By Simi Gill, Head of Digital as featured in Performance Marketing World
“Omnichannel” has quickly become a buzzword within the programmatic media landscape, appearing in planning strategies, supplier roadmaps and often at the centre of debates about the future of media buying. But it isn’t a brand-new concept – it’s the natural evolution of programmatics multichannel roots, a shift being driven by how channel supply is evolving. Increasingly, channels are becoming programmatically enabled and accessible through DSP ecosystems, accelerated by emerging formats like CTV, digital audio, and DOOH gaining the same buying capabilities as display and video, allowing for consolidated, cross-channel buying.
Rather than being another shiny entry into our industry’s buzzword library, omnichannel represents a fundamental shift in how programmatic can operate. Where “multichannel” meant channels coexisted, omnichannel connects them: it’s not about simply buying more channels, it’s about making them work as one.
The operational and commercial benefits of unifying digital channels are clear, and continuing to treat them separately is becoming inefficient and outdated, making omnichannel the natural next step in the evolution of programmatic.
So, what does this mean in practice? How do media planners achieve a true omnichannel strategy with their programmatic budgets and why should this be a key strategical shift for brands?
Here are the essentials for setting up an omnichannel strategy for success:
- Audience-first, not channel-first
The first crucial step as with any media planning, is knowing where your audience is. How this looks in programmatic is knowing what media touchpoints they are reachable on and when throughout the day. For instance, commuting hours may peak for pDOOH and digital audio, whereas the evening will be strongest for CTV. Knowing exactly how our audience is consuming media is vital to achieving a successful omnichannel strategy that allows the media to adapt in real-time as consumption varies.
2. Platform and budget consolidation
Scrap the silo buying! Managing omnichannel strategies through a singular DSP allows for a unified investment strategy and a cleaner supply path, which will ensure efficient spend allocation and the ability to flex budgets across the various channels under one buy. Running budgets through one buying ecosystem will allow for cross-channel pacing, effective bid management, frequency control and ultimately performance optimisation.
3. Unified data
Shared, unified data is the backbone of omnichannel – but achieving this is the biggest hurdle. With the depreciation of third-party cookies and data privacy legislation tightening, building a unified view of audiences has never been a bigger challenge within online marketing. This is why activating omnichannel through one consolidated platform is so important, as this allows one data strategy, one audience definition and ultimately one source of truth.
4. Centralised measurement and attribution
Without the foundations above, measurement and attribution will fall apart and the strategy is broken before it’s even begun. For omnichannel to perform, each channel included needs to feed into the same reporting structures and attribution logic so that optimisation can happen during flight rather than retrospectively. A key challenge is that not all channels provide real-time, linear tracking – for example, audio doesn’t offer the same immediate visibility as display; and even display often relies on post-view signals. But this doesn’t make in-flight measurement impossible, it just means alignment continues to be essential. By determining upfront how each channel will be reported, what signals will be used and how budgets may shift across the mix based on these to optimise, we can ensure there is performance accountability throughout.
Without the foundations above, measurement and attribution will fall apart and the strategy is broken before it’s even begun. For omnichannel to perform, each channel included needs to feed into the same reporting structures and attribution logic so that optimisation can happen during flight rather than retrospectively.
A key challenge is that not all channels provide real-time, linear tracking – for example, audio doesn’t offer the same immediate visibility as display; and even display often relies on post-view signals. But this doesn’t make in-flight measurement impossible, it just means alignment continues to be essential. By determining upfront how each channel will be reported, what signals will be used and how budgets may shift across the mix to optimise, we can ensure there is performance accountability throughout.
However, as with all evolutions comes challenges…
Firstly, it is important to consider that not all traditionally bought media offers programmatic options, and there will remain a vast amount of vital media-mix inventory outside this ecosystem, ie, linear TV and paste OOH. So, whilst omnichannel is a natural advancement of multichannel, it cannot completely replace it like-for-like. Where traditional media remains on plan, the premise should remain the same to combat this – through coordinated audience strategies, shared KPIs and complimentary measurement approaches (such as media mix modelling), these channels can still be woven into the holistic planning process and we can still create connected strategies.
Secondly, challenges lie in the technology itself. Whilst omnichannel DSPs offer the appeal of consolidation, they can’t achieve what channel specialist DSPs can. For example, DV360 can reach pDOOH inventory, but it doesn’t provide the same advanced targeting and creative flexibility as a dedicated platform like Vistar. So there is a trade-off to consider: centralisation offers the above points, but specialists deliver incremental performance. For most, the solution is a hybrid model – leveraging a centralised DSP for most channels and tapping into specialist DSPs where required. As with syncing traditional buying, ensuring coordinated planning and measurement where possible will be key to override areas of separation.
Getting boardroom buy-in
And lastly, it’s fair to say not all clients are ready to buy into omnichannel. Legacy expectations around linear tracking and channel-level accountability remain, and media plans are often expected to demonstrate bottom-line ROAS per channel line to unlock budgets. As highlighted in the IPA Bellwether Q2 2025 Report, short-term channels and direct marketing have been the driving force behind growth in UK ad spend – a clear indication that companies are balancing short-term revenue and cashflow gains, with real-time direct response data being more important than ever.
The Mediaocean H2 2025 Market Report further reinforces this, with 60% of marketers citing performance-driven media as the most critical element of advertising investment for the year ahead, and for many that means rapid monetary proof with swift budget reallocation during campaign if these results are not visible. In tough economic climates, businesses want immediate returns rather than strategic evolutions which is understandable, as client mindsets and measurement expectations haven’t evolved at the same rate as the technology.
The role that media agencies and planners need to play is one of education, working with clients to reframe KPIs and set longer-team goals and expectations. One way we are approaching the linear ROAS reporting challenge at The Kite Factory is with KiteGeo, our location intelligence and incrementality measurement engine, which is purpose-built to uncover the real-world impact of media across regions.
By blending clients first-party data with rich location datasets, KiteGeo isolates channel effectiveness using exposed vs control methodologies, with multi-variant analysis tools quantifying the contribution of single and multichannel exposure. Utilising this type of incrementality measurement we’ve been able to demonstrate to clients some clear correlations between omnichannel exposure and bottom-line results, i.e., one campaign proving a 26% uplift in sales in a region with DOOH vs without.
Stronger bottom-line gains over time
All things considered, omnichannel programmatic is an exciting development for our industry.
The key message to convey here is that omnichannel evolution doesn’t dilute performance, it sets our clients up for futureproofed strategies and stronger bottom-line gains over time – but there are behavioural, commercial and cultural barriers to overcome first.
Wherever you are in the omnichannel journey, whether that’s testing, scaling or just considering, the direction is clear – this is not just about technology adoption, it is about clear alignment throughout every stage of the process.
Programmatic is no longer about channel silos, single KPIs and quick wins in isolation – channels are moving into the same ecosystems whether we’re ready or not. Agencies need to translate the opportunity into accountable growth, and clients need to rethink performance beyond channel-by-channel returns in order to evolve with this landscape.
Omnichannel isn’t something to brace for or a challenge to endure, it’s an opportunity to embrace and truly get excited about! Those that lean in now will define the future of programmatic and create campaigns that are smarter, more connected, and most importantly built to last.