This is truer in travel with such tiny online conversion rates (typically in the low single digits), than in many other verticals, that the slightest move can make a huge difference to the bottom line.
In fact, it seems tracking customers throughout the journey from researching products and services to buying something is becoming more difficult for marketers as the amount of data available at different touch-points increases.
A report from Econsultancy and Oracle shows that while marketers understand how important it is join up campaigns across the various channels, they face huge challenges when it comes to putting it into practice.
While much of the budget and focus continues to be on social media marketing, web and email, the use of mobile as a marketing channel is gaining considerable ground.
As part of the marketing mix, 46% used it as a channel last year rising to 54% in the Cross-Channel Marketing 2015 study. The Econsultancy research also points to figures from Capgemini showing 37% of UK online sales come via smartphone or tablet.
However, despite the positive mobile growth – marketing via web, email and social media remain the top three priorities for companies in the next year.
And, when it comes to opportunities for growth, social media, website and email come top.
While marketers acknowledge the impact of cross-channel campaigns on conversion, the report shows room for improvement in areas such as understanding the customer journey.
In 2014, 43% of respondents felt they understood the customer journey but this has now slipped to 39% with similar decreases in measuring financial benefits and customer retention benefits.
Despite the decrease, the research reveals that after having a clear strategy, understanding the customer journey is the most important factor for cross-channel marketing.
The ability to track customers across different devices also seems to be declining with 43% ‘agreeing strongly or somewhat’ that they track across devices, compared with 77% a year ago.
In addition, only about a 25% plan marketing based on how consumers are interacting with them via various screens.
