What is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel marketing?

Multichannel marketing uses several channels, each managed separately. Omnichannel marketing connects them around one customer profile, so messages on one channel account for what happened on the others.

What channels are part of omnichannel marketing?

Any channel where you interact with customers: email, mobile push, web push, in-app messages, SMS and messaging apps, your website, social media, paid ads, customer support and physical stores.

What tools do I need for omnichannel marketing?

A way to unify customer data and an orchestration tool that can send on several channels from one journey, often a customer engagement platform. See our comparison of email and push notification platforms for tools that combine channels.

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Advanced Concepts

Omnichannel Marketing

Marketing that coordinates every channel a customer uses, such as email, app, push, SMS, website and stores, around one customer profile, so messages continue each other instead of repeating.

Definition

Omnichannel marketing means treating all of a brand's channels as one connected conversation with each customer. The customer's profile, history and current state are shared across email, push notifications, in-app messages, SMS, the website, ads and physical stores, so each touchpoint picks up where the last one left off. It differs from multichannel marketing, where a brand is present on many channels but each one runs its own campaigns with little awareness of the others.

Why It Matters

Customers do not think in channels. They browse on a phone, buy on a laptop, get a delivery update by text and ask for help in the app. When channels are disconnected, people get a discount email after they already bought, or the same reminder by email, push and SMS within an hour. Omnichannel marketing removes that friction, which improves conversion and reduces opt-outs on every channel. It also lets you choose the best channel per person, such as push for app-engaged users and email for those who never opened the app.

How It Works

It starts with identity: linking a person's devices, email address, phone number and accounts into one profile, and collecting events from every touchpoint. A journey or orchestration tool then decides what to send and where, based on behavior and channel preferences, and suppresses messages made unnecessary by actions elsewhere. Shared rules, such as cross-channel frequency caps, quiet hours and consent per channel, keep the experience consistent. Reporting attributes results across the whole journey instead of crediting each channel separately.

Example

An online furniture store's omnichannel cart recovery:

The shopper adds a sofa to the cart in the app but leaves.
After 1 hour: push notification "Your sofa is still in your cart" for users with push enabled.
After 1 day, if no purchase: email with the sofa, fabric options and reviews.
The shopper buys on the website that evening, and every pending reminder is cancelled across channels.
The next day: SMS delivery update for customers who opted in to texts.

Best Practices

1Unify identity first, linking devices, emails and phone numbers to one profile
2Choose the channel per message and per person instead of sending everything everywhere
3Cancel pending messages in all channels when the goal is reached in any of them
4Apply frequency caps and quiet hours across channels, not per channel
5Track consent separately per channel, especially for SMS

One sequence across email, push, in-app and SMS

Sequenzy sequences can send email, push and SMS and show in-app messages in the same flow, and exit when the goal event happens on any channel.

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Multichannel vs Omnichannel

	Multichannel	Omnichannel
Customer data	Separate per channel	One shared profile
Campaign planning	Per channel	Per customer journey
Message awareness	Channels unaware of each other	Each message knows what happened before
Reporting	Per channel	Across the whole journey