Multi-channel marketing often sounds more complicated than it needs to be.
But we live in a world of “more”: more platforms, more campaigns, more assets, and more reporting to explain. The work is growing, but the strategy behind each channel is not always clearly defined.
Especially when you’re asked to do more at the speed of light, your multi-channel strategy can end up looking like no strategy at all.
This is where the big question often arises: Do these channels really work together, or are they measured as separate systems?
That was the focus of Session 3 of SEJ Live, where I joined Shaun Bruno from CallRail to talk about how to build a truly transformative multi-channel growth strategy.
The full session is available to watch on demand here: SEJ Live On Demand.
During the session, we discussed how marketers can connect channels throughout the customer journey, where AI can help, and what still requires human judgment. We’ve also included attribution, smart workflows, and a way to set expectations before a campaign is launched.
This recap covers some of the key takeaways, while the full recording dives deep into the channel’s playbooks and audience Q&A.
1. Give Each Station a Clear Function
One of the biggest problems I see with multi-channel strategies is the lack of clarity of expectations.
A business may have the right channels, but each is judged by the same criteria. That generally means that all campaigns are expected to drive faster conversions, regardless of where they sit in the customer journey.
The problem? That simply does not reflect how people make decisions.
Someone can find a product via video, compare options via search, look for testimonials on social media or Reddit, and convert later via email or a keyword search. As consumers, we do this all the time. We gather information in one place, verify it in another, and act when the time or offer makes sense.
The challenge is that many groups still treat channels as separate programs.
Paid search and social media have their own report. Email, organic, webinars, and video are often evaluated separately, too.
That setup makes it easy to ask which channel “successfully” converted. It makes it difficult to understand how the channels interact.
Before judging performance, marketers need to define the role of each channel.
Some channels are better at creating demand by presenting a problem or product category. Others are better at building trust by answering questions, addressing objections, or presenting evidence. Lower funnel channels tend to be more powerful in capturing intent when someone is close to making a decision.
Your goal in this step is to understand what each channel should include, and then scale accordingly to that role. Once that is clear, the performance discussion becomes more useful.
2. Measure Awareness of Right Signs
Awareness is one of the easiest areas of a multi-channel strategy to misunderstand.
The brand says it needs more awareness, and ends up measuring those campaigns against lower funnel conversion goals. The marketer may be trying to build future demand, while the business is asking why the cost per acquisition isn’t as visible as a branded search.
That gap needs to be addressed before the campaign can begin.
If you’re using YouTube, Meta, TikTok, CTV, audio, creator, or influencer campaigns, those channels may be reaching people who previously weren’t looking for your product. They can introduce a problem, build familiarity, and give people a reason to come back later.
A quick CPA won’t show you all that.
For advanced campaigns, I would look for signals such as branded search promotions, returning visitors, specific traffic trends, video completion rates, third-party audience growth, assisted conversions, and downstream performance on other channels.
Those metrics can help show that a campaign is creating more awareness and improving traffic for other channels.
This is also where the setting of expectations is important.
Before a campaign goes live, marketers must be clear about how it will be tested. That conversation may involve leadership, finance, clients, or management.
For example, if you’re launching a YouTube campaign, define what success looks like. Define which metrics are important, which metrics are directional, and which metrics should not be used as a key decision point.
Without that alignment, top funnel campaigns are often the first to be cut. Then, a few months later, the same business may wonder why the demand for the product is not growing.
3. Use a Middle Funnel to Reduce Uncertainty
Mid-funnel is where most brands start losing people.
At this point, someone has already shown some level of interest. They may watch a video, visit a product page, download a guide, engage with social content, or search for comparison terms.
The next message should not be the one that introduced them to the product.
This is where the message needs to shift from problem awareness to evidence and differentiation. If someone watches an awareness video, they may need more product education. When they visit a product page, they may need reviews, testimonials, or answers to common objections. If they have downloaded the guide, they may need a clear connection between the educational content and the solution.
The goal is to answer the questions that prevent a person from moving forward.
Meta can support this with object oriented art, carousel ads, or video redirects. Demand Gen and YouTube can help reinforce product education in a visual format. LinkedIn can be effective for case studies, business testimonials, and credibility in B2B. Email can help structure the message once someone has shared their experience.
And I think marketers should be careful about treating the middle funnel as just a rip off.
Retargeting can play a role, but the middle funnel can also include non-branded searches, webinars, educational content, comparison pages, nurturing sequences, and other touch points that help someone build confidence.
The question I would like to ask is: What is stopping this person from taking the next step?
Maybe they don’t trust the product yet. Maybe they don’t understand the difference between your product and another option. Maybe they need to see the testimony of someone who had the same problem.
If you know what is causing the doubt, the message sequence becomes easier to build.
4. Keep the Last Click Attribute in Context
Lower funnel campaigns often look like top performers because they stay close to conversions.
Paid search, branded search, and redirects often drive leads, sales, and credit. But in most cases, those channels assume the need for another channel to help create.
This is where the last click attribute can provide an incomplete view of performance. It rewards the last touchpoint, even when earlier touchpoints played an important role in the decision.
Last click data can still be useful, especially in understanding which channels drive immediate action. It should not be the only way performance is evaluated.
In the session, Shaun talked about looking at an attribute from multiple angles. That can include last clicks, balanced attribution models, total touchpoints, and viewing data for top channels.
That kind of reporting gives marketers more context when deciding where to invest.
A B2B company with a long sales cycle should not test every channel in the same way as a direct-to-consumer brand with a short buying window. The right approach depends on the business, the sales cycle, and the decisions the data needs to support.
Since attribution can never capture every touchpoint perfectly, reporting should help marketers make better budget decisions with the data they have.
Marketers still need to report numbers that management can understand. Those numbers just need context, especially if the channels are designed to play different roles.
5. Use AI to Improve Workflow
AI was a big part of the session because it is already changing how many sales teams work.
For me, the most useful place to start is workflow. Where can AI reduce repetitive work, speed up analysis, or help a team get to a strong starting point?
AI can help shorten reviews, organize customer research, group search queries, generate topic variations, create creative startups, optimize inventory, flag anomalies, and draw themes from performance data.
Those use cases can be real time savers, especially for small teams.
AI doesn’t automatically know your location, margins, sales feedback, customer objections, compliance requirements, or internal priorities. That information must be part of the process if you want the output to be useful.
That’s why I would look at the foundation before bringing AI into every part of the workflow.
- Is the tracking clean?
- Is the audience clearly defined?
- Do you know the difference between a consumer, user, and influencer?
- Is the message clear?
- Do the landing pages answer the right questions?
- Does each channel have a specific role?
If those pieces aren’t clear, AI can help you navigate quickly in the wrong direction. But, if those pieces are in place, AI can help a team move faster without giving away a strategy.
Develop an Adaptable Strategy
Multi-channel growth is much easier to measure when each channel has a clear role.
That doesn’t mean that every method will be easy to measure. And it doesn’t mean that every channel will show its value in the same report. But it gives marketers a very useful way to plan, evaluate, and describe performance.
To me, that’s where most of the work should happen next.
Check out the channels you already use. Ask what each person has to contribute. Then check if the message, campaign objective, landing page, and measurement method support that role.
If the answer is unclear, adding another channel probably won’t fix it.
AI can help improve parts of the workflow, especially around research, creativity, reporting, and pattern recognition. But strategy still requires human judgment. Marketers still need to define the customer, message, offer, and key signals.
For anyone looking for the full discussion, including channel playbooks, AI workflow examples, and audience Q&A, the full session is available for on-demand viewing here: Watch SEJ Live On Demand.
SEJ Pro is also where the conversation continues beyond the live sessions. It gives marketers a place to ask follow-up questions, talk about what they’re evaluating, and learn from experts and peers working on similar challenges.
Most teams are being asked to do more with less right now. Having a place to talk about what works, what still feels unclear, and what deserves more testing can make those decisions feel less isolated.
Featured image: Master1305/Shutterstock
