E-commerce Insights: Multichannel Planning Is a Complex Endeavor

Your programs in aggregate should meet your efficiency goals. Allow your marketing team leeway to cross-subsidize programs within the portfolio at their discretion. If you require every program to meet your target efficiency, the portfolio as a whole would be too efficient, leaving potential revenue on the table (see Figure 1 below). Dig deep and make sure your team can explain which laggard programs they’re propping up and why. Good explanations are “testing new opportunities,” “trading some efficiency for increased volume” or “strategic considerations.” Bad explanations are, “We don’t know,” or, “We’ve always done it that way.”