11 surprising stats about the multi-channel purchase process

How many brand touch points do you hit in a day? Have you ever gone from a website to Facebook to a Google Maps listing to a physical store? If so, did you visit each of those using the same devices—or did you switch from your desktop to your laptop to your work computer to your smartphone?

If you’re like the average customer, chances are you hit a lot
of touch points in your quest to research, connect with, or purchase from a brand.

As a marketer, you probably already know this. Integrating channels is probably already on your radar. After all, one survey found that 87% of retailers agree that omni-channel marketing is critical to success.

But the truth is that even though they know they should, most companies haven’t truly implemented a seamless, multi-channel experience yet.

In case your team still needs convincing, here are 11 stats that highlight just how vital a cohesive multi-channel strategy has become:

The vast majority of customers are multi-channel shoppers.

86% of shoppers regularly channel-hop across at least two channels. (CommerceHub)

And the number of channels used has grown exponentially over time.

15 years ago, the average consumer used two touch points. Today, nearly 50% regularly use over four touch points. (Knexus Group)

Which channels are customers using?

According to research by Adobe, 48% visit brand websites to research products. Younger consumers (37% of teens and 27% of Millennials) use video channels to research.

When it’s time to purchase, 59% of customers turn to online marketplaces and 49% visit a store.

During the purchase, 58% use a smartphone or connected device in store to help inform their purchase.

And after the purchase, 51% go back to the brand’s website. (Adobe)

Multi-channel customer expectations

90% of customers expect consistent interactions across channels.

The more channels a customer engages with, the more purchases they’re likely to make, with 62% of those who engage across 10+ channels making weekly purchases. (Marketing Land)

Businesses that adopt omni-channel strategies achieve 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates compared to business that don’t. (Aspect Software)

Companies with omni-channel engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of customers. (Invesp)

So, what are brands doing about it? (Hint: Not enough.)

87% of retailers agree that an omni-channel marketing strategy is critical or very important to their success – but only 8 percent say they’ve achieved it. (Research Live)

Multi-channel marketing and your brand

If only 8% of brands are truly multi-channel, we marketers have a lot of work to do. And we at Lytics believe that one of the foundational pieces of having a true multi-channel marketing strategy is making sure you have real-time customer data stored in one place and shared across your marketing channels.

Why? Because a shopping experience where a customer purchases a product on your website and still has ads chasing them around Facebook two days later isn’t truly multi-channel. One channels knows they purchased; another doesn’t. And that’s just one small example of the multi-channel faux pas that come with siloed data.

This, of course, is where Lytics can help. We’d love to show you how. Schedule a demo today and ask our reps about multi-channel marketing.