Multichannel vs Omnichannel Explained

Note: This article was last updated on November 7, 2025, to ensure all information is up-to-date.
 

Key Takeaways

• Multichannel marketing reaches customers across several platforms, but each channel operates independently.

• Omnichannel marketing integrates all touchpoints into a single, seamless experience that feels consistent and personalized.

• Customer-centric strategies built on shared data improve engagement, loyalty, and lifetime value.

• Integrated platforms like Liferay DXP help unify digital channels and deliver connected, real-time experiences.

• The future of marketing belongs to businesses that align every interaction around one customer journey.

Today’s customers switch effortlessly between channels—scrolling on mobile, researching on desktop, and completing purchases in-store or through live chat. This constant movement makes single-channel engagement ineffective. To keep up, brands must deliver connected, consistent, and personalized experiences everywhere a customer interacts.

That’s why understanding multichannel vs. omnichannel marketing has become essential. Both approaches rely on multiple communication channels, but they differ in how those channels connect—and how customers experience them.

This article explains each strategy, outlines their differences, and shows why omnichannel marketing now defines modern customer experience.

What Is Multichannel Marketing? 

Multichannel marketing refers to using multiple, often independent, channels to reach and engage customers. These can include physical locations, websites, mobile apps, email, social media, SMS, or printed catalogs. Each channel operates separately, with its own goals, content, and metrics.

In a multichannel marketing strategy, the emphasis is on reach, ensuring customers can interact with a brand through as many outlets as possible. However, these channels often function in silos. A customer might receive an email promotion, see a social ad, and browse in-store, yet none of those interactions share data or context.

That lack of integration means each touchpoint must restart the conversation. It’s marketing through multiple channels, but not necessarily connected channels.

For example, a retail brand might send a discount code via email but not reflect that same promotion in its app or in-store point-of-sale system. The result: inconsistent messaging and a fragmented customer journey.

What Is Omnichannel Marketing?

Omnichannel marketing takes the same set of customer touchpoints—digital and physical—and connects them through shared data, content, and technology to deliver a personalized experience across every interaction. This unified experience allows customers to move seamlessly between channels without losing context.

An omnichannel strategy aligns all channels around the customer. Whether they’re chatting with support, adding an item to a cart on mobile, filing a claim, or completing a purchase in-store, the brand recognizes them as the same individual and maintains the same conversation across every interaction.

The goal is consistency and continuity. Every channel is integrated into a single ecosystem powered by customer data, allowing brands to personalize experiences in real time.

You can think of multichannel as offering multiple lanes for engagement—and omnichannel as connecting those lanes into a single, coordinated highway. For example, an omnichannel retailer might let customers start a purchase on a mobile app, receive support via live chat, and complete the transaction in-store without losing progress.

This integration is why omnichannel marketing has become the standard for digital-first enterprises. It doesn’t just expand access; it improves satisfaction, efficiency, and brand trust by ensuring every message, offer, and interaction feels connected.

Multichannel vs. Omnichannel Marketing: Key Differences

While multichannel and omnichannel both involve multiple marketing channels, their philosophies and outcomes differ across three core dimensions: experience, focus, and integration.

"Omnichannel enables the true delivery of a cohesive messaging strategy to target audiences based on a single creative strategy at scale. Omnichannel can be flexible and fluid in delivering an impactful message, with the built-in ability to monitor and optimize performance to ensure consistency across audiences." — Alex Else, Head of Omnichannel Product Solutions, Group M Nexus

Why Omnichannel Is the Modern Standard

The evolution toward omnichannel marketing reflects deeper shifts in customer expectations and technological capabilities. Today’s consumers expect brands to deliver unified, seamless journeys—across web, mobile, in-store, social, and more. Meanwhile, systems for data integration, analytics, and customer profiling have matured, enabling brands to deliver that continuity across CRM, CMS, commerce, and behavioral platforms.

A few key trends highlight this transition:

1. Seamless experience demand: According to McKinsey, 75% of consumers now expect a seamless omnichannel experience and routinely use three or more channels during their purchase journey. 

2. Retention benefits: Businesses with strong omnichannel engagement strategies retain around 89% of their customers on average, compared to brands with weaker strategies losing more customers. 

3. Higher sales performance: Companies that use three or more channels in campaigns report dramatically higher order rates—some sources note 287% improvement over single-channel efforts. 

4. Elevated personalization expectations: Recent research shows that 39% of consumers expect brands to personalize their online shopping experience, from offers to recommendations. 

5. Social commerce growth: Voice commands and social buying are rising—37% of global shoppers now make purchases via voice-enabled interfaces, and social platforms continue to merge commerce and engagement. 

These trends all point to one reality: fragmented, channel-by-channel approaches no longer satisfy modern consumers. Brands must invest in integration, data sharing, and unified experiences to remain competitive.

The Business Case for Omnichannel Marketing

Adopting an omnichannel strategy is more than a UX upgrade—it delivers measurable business gains:

The takeaway is clear: integrated customer experiences directly influence satisfaction and loyalty. Brands that unify their digital channels not only increase conversion rates but also reduce churn and acquisition costs.

Barriers to Creating Omnichannel Experiences 

If the advantages of an omnichannel approach are so clear, why isn’t every organization already doing it? In many cases, barriers come down to technology, cost, and culture.

Here are three of the most common barriers:

1. Legacy Systems and Complexity

Many organizations rely on outdated or siloed technologies—custom-built CRM systems, legacy POS tools, or on-premises ERPs that don’t communicate with newer digital platforms. Integrating these systems to deliver real-time data synchronization across touchpoints can require significant investment and technical restructuring.

2. Organizational Silos

Omnichannel transformation is not just a technology project—it’s a business shift. Marketing, sales, customer service, and IT teams must align around shared goals, KPIs, and data governance practices. Without that collaboration, even the best digital platform can’t create a truly unified experience.

3. Cultural Resistance

Adopting an omnichannel mindset requires executive sponsorship and cross-department buy-in. Leadership must articulate a clear vision, prioritize customer experience as a competitive differentiator, and support teams through training and change management.

Organizations that treat omnichannel as a company-wide initiative—rather than a marketing experiment—are the ones that see sustained success.

Business Benefits of an Omnichannel Strategy

A well-executed omnichannel marketing strategy goes beyond customer satisfaction, delivering business benefits such as:

• Improved customer lifetime value: Customers who engage with digital experiences that put them first are more likely to remain loyal because they feel valued. For businesses, it’s not just about the sale today, it’s about repeat business (and referrals) over time.

• Better business efficiencies: When organizations use an omnichannel strategy, they only need to collect customer data once, then share it across other channels. This eliminates the need to repeat the process again and again, lowering costs while boosting operational efficiencies. 

• Increased sales: As mentioned earlier in this article, customers who enjoy a better buying and service experience are more likely to spend more money and share their positive experiences. Both of these activities help to increase sales.

• Smarter inventory practices: While there is some considerable technology strategy and implementation work required, a good omnichannel strategy and platform can positively impact an organization's stock management outcomes. With a better, more unified view of inventory, a business can optimize stock levels and roll out improved replenishment strategies.

Why Some Businesses Still Choose Multichannel

It’s worth noting that a multichannel marketing strategy remains a valid approach for certain organizations, particularly smaller businesses or those early in digital transformation. A multichannel strategy can still expand brand reach and engage audiences effectively without requiring deep integration.

"A strategic way to increase your brand's lifetime value is to establish a multichannel marketing approach." — Mark Friedman, Vice President of Digital, Eddie Bauer

However, as customer expectations and competition rise, the limitations of multichannel approaches become clearer. Siloed data and inconsistent messaging create friction that customers increasingly notice—and avoid. The shift to omnichannel isn’t just a marketing upgrade; it’s an evolution in how brands understand and serve their audiences.

Getting Started With Omnichannel Transformation

Building an omnichannel strategy doesn’t require starting from scratch. Many organizations begin by connecting existing systems through APIs or adopting headless architectures that enable content reuse across platforms.

Headless CMS and digital experience platforms (DXPs)—like Liferay DXP—allow teams to deliver content, commerce, and customer service consistently across every device and channel. With integrated APIs and personalization tools, brands can create seamless customer experiences that reflect real-time data and preferences.

The key is to start with a clear goal: understand where your customer journeys currently fragment and identify the technologies or processes that can bring them together. From there, scaling becomes far more manageable.

Ready to Learn More?

Whether you have yet to develop an omnichannel strategy or are in the midst of executing one and looking for improvements, this blog post will help. It covers headless APIs and their usefulness in helping you roll out content and a consistent CX across multiple channels for a true modern omnichannel experience.