Rytis Lauris is the cofounder and CEO of Omnisend, a marketing automation platform built for e-commerce.
Though President Biden signed into law the potential ban of TikTok, the nine-month sale period and anticipated legal challenges mean it will likely be two years or more before a ban takes place—if one takes place at all. But I think the eventual outcome is a distraction. The bigger point for companies is that a warning shot has been fired, and they need to pay close attention to it.
The primary issue here is not TikTok. It’s about companies relying less on established and trusted first-party marketing channels and more on third-party channels to grow their businesses. TikTok is only the latest example of brands opening themselves up to increased risk by ceding control to outside companies.
When relying on third-party marketing, brands are, in effect, renting how they establish and build customer relationships. The third-party can change their terms when they wish, leaving brands vulnerable. By directly collecting first-party data, such as email addresses, brands can easily switch from one marketing provider to another should the need arise. This gives them better control of the customer relationship, resulting in a more change-resilient program.
I believe that brands and marketers should view this potential ban as a wake-up call to strengthen their marketing programs in a way that minimizes risk and develops a more direct relationship with customers. As the leader of a company that provides an e-commerce marketing platform, I have some strategies I’ve found work best when it comes to omnichannel marketing.
The Importance Of Omnichannel
Shopping journeys today are anything but simple. Omnichannel marketing is becoming increasingly important because it gives consumers and brands what they want: A relevant and cohesive shopping experience for less cost.
The channels I’d consider the cornerstones of a profitable and branded omnichannel marketing program are email and SMS. While they may not be the newest channels, email and SMS engage consumers and have great overall metrics and ROI compared to paid social.
For example, in the first quarter of 2024, the clickthrough rate (CTR) for major platforms, including TikTok and Meta, hovered between 0.2% and 0.5%, according to Northbeam (download required). Google’s CTR was slightly better at roughly 1.3%. Comparatively, the CTR for scheduled email campaigns was 1.7%, 43.8% for automated emails, 6.8% for SMS messages and 12.9% for automated SMS.
Conversion rates told a similar story. The conversion rate for platforms like TikTok, Meta and Google hovered between 0.02% and 0.04%. The conversion rate was 0.07% for scheduled email campaigns, 1.99% for automated emails, 0.09% for SMS campaigns and 0.28% for automated SMS.
When it comes to ROI, email is a consistent winner. Omnisend customers in the U.S. average a 72:1 ROI, meaning they earn $72 for every $1 spent. For comparison, the ROI on Meta is 9:1, and Google 8:1.
With so many people using social media, what accounts for the disparity in performance? One reason is the fluctuating costs. Email and SMS tend to have more of a fixed cost, whereas paid channels’ costs fluctuate, making controlling costs difficult. Recently, many companies found their ad budgets quickly evaporate with little to show for using Meta’s automated ad system—another example of the potential perils of relying on third parties to achieve your sales goals.
Ways To Build A Branded Omnichannel Experience
Should brands stop using platforms like TikTok and Meta? Absolutely not. Instead, brands should incorporate them into a broader strategy, helping to create a branded customer experience and reduce paid marketing costs. Today’s email marketing platforms can seamlessly integrate with essential data systems like e-commerce platforms and remarketing properties, making it easier than ever for anyone to create a revenue-generating omnichannel marketing program.
Based on my experience in the industry, here are four ways to get started creating an omnichannel shopping experience.
1. Add a popup to your website. Collect email addresses and mobile numbers of visitors, including those resulting from your paid campaigns. These allow you to create a branded customer journey and reduce future remarketing costs.
2. Send behavior-based automated emails and texts to those who sign up. These include welcome messages for new subscribers, browse abandonment messages for online window shoppers and cart abandonment messages for those who abandoned their purchase. The cost of sending these messages is minimal, but I find the performance is superior. According to research by my company, about a third of people who click on an automated email make a purchase.
3. Use SMS. SMS marketing has exploded, and consumers like it. Text messages serve as another direct touchpoint between brands and consumers and can be incorporated into the same automated workflows as email. With text messaging being an everyday communication method, it only makes sense that it is part of an omnichannel experience.
4. Use data to refine your paid remarketing campaigns. By easily syncing the data from the email provider—like message, site and purchase activity—brands can avoid the cost of remarketing to contacts that either recently purchased or are in highly effective automated email and SMS workflows.
Between Apple’s privacy changes, a potential TikTok ban, programmatic tools spending ad budgets and other unforeseen events, it has never been clearer that brands need to focus on marketing resilience. A well-thought-out omnichannel marketing strategy can maximize ROI by sending the most cost-effective message with the highest chance of conversion at the right time via the right channel.
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