I directly relate to the fact that storytelling – our preferred format for sharing information at each touchpoint – is the most memorable format for recall).
Pillar Three: Cross-Channel Journey Orchestration
This is where the magic happens. Instead of managing individual channels, you’re orchestrating complete customer journeys.
For example, someone discovers your brand through a TikTok video, visits your website but doesn’t purchase. Traditional marketing would retarget them with generic ads.
True omnichannel? You send them a personalised email series sharing more about your brand story, invite them to follow your Instagram for styling tips, maybe offer them a virtual consultation, and show them user-generated content from customers with similar preferences.
Each touchpoint builds on the last, moving them closer to purchase while adding genuine value.
Pillar Four: Real-Time Responsiveness
Your omnichannel marketing strategy needs to adapt in real-time based on customer behaviour. If someone abandons their cart, your email campaign should adjust. If they engage heavily with Instagram content about sustainability, your website should surface eco-friendly products when they visit.
This is where AI comes into play – not the scary, surveillance kind, but helpful AI that makes experiences more relevant and personalised.
One of our clients, a women’s activewear brand in Perth, implemented real-time personalisation. When customers visit their website now, they see different homepage content based on their previous interactions. Yoga enthusiasts see yoga gear. Runners see running gear. New mums see postpartum-friendly options.
The result? 67% increase in conversion rates and customers spending 3x longer on the website.
Practical Implementation
Alright, let’s get practical. How do you actually build a true omnichannel marketing strategy without breaking the bank or your sanity?
Start with your data infrastructure.
Get Klaviyo properly integrated with your Shopify store. Make sure it’s tracking website behaviour, email engagement, SMS interactions, and social media activity. This becomes your single source of truth.
Audit your current customer journey.
Map out every single touchpoint – from initial discovery to post-purchase follow-up. Find the information gaps, the friction points, the places where customers have to repeat information.
I do this exercise with every client, and it’s always eye-opening. You’ll discover customers are taking paths through your brand that you never expected.
Implement progressive profiling.
Instead of asking for everything upfront, gradually collect customer information across multiple interactions. Birthday during email signup, sizing preferences after first purchase, style preferences through a quiz, delivery preferences during checkout.
Create channel-specific content with consistent messaging.
Your Instagram content should feel different from your email content – different formats work better on different platforms. But the underlying message, brand personality, and value propositions should be rock solid consistent.
Set up cross-channel attribution.
You need to understand which touchpoints are actually driving conversions. Was it the Instagram ad, the email campaign, the Google search, or the combination of all three?
Test and optimise relentlessly.
True omnichannel is never “finished.” Customer behaviour changes, new platforms emerge, technology evolves. You need systems in place to continuously test and improve.
One final tip – and this is crucial – train your entire team on the omnichannel approach. Your customer service team needs to understand your social media strategy. Your social media manager needs to know what email campaigns are running. Your email marketing specialist needs to understand your ad targeting.
Everyone needs to be singing from the same song sheet.
Accelerate Your Ecommerce Sales Growth With An Omnichannel Marketing Strategy
Here’s the bottom line: true omnichannel marketing isn’t a nice-to-have anymore – it’s survival.
Your customers are already living omnichannel lives. They’re discovering brands on TikTok, researching on Google, comparing on Instagram, purchasing on websites, sharing experiences across social platforms. If your brand experience isn’t seamlessly connected across all these touchpoints, you’re creating friction. And friction kills conversions.
The brands that master true omnichannel – engaging storytelling with personality instead of practical information, consistent experience, orchestrated journeys, real-time responsiveness – they’re the ones that’ll thrive in this great eCommerce realignment.
The rest? They’ll become footnotes in someone else’s success story.
Before you go, I want to leave you with this thought: your customers don’t care about your internal systems, your platform limitations, or your budget constraints. They care about how your brand makes them feel and how easy you make their journey.
Make it seamless, make it personal, make it valuable. That’s a true omnichannel marketing strategy.
