45% of your marketing impact isn’t being captured in your campaign reports.
That’s nearly half of your effort going unseen, and it could be the key to driving more effective growth strategies. The reality is, that many customers are more loyal to the sales channels they use than to the brands they buy from. This means your marketing channels don’t just affect traffic to your website—they shape purchasing behaviour across multiple platforms.
We’re going to show you how to gain a complete picture of your marketing performance by understanding omnichannel purchase behaviours. We’ll walk you through a simple 5-point framework that will help you harness these insights and dramatically improve your omnichannel marketing results.
Marketing has both direct and indirect impacts:
Your bottom-of-funnel channels often compete for the same user demand across multiple sales channels, cannibalising sales. Meanwhile, your upper-funnel channels drive demand not only to their direct target but also create halo effects across omnichannel sales.
When we measure these effects, we often find both positive halo impacts and negative cannibalisation across sales channels. Top and middle-of-funnel campaigns generate demand that converts across multiple channels, even though this revenue rarely appears in standard platform reports. Just because a link directs traffic to your DTC site doesn’t mean all the value is captured there.
Top-of-funnel channels raise overall demand, benefiting all sales channels. In contrast, bottom-of-funnel channels often fight for limited demand within a single channel, potentially cannibalising sales elsewhere.
What We Know:
We’ve measured these behaviours extensively. While each brand is unique, common themes emerge:
- Meta Prospecting can drive up to 2x stronger halo impact on retail channels than the direct impact on DTC channels—especially in newer markets where the DTC channel is less established.
- YouTube often delivers equal value across DTC, Amazon, and retailers, with a total impact more than 3x what Google directly reports.
- TikTok shows a stronger indirect impact, primarily driving retailer uplift, particularly when organic content doesn’t push users directly to DTC stores.
- You don’t need Amazon ads to drive Amazon sales. Fashion and beauty brands generate up to 20% of Amazon sales through influencer reach campaigns, which showcase products without directing users to a specific channel. These campaigns can also drive up to 40% of DTC sales and 15% of physical store sales, as customers often purchase across multiple channels.
The Challenge:
Your bottom-of-funnel channels might be cannibalising sales across channels, while top-of-funnel campaigns create demand that goes untracked. To truly understand your marketing’s impact, you need to go beyond surface-level metrics.
What Can Brands Do?
- Implement Omnichannel Attribution:
Move beyond last-click attribution and adopt omnichannel measurement solutions that capture the full customer journey. This includes tracking interactions across all channels—DTC, retail, Amazon, and more—to understand both direct and indirect effects.
Pro Tip: Use advanced attribution tools like COmpass to measure both halo effects and cannibalisation between channels.
- Invest in Holistic Analytics:
Use tools and methodologies that aggregate data from all touch points, including online and offline sales. By analysing how each channel influences others, you can identify where to allocate your marketing spend for maximum ROI.
Example: If Meta Prospecting drives retail sales more effectively, increase investment there to support overall growth.
- Create Channel-Agnostic Campaigns:
Design marketing strategies that aren’t tied to a single sales channel. Encourage customers to interact with your brand on their preferred channels, reducing friction in their purchasing journey.
Action Step: Use influencer reach campaigns that showcase products without directing to a specific channel, allowing customers to choose where they purchase.
- Optimise for Customer Behaviour:
Recognise that customers often interact with multiple channels before making a purchase. Create seamless experiences across these touchpoints to support this behaviour, driving overall brand loyalty rather than channel-specific loyalty.
Example: Use top-of-funnel channels to generate awareness and mid-funnel channels to nurture leads, understanding that conversion may happen across different platforms.
- Regularly Assess Halo and Cannibalisation Effects:
Continuously monitor how your marketing channels affect each other. By understanding both the positive halo effects and negative cannibalisation impacts, you can refine your strategy to ensure you’re driving net growth rather than shifting demand.
Insight: Adjust your spend on bottom-of-funnel channels if they’re cannibalising sales, and reinvest in upper-funnel activities to create new demand.
Our Solution:
COmpass Attribution measures the direct and indirect impact of every marketing channel, uncovering the hidden halo and cannibalisation effects. With these insights, you can optimise your marketing strategy to maximise omnichannel business value.
