Companies with strong omnichannel strategies keep 89% of their customers. Weak ones? Only 33%. Because, in a world full of infinite options, customers don’t stick around unless you meet them everywhere.
The figure underscores how important it’s become for retailers to embrace an omnichannel approach.
It also reveals that the rules of retail are being rewritten, especially within physical stores. Your stores now double as fulfillment centers, O2O gateways, and last-mile accelerators.
To keep up, you need the right software that connects every channel, every store, every step of the journey.
In this article, you’ll learn how to connect every touchpoint, automate journeys, and drive revenue at scale, with an omnichannel marketing platform like Insider as your unfair advantage.
What is an omnichannel retail software?
Omnichannel retail software integrates and streamlines various customer touchpoints — from physical stores and mobile apps to e-commerce websites and social media — to provide a cohesive, seamless shopping experience.
This software syncs your sales, marketing, inventory management, and customer service systems. Thus, both online and offline touchpoints work together smoothly.
How is it different from omnichannel commerce?
While omnichannel commerce is the strategy of creating an integrated customer experience across multiple channels, omnichannel retail software is the tool that enables it. Think of omnichannel commerce as the game plan, and omnichannel retail software as the playbook that brings it to life.
Unlike traditional systems that may treat in-store and online experiences separately, omnichannel retail software bridges the gap.
For example, a customer might browse products online, visit a physical store for evaluation, and then complete their purchase via a mobile app for home delivery. This unified approach eliminates friction in the customer journey, providing convenience and efficiency.
Benefits of having omnichannel retail software
The leading omnichannel retail platforms share several essential features. Here are the most important ones:
1. Unified customer view
In an omnichannel world, shoppers seamlessly transition between online and offline touchpoints. A unified customer view aggregates data across these various channels. That is, each interaction is informed, efficient, and personalized.
This is why unified profiles have never been more essential: customers expect personalized attention across every platform, and businesses need to streamline their operations to meet these demands.
This comprehensive snapshot of each customer enables personalized engagement, driving better marketing outcomes and enhancing the overall shopping experience.
Creating a unified customer profile is crucial for several reasons.
With the increasing demand for personalized shopping experiences and the pressure for effective marketing campaigns, it’s essential to have a consolidated view of your customers.
A unified profile doesn’t just help with personalization but also offers valuable insights into customer behavior. Like more accurate inventory management and more tailored interactions at every touchpoint.
On the other hand, a fragmented customer view leads to missed opportunities.
Without a unified profile, brands risk delivering irrelevant ads and promotions, missing out on cross-channel interactions, and managing disjointed systems that hinder customer experience.
To create this unified view, businesses must integrate their customer data across multiple platforms.
This can be a challenge without a centralized system to sync data from CRM systems, POS, and marketing platforms. But with a unified approach, you can seamlessly capture a comprehensive view of each customer. This way, other markers in your team can access up-to-date information on preferences, purchase history, and behaviors.
2. Hyper-personalization
Rather than relying on broad data sets like demographics, hyper-personalization turns every interaction into a meaningful, tailored experience.
It integrates real-time insights and AI models to deliver content and offers that align precisely with a customer’s predicted intent.
For instance, while a standard recommendation might suggest a product based on a customer’s past purchase, hyper-personalization could predict their willingness to try a subscription service. Ultimately, delivering a tailored offer that includes discounts tied to their loyalty points.Insider’s platform empowers businesses to leverage this approach by combining customer behavior, preferences, and predictive analytics to deliver truly personalized experiences at scale.
With Insider, you can use AI-driven recommendations, real-time customer behavior data, and dynamic pricing models to tailor every interaction, turning personalized marketing into a seamless, engaging experience.
3. Broad channel support
To ensure consistent, personalized messaging across every customer touchpoint — whether that’s email, SMS, web push, WhatsApp, or social media — you need a platform that supports omnichannel engagement.
Without a unified platform, tracking customer behavior, optimizing content delivery, and measuring engagement across these diverse channels becomes a daunting task. That’s where omnichannel support becomes indispensable. It enables you to reach customers where they are, providing a seamless and personalized experience that drives better outcomes.
The real power of engagement lies in data unification and segmentation. Insider’s platform consolidates customer data across all touchpoints, giving you a precise understanding of audience behavior.
With Insider’s analytics, you gain clear insights into reachability and engagement. This helps you understand which segments (like VIPs or lapsed users) are most responsive to each channel, be it email, SMS, or push notifications.
For example, Insider’s reachability breakdown provides insights into what percentage of each customer segment (VIPs, lapsed users, etc.) is reachable via specific channels, such as email, SMS, or push notifications.
From there, you can refine your messaging strategy.
Insider’s message frequency analytics help you determine how often to contact each segment across different channels and optimize engagement without overwhelming your audience.
But that’s not all.
Insider also gives you the tools to dive deeper into performance.
You can track metrics like delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and revenue, all in real-time. This allows you to fine-tune your strategy, align it with customer preferences, and improve every interaction.
Insider’s analytics transform your omnichannel approach into a data-driven & seamless experience, eliminate guesswork, and enhance engagement. With clear insights into customer preferences and behaviors, you can ensure your messaging is always on point across every channel.
4. Automated workflow
While many marketing and CRM platforms offer automation tools, Insider stands out because it integrates data insights into every workflow. This ensures that your campaigns are not just automated, but also intelligently personalized.
What makes Insider’s platform truly effective is its ability to leverage rich customer data to build campaigns that are not only automated but also deeply personalized.
By using customer behavior data, purchase history, and preferences, you can create journeys that truly speak to the needs of your customers and create maximum impact.
With Insider’s powerful drag-and-drop editors, you can easily automate marketing workflows that span over 12+ channels, including websites, mobile apps, email, SMS, push notifications, WhatsApp, and more. These workflows not only save time but also ensure that your communications are relevant, timely, and improve customer experience.
You don’t need to rely on complicated integrations or multiple tools. Insider consolidates your marketing efforts into one seamless platform. Thus, you can effortlessly manage customer journeys, drive conversions, and recover lost opportunities.
5. Advanced analytics
Not all omnichannel retail software is created equal. When evaluating your options, it’s essential to focus on the core capabilities that drive business growth. Below is a guide to what makes the best retail analytics tools stand out, and how Insider helps you leverage these features for superior performance:
- Real-time data collection. Traditional retail systems often struggle with real-time updates, relying on patchwork integrations between disparate tools. This creates delays, data mismatches, and manual work that hampers decision-making. Choose a retail analytics solution that pulls data in real-time and seamlessly integrates across platforms. A unified system, like Insider’s, offers an advantage by eliminating data reconciliation tasks and providing live insights directly from your commerce platform.
With Insider, integrations are smooth, ensuring your data flows effortlessly across all channels, offering you accurate and up-to-the-minute insights every time. - Customer insights for personalization. Understanding your customer is the key to sustained success. With Insider’s advanced analytics, you can gain insights into customer behavior across all touchpoints, both online and offline. From browsing habits to purchasing patterns, our platform allows you to track interactions that influence a sale. Armed with this information, you can personalize your marketing efforts and drive both immediate conversions & long-term loyalty.
- Comprehensive inventory management. A good analytics tool should provide full visibility into inventory across all channels — whether it’s in-store stock, shipping warehouses, or third-party fulfillment centers. With Insider, you get a unified view that makes omnichannel management seamless. Whether you’re managing BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) or optimizing your stock for next-day delivery, Insider ensures you have the insights needed to make informed decisions that impact your bottom line.
- Fast, flexible reporting. Retail moves fast. As trends shift and customer preferences evolve, your data needs to keep up. That’s why Insider offers powerful reporting tools and prebuilt dashboards that allow you to track key metrics faster. With real-time insights, you can adjust campaigns on the fly and make sure you are always in tune with current trends.
- Predictive analytics. The most advanced retail strategies anticipate customer needs before they even realize them. Insider’s predictive analytics tools allow you to forecast demand, adjust pricing dynamically, and personalize offers based on customer behavior. With AI-powered cross-channel demand forecasting, you can ensure that every customer receives the most relevant offers at the right moment, whether they’re browsing your site or engaging in-store.
- Security. Retailers are responsible for safeguarding sensitive customer and transaction data. Insider ensures your data is protected with state-of-the-art security features, including encrypted data transmission, user access controls with two-factor authentication, and regular system updates to comply with industry regulations. With Insider, you can trust that your data will remain secure and compliant. Thus, giving you the peace of mind to focus on growth.
6. AI-Powered Recommendations
Incorporating Gen AI (Generative AI) into marketing strategies transforms how businesses engage with customers. At its core, Gen AI predicts customer preferences and delivers hyper-personalized experiences at scale, critical in today’s customer-centric era.
Here’s how it works: by analyzing customer data and behaviors, Gen AI enables businesses to offer tailored product recommendations, deploy virtual shopping assistants, and even create custom experiences in real-time.
For instance, one in five retailers in the US and EMEA are set to launch customer-facing Gen AI applications by 2025, highlighting the growing significance of this technology.
With AI-powered recommendations like those available through Insider, marketers can use predictive algorithms to understand their customers’ needs and serve them relevant content. This leads to improved engagement and higher conversion rates.
Why top retailers are betting on Insider
Insider is an ideal omnichannel customer engagement platform for brands and retailers looking to build personalized, automated, and highly effective campaigns across touchpoints, from websites and mobile apps to channels like email, push notifications, SMS, WhatsApp, and more.
Our enterprise marketing platform can:
- Unified customer profiles. Insider breaks down data silos by merging customer information from multiple touchpoints— website, app, email, CRM, POS, and contact centers—into a comprehensive and enriched customer profile. This 360-degree view ensures you’re working with the most up-to-date and accurate information to drive decisions across your entire customer journey.
- AI-driven personalization. Powered by AI, Insider enables deep hyper-personalization and offers individualized product recommendations, tailored content, and dynamic cross-channel campaigns. This level of personalization adapts to each customer’s unique behavior, lifecycle stage, and predicted likelihood to purchase. Ultimately, results in relevant and increased conversion rates.
- Agentic AI for autonomous outcomes. Insider’s AI agent, Agent One, brings together purpose-built AI experts to help you deliver superior customer engagement through emotionally resonant conversations and autonomous decision-making. Whether it’s helping a shopper find the perfect product, resolving a support issue before it escalates, or surfacing valuable insights, these autonomous agents deliver customer experiences that feel personal and genuinely impactful.
- Seamless omnichannel communication. The platform’s omnichannel orchestration ensures that email, SMS, WhatsApp, social media, and web interactions are managed seamlessly from a single interface. This eliminates fragmented efforts, enables cohesive messaging, and improves customer experience across all channels.
- Automated workflows & gamified engagement. Insider simplifies complex customer journeys with drag-and-drop tools and gamified templates, making automation effortless. This approach increases customer engagement, enhances retention, and drives better long-term results through customized touchpoints.
- Advanced analytics for real-time optimization. Insider’s detailed analytics and reporting tools give businesses the insights they need to measure campaign effectiveness and refine strategies in real-time. This enables rapid adjustments to optimize customer interactions and drive better business outcomes.
Schedule a demo with our team to learn how Insider can benefit your business specifically.
