Why your brand needs to be channel agnostic (and how to achieve it)

Written By Carlotta Costanzo

by Carlotta Costanzo

The modern customer journey is channel agnostic. Search isn’t the gateway to online experiences that it once was - consumers now move between a variety of channels and platforms between inspiration and purchase. Brands need to build visibility where their target audiences are active and deliver messages that motivate action. As the consumer journey becomes more complex, channel-agnostic marketing is key to building interactions that drive sales.

What is channel-agnostic marketing?

Channel-agnostic marketing implements strategies without favouring or relying on any particular channel. In a digital landscape where 90% of consumers prefer omnichannel experiences, marketers need to reach target audiences on the right channels, at the right moments. Crucially, 75% of omnichannel customers want consistent experiences across channels.

As customer journeys become more complex, channel-agnostic marketing integrates multiple channels into a cohesive funnel. To achieve this, a successful channel-agnostic strategy needs to do three key things:

  1. Pinpoint the channels and platforms target audiences use throughout the customer cycle

  2. Identify the purpose of each channel at key stages (research, comparison, purchase, etc.)

  3. Deliver messages across each platform that progress target audiences to the next stage of the customer cycle

Google dominated the online experience for many years, but times are changing. Now, Google itself says 93% of consumers are “increasingly channel agnostic”, taking an average of six or more actions before buying a product.

Today’s consumers use a growing variety of channels and platforms throughout the customer journey. They start on different channels, end on different channels and move between a variety of channels and platforms in between:

Channel-agnostic marketing helps you reach target audiences throughout the customer cycle, as they move between different channels and platforms.

Why is it important to be channel agnostic?

Consumer interactions with brands are spreading out across a growing variety of channels. If you don’t respond with a channel-agnostic strategy, then you’re missing out on discovery, conversions, retention and other key actions. Ultimately, you can’t maximise visibility, leads or conversions if you’re not active on the right channels. More importantly, you can’t nurture leads through the buying cycle if they slip through gaps in your channel coverage.

In other words, channel agnosticism is the foundation of modern marketing. It’s a necessity, not a best practice as the consumer journey spreads across more channels and platforms. Beyond the marketing fundamentals, channel agnosticism can also protect your strategy in several key ways:

  • Reach channel agnostics throughout the customer cycle – lead, conversion, purchase, retention, loyalty, etc.

  • Reach channel-agnostics and platform loyalists – some consumers are more agnostic than others (eg: regular Amazon customers).

  • Less reliance on individual channels/platforms, limiting the hit of any performance drops, channel changes, etc.

  • Reduce vulnerability to channel/platform changes – eg: algorithm updates, rising CPMs, platform bans/boycotts, etc.

  • Reduce vulnerability to consumer trends – eg: Gen Z seeking out Amazon alternatives or concerns about Elon Musk’s activity on X.

  • Greater agility to adapt to emerging platforms when the next TikTok or Etsy comes along.

  • Greater agility to adapt creative strategies as consumer demographics evolve – eg: prioritising TikTok as Gen Z matures.

  • Redistribute budgets to top-performing channels as results naturally fluctuate.

  • Greater insights from all key channels give you a more complete picture of the customer cycle and consumer trends.

A channel-agnostic approach increases agility, allowing marketers and advertisers to adapt to changes faster, turning new challenges into opportunities. It helps you move along with consumer trends as they evolve, instead of always playing catch-up. By reducing your reliance on any given channel or platform, agnosticism also makes you less vulnerable to any disruption.

Crucially, incorporating performance data from multiple channels provides greater insights to inform creative decisions. You can constantly adjust budgets to prioritise top-performing channels and use insights from one channel to inform decisions on another.

As an example, we recently tested some UGC creatives, originally used for Meta and TikTok campaigns, in Demand Gen campaigns for YouTube.

After seeing strong performance across TikTok and Meta products, we decided to test the same creatives on the world’s biggest video platform. In this channel-agnostic experiment, conversion rates increased by 196% and total conversions by 2.5x.

How to implement a channel-agnostic marketing strategy

Channel-agnostic marketing requires careful planning. Whether you’re shifting to agnostic for the first time or implementing a new channel, you need executives to buy in to your strategy. Proving the contribution of each channel to conversions, ROI and revenue is key.

This starts with the strategic planning process:

  1. Audience analysis: Know where your target audiences are active at each stage of the customer journey.

  2. Channel intent: Understand why your audiences use different channels and platforms throughout the purchase cycle: research, discovery, comparison, purchase, etc.

  3. Platform selection: Choose the most effective platforms for each channel, based on your marketing goals – eg: Google Shopping and Amazon for search, Meta Ads and TikTok for social, etc.

  4. Funnel mapping: Piece together the customer journeys of each target audience, the channels they move between and the platforms they use along the way.

  5. Content and creative production: Determine how you’re going to produce all of the content and ad creatives required for each platform, target audience, campaign type (including specifications), etc.

  6. Analysis, testing and refinement: Implement a channel-agnostic reporting system that brings all of your performance data together – so you can attribute success, run multichannel tests and refine results.

  7. Budget optimisation: Constantly redistribute your marketing budget across channels to direct more funds to the top performers and maximise ROI.


A common misconception with channel-agnostic marketing is that you have to be everywhere, all at once. This isn’t the case. Initially, you cast a wide net to meet your target audiences where they’re most active, but you’re always optimising budgets to prioritise the top-performing channels at any given time.

Your customers are already channel agnostic

Channel agnosticism is a big change for many companies, especially if you’re used to prioritising specific channels or platforms. However, your target customers are already channel agnostic. You simply can’t reach them all – where and when it matters – unless you’re equally agnostic. This doesn’t mean you have to start launching campaigns across every channel and platform right away. As long as you’ve got the core channels covered, you can scale your agnostic strategy over time:

  • Prioritise top-performing channels and platforms, redirecting budget towards them to maximise ROI.

  • Produce creatives that work across multiple channels – for example, we find our top-performing TikTok creatives generally perform well across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other video-centric campaigns.

  • Take full advantage of channel-agnostic data to pull insights from the whole customer cycle and inform strategic decisions.

  • Constantly optimise your customer retention strategy across channels to maximise customer value and long-term ROI.

  • Test new channels and forecast results to show their value and secure additional funding.

  • Free up time and resources with automation tools – email marketing software, social media scheduling, AI support bots, ChatGPT, AI ad campaigns, etc.

  • Outsource what you can’t automate to prioritise the most important activities in-house.

Given the scale of channel-agnostic marketing, you have a lot of potential bottlenecks to deal with. How do you manage so many channels, run enough campaigns, produce all those creatives, etc? Efficiency makes all the difference and you’ll need to find the right balance between in-house activity, automation and outsourcing to maximise results.

Need help?

When internal resources are not sufficient, partnering with an agency like TRGT can provide the expertise, processes, and tools needed to overcome challenges and drive results. Contact us today to explore how we can support your marketing efforts.

Carlotta Costanzo
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