Introduction to Omnichannel Marketing and Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Time to read 8 min

As a Salesforce Consulting Partner, Americaneagle.com delivers cutting-edge Salesforce solutions, helping businesses thrive in today’s digital world. Omnichannel marketing—a strategy that provides customers with a seamless and integrated shopping experience across multiple channels, whether mobile, online, or in-store—has become essential for businesses to stay competitive and meet modern consumer expectations.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud helps businesses achieve these goals. It’s a cloud-based platform for building and managing online stores, offering B2C and B2B ecommerce solutions. It enables seamless shopping experiences and uses AI insights to optimize sales and customer engagement. With deep expertise in integrating complex digital solutions, Americaneagle.com helps clients harness Salesforce Commerce Cloud's full potential to implement effective omnichannel strategies. From streamlining data across channels to enhancing customer journeys, businesses gain the resources they need to drive growth and build loyal customer relationships.

Professional using laptop with digital interface displaying successful omnichannel marketing strategies for ecommerce

What is Omnichannel Marketing with Salesforce?

What is omnichannel marketing? Put simply, it’s a strategy to provide a cohesive, integrated brand experience for customers across every channel they use—whether that’s online shopping, mobile apps, social media, or brick-and-mortar stores. The fundamental components of omnichannel marketing include:

  • Seamless communication between channels
  • Consistent branding
  • Unified customer data
  • Personalized interactions at every touchpoint

These elements ensure customers can transition effortlessly between platforms.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud plays a pivotal role in bringing these components to life. Businesses can easily manage interactions across multiple channels by unifying data and customer touchpoints into a single platform. The platform’s ability to centralize customer insights ensures a personalized, consistent experience, while its advanced tools help streamline operations, improve engagement, and drive loyalty.

The Role of Data in Omnichannel Marketing

Data plays an important role in the success of omnichannel marketing by allowing businesses to create personalized and seamless experiences. Collecting and analyzing customer data from various channels helps brands understand behaviors, preferences, and needs so they can deliver custom interactions at every touchpoint. Salesforce includes powerful data management and analytics tools, such as Salesforce Customer 360 and Einstein AI, which centralize data insights and provide actionable intelligence.

Multichannel vs. Omnichannel

There are some key differences between multichannel and omnichannel strategies. While often used interchangeably, “omnichannel” and “multichannel” differ significantly. Omni-channel ensures a seamless, unified customer journey across channels, allowing transitions (e.g., from live chat to phone to email) without repeating information. In contrast, multichannel focuses on simply maintaining a presence across channels without prioritizing integration. Omnichannel’s customer-centric approach creates cohesive, consistent, and convenient experiences.

Key Omnichannel Strategies Using Salesforce Commerce Cloud

One effective strategy is leveraging centralized customer data to provide personalized shopping experiences. Businesses can use Commerce Cloud’s Customer 360 tool to gather insights from various touchpoints, such as in-store visits, social media interactions, or online browsing, for targeted promotions and tailored product recommendations. For example, a retailer could analyze browsing history to send customized offers directly to a customer’s preferred communication channel, ensuring relevance and improving conversion rates.

Another powerful strategy is optimizing seamless cross-channel experiences. Salesforce Commerce Cloud features include:

  • Omnichannel Inventory, which helps manage inventory across locations.
  • Order Management for managing business processes related to orders, from any channel.
  • Payments for taking multiple payment types quickly and easily.

These solutions provide convenience to the customer and ensure a smooth transition from digital to physical spaces. For instance, a business could provide real-time inventory updates online, allowing customers to choose a nearby store to pick up their order.

Integrating Sales and Marketing Channels

Salesforce provides a powerful suite of tools to integrate sales and marketing channels, creating a unified approach that enhances the customer journey. Businesses can centralize customer data by leveraging Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud, allowing both sales and marketing teams to access real-time insights. This integration allows marketing teams to create personalized campaigns while equipping sales teams with actionable intelligence to follow up with tailored solutions. For example, Marketing Cloud's automation feature can generate engagement alerts for the sales team, ensuring timely and relevant outreach that meets their needs.

Also, Salesforce’s Customer 360 offers a comprehensive view of each customer, bridging gaps between touchpoints and ensuring consistent messaging throughout the buying process. Businesses can utilize AI-driven insights through Salesforce Einstein to identify trends or predict customer behavior, enabling more strategic collaboration between sales and marketing.

Implementing Omnichannel Marketing in Salesforce

Setting up and optimizing omnichannel marketing within Salesforce Commerce Cloud begins with centralizing customer data through features like Customer 360. Businesses can integrate various touchpoints, such as online stores, mobile apps, and physical locations, into a unified platform, ensuring consistent messaging and seamless experiences. Salesforce’s Einstein AI and analytics tools play a vital role in refining these strategies by analyzing data to uncover customer behaviors, preferences, and trends. Marketers can use these insights to tailor campaigns, adjust channel strategies, and predict future needs, creating a more personalized and effective approach. Continuous monitoring and testing of performance metrics within the platform allow businesses to optimize interactions across all channels.

Setting Up Salesforce for Omnichannel Success

To set up Salesforce for omnichannel success, begin by integrating Salesforce’s Customer 360 to unify customer data from various channels, including ecommerce platforms, social media, and in-store interactions. This setup ensures a centralized view of your customers, forming the foundation for effective omnichannel marketing. Next, activate Salesforce’s Service Cloud features like Omnichannel Routing to intelligently direct customer inquiries to the appropriate teams, streamlining communication and improving response times.

It’s also important to configure Marketing Cloud to create personalized, data-driven campaigns that resonate with customers at every stage of their journey. Leverage Salesforce Einstein to analyze customer behavior and predict needs, allowing your team to refine outreach strategies. Finally, ensure all web, mobile, and brick-and-mortar channels are connected through Salesforce Commerce Cloud for consistent messaging and inventory management.

Leveraging Salesforce Cloud Features

Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a suite of features designed to enhance omnichannel marketing strategies. One excellent feature is omnichannel fulfillment, which allows businesses to manage inventory, orders, and delivery options across multiple channels. This provides customers with the flexibility to buy online, pick up in-store, or choose shipping options that suit their needs. The API-first architecture allows easy integration with third-party systems, ensuring businesses can extend and customize their commerce capabilities while maintaining robust connectivity between platforms.

The platform also embraces a mobile-first approach, optimizing every aspect of the shopping experience for mobile devices. From responsive web designs to mobile app synchronization, this feature ensures that customers have a seamless user experience, whether browsing on their phones or tablets. With Customer 360, businesses gain a unified, centralized view of their customers, linking behaviors and interactions across channels to maximize engagement. With advanced personalization capabilities, Salesforce Commerce Cloud enables businesses to tailor content, product recommendations, and marketing campaigns to individual preferences, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Measuring Success in Omnichannel Marketing

Businesses can measure and analyze the effectiveness of their omnichannel marketing strategies in Salesforce Commerce Cloud by leveraging built-in analytics and reporting tools. These tools provide real-time data on key performance metrics, such as conversion rates, customer engagement across channels, and sales performance. In addition, Americaneagle.com can also assist with enhanced reporting tools such as Tableau. Customer insights from features like Customer 360 help businesses understand behaviors, preferences, and buying patterns, enabling refined strategies for better outcomes. Additionally, Salesforce Einstein offers predictive analytics to help brands anticipate trends and optimize campaigns, ensuring that every aspect of their omnichannel approach drives measurable success. Salesforce has two new products, Salesforce Data Cloud - a CDP, which aggregates Salesforce data - and data outside Salesforce, which performs profile unification and segmentation capabilities.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Omnichannel Marketing

To evaluate the success of an omnichannel marketing strategy in Salesforce, businesses should focus on tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) that provide actionable insights into customer behavior and campaign effectiveness. Omnichannel KPIs such as conversion rates, customer retention, and average order value are critical for assessing performance.

Performance tracking should also include monitoring cart abandonment rates to identify friction points, while metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV) highlight the long-term impact of engagement strategies. Additionally, tracking channel-specific KPIs, such as open rates for email campaigns or click-through rates for mobile ads, helps refine and optimize each component of the strategy. Salesforce’s robust analytics tools ensure these insights are easily accessible, empowering brands to adjust tactics in real-time for maximum impact.

Using Salesforce Reports and Dashboards

Salesforce Reports and Dashboards are important tools for monitoring and refining omnichannel strategies, offering businesses a centralized view of performance across all customer touchpoints. With customizable reports, teams can track key metrics such as sales performance, conversion rates, and customer engagement across channels. These insights empower businesses to identify trends, uncover areas for improvement, and make informed decisions to maximize their omnichannel efforts. Dashboards display this data visually in real-time, making it easy to pinpoint performance gaps and successes. Also, data across all touchpoints (service cases, company data, etc.) can be grouped with ecommerce data to offer a full picture and gain additional insights not available on a stand-alone ecommerce product.

By leveraging these reporting tools, businesses can focus on actionable insights that drive continuous improvement. For instance, if a report reveals high cart abandonment on a specific channel, targeted adjustments can be made to improve the checkout process. Additionally, Salesforce’s advanced filtering capabilities allow teams to drill down into specific customer segments or regions, fine-tuning marketing and operational strategies to better meet their needs. Salesforce Reports and Dashboards provide the data clarity needed to optimize performance across all channels, ensuring a cohesive and impactful omnichannel experience.

Empowering Businesses with Salesforce Integration

Implementing omnichannel marketing strategies with Salesforce Commerce Cloud empowers businesses to deliver seamless, personalized experiences across every customer touchpoint. Companies can effectively streamline operations and boost customer engagement by leveraging features like omnichannel fulfillment, API-first architecture, mobile-first design, Customer 360, and advanced personalization. These tools provide a unified view of interactions, ensuring that customers receive a cohesive and satisfying experience, whether shopping online, in-store, or via mobile. With robust analytics and real-time insights, businesses can refine their strategies to maximize conversions, improve loyalty, and stay ahead in competitive markets.

At Americaneagle.com, we specialize in Salesforce integration and delivering tailored digital solutions to enhance your omnichannel marketing efforts. We can integrate with a wide range of ERP systems (common among ecommerce retailers), logistics providers, and other common ecommerce integrations to ensure a cohesive solution combining data from Salesforce and external systems. Our team of experts collaborates with businesses to implement Salesforce Commerce Cloud and optimize their digital ecosystems for measurable success. If you’re ready to take advantage of Salesforce’s cutting-edge tools, consult with Americaneagle.com today to connect with our experienced professionals and kickstart your journey toward omnichannel success!

About the Author

Shawn Griffin

Shawn
Griffin

Shawn has been with Americaneagle.com since 1999 in a variety of roles. Currently, Shawn is part of our digital marketing and content team. In addition to editing and producing written company pieces, he produces copy for clients and he also helps to produce our radio and TV spots. He wants to make sure everybody knows that it’s truly a collaborative effort – between many, including the people he’s worked for during the past 20+ years!