New, in-depth study reveals the untapped potential of omnichannel marketing automation in Europe.

As omnichannel marketing automation enters its second decade, how mature is the market? A recently released study provides a European benchmark.

In Spring 2022, Agillic commissioned Forrester Consulting to survey 306 senior people in commercial leadership and marketing technology roles in European companies. These businesses had revenues ranging from $50M to $1B and customer databases, the majority of which had between 50,000 and 50,000,000 entries.

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Across the board, faith in omnichannel and expectations of its benefits were detectably high. However, based on Forrester’s assessment in six key competencies, it emerged that there were three levels of maturity in the market. 80% of respondents were equally split between Beginner and Intermediate level, with only 20% qualifying as Leaders.

Although there was broad satisfaction that omnichannel was performing well, Leaders out-stripped Beginners and Intermediates with higher revenue growth and conversion rates in their omnichannel projects.

The study revealed that this sharp divide was not simply the result of technology – which can be a preoccupation amongst omnichannel newcomers – but, rather, effort. Leaders demonstrated how they took the time to become familiar with their customers and prioritised hiring colleagues who could not only master the tech but also deliver on a clear, customer focused strategy. A process that is neither quick nor easy.

Key findings

• Although companies have the best of intentions, few provide truly great omnichannel experiences.
• Leaders get higher returns for their strategically aligned efforts.
• People (not just technology) are needed to deliver customer satisfaction.
• Omnichannel automation both enhances customer experience and your competitive advantage.

Agillic’s CEO Emre Gürsoy commented:
“Forrester’s insights concur with our own belief that there is a direct correlation between omnichannel effort and business impact. And 80% of the market has a vast potential to grow – provided it chooses an omnichannel vendor who can help them push towards the tipping point.”

Based on the study’s findings, we see that companies utilising omnichannel marketing automation to its maximum follow many of Agillic’s guiding principles:

• They look for sophisticated capabilities from platform ecosystem partners.
• They invest in both in-house talent and implementation partners to maximise utilisation of the technology.
• They understand their customers and deliver better customer experiences through personalisation – at scale.
• They focus on the value of long-term customer relationships.
• They measure their ROI on both business impact and customer-centric KPIs.