Context
You are starting a project in which Sitecore Personalize and/or CDP will be used to power customer experiences across various channels—web, email, mobile, app, kiosk, and advertisements. However, personalization cannot operate in isolation.
Prior to anything getting started, you must have visibility into how your customer data is going to flow: which systems are involved, which use cases you're activating, and how the marketing and technical organizations map against it
Execution
Omnichannel personalization ensures that interactions across web, mobile, email, social media, in-store, and other touchpoints are connected, providing a consistent and personalized journey for the customer. Deploying omnichannel personalization is not a technical problem—a strategic transformation is needed. It places your customer in the middle and organizes your systems, teams, and messages around the customer.
The following steps are intended to minimize guesswork, reveal dependencies, and provide guidance to move forward with more clarity:
1. Align on the Use Case and Audience
Select a single use case that is value-delivering and time-sensitive— for example cart abandonment, loyalty promotion, next-best offer. Identify whom it's for, where it occurs (web, email, etc.), and what result you desire.
So if the team has chosen cart abandonment as their use case, the questions that need to be asked are:
- Who should receive this cart abandonment - who are the customers who will qualify for this experience? Where in the purchasing funnel does the customer need to arrive at before this experience is triggered.
- How should they be targeted. Is this an email sent once the session is closed and the cart has been abandoned, or is this a web activation that is displayed on the homepage etc.
- What is the goals we wish to achieve by launching this experience for example click through rate on email/web experience so the customer returns to this cart contents, purchase of carts contents finalised etc.
This keeps the team focused and makes success measurable. It's also the quickest way to show value and build momentum across channels. A well-defined, professionally done use case serves to authenticate your data, confirm your configuration, and yield returns in a timely manner—without attempting to debut everything simultaneously.
2. Make the Stack Visible
List every system involved: CRM, loyalty program, e-mail service provider, web analytics service, mobile SDKs, and third-party CDPs. Determine precisely where customer information is captured, stored, and activated. It is here that technical leads and marketing departments must work together.
Omnichannel success starts with cohesive data. Setting up a CDP will mean bringing the customer information from web, mobile, e-mail, in-store, and even from call centers together – reducing silos and creating a single profile of every individual.
3. Define the Data Strategy
Personalized experiences are only as good as the data behind them. Aligning on these flows ensures every channel works with the same customer truth.
- Push out: Are you sending data from Sitecore CDP to Salesforce or your ESP? Identify what fields are needed, how often they should sync, and how downstream systems will use the data.
- Pull in: Are you using machine learning models or pulling data from offline systems? Define how these inputs arrive, how often, and what decisions they support.
Sitecore CDP is a powerful tool designed to support real-time and omnichannel personalization, but its effectiveness depends on the relevance and quality of the data it holds. Before migrating large volumes of data it is important to assess:
- Is this data directly useful for personalization efforts? - Focus on data that enables meaningful customer insights and personalized experiences.
- Will this data be actionable? - If it won’t inform decisions or drive engagement, it may not belong in the CDP.
- Does the data align with your personalization use cases? - Prioritize data that supports your strategic objectives, rather than archiving everything.
- How far back should the data go? - Consider what historical data is still relevant for your personalization efforts. In many cases, data older than 24–36 months may have limited value unless it shows long-term behavior patterns or is tied to recurring lifecycle events.
By taking a purposeful, outcome-driven approach to data migration, you’ll ensure your CDP remains lean, efficient, and impactful.
4. Capture the Right Data in the Right Way
Real-time data capture enables more relevant personalization—showing customers the right content at the right time, across any touchpoint.
Sitecore CDP supports 3 primary ingestion methods:
- Batch ingestion (e.g. CSV/JSON files)
- Web tagging (JavaScript) for real-time capture
- APIs to send structured user and event data
Sitecore Personalize supports:
- Stream API for live event tracking
- REST API for managing data entities like guests, events, and decisions
Review the Personalize Integrations to External Systems and CDP Integrations to External Systems for further information.
5. Activate Across the Right Channels
Personalization across channels drives engagement and retention. Customers have a consistent experience wherever they engage—and it all ties together with one profile.
Determine where personalization must take place:
- Web
- Mobile apps
- Instore kiosks or POS
- Online advertisements
For each, make sure data will trigger experience, measurement, and what we want users to take action on.
6. Build Sustainable Data Integrations
Integration will be powering omnichannel - between Sitecore CDP/Personalize and your CRM, e-mail provider, loyalty program, or analytics tool. Integration tools such as Sitecore Connect can make this happen quicker and more aligned.
And that in turn isn't enough—you also have to dictate the pace at which that data flows. Not every use case necessitates real-time. Some actions (like an abandoned cart popup) must fire at that exact moment while others (like a follow-up message) can run with a time-based batch.
For each use case:
- Use standard connectors where possible
- Keep data flows targeted and lightweight
- Confirm receiving systems are ready and able to act on the data
- For each use case, decide if it needs real-time, near-real-time, or daily syncs
- Define SLAs for data availability so everyone’s aligned on timing
Having such a setup offers consistency in messaging across channels, better performance tracking, and less surprise in delivery. It allows you to contact at the optimal time to engage with the customer.
Insights
Launching personalization across multiple channels isn't a one-and-done build—it's an initiative that demands strong foundations, collective ownership, and a well-mapped journey from information to action.
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Start with data—but not just any data. Unlocking the full potential of omnichannel personalization relies on gathering the right customer data and taking action. Sitecore CDP and Personalize offer you behavioral, transactional, and contextual data—and the ability to respond to it, in the moment, on any channel.
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There should be information present, not just exist. A common issue is that teams assume that loyalty program or CRM data is use-ready. Confirm the format, availability, and whether it’s fresh enough to work for your use case.
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Claim ownership early - Whose app is it? Whose ad system? Whose point of purchase system? Don't worry if you don't know today, you will know if it is blocked. Establish roles and communication channels upfront so that there isn't last-minute stress.
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Keep your focus - omnichannel does not mean all and everywhere. It's about relevant personalization in the right channel at the right time. Start where it matters most—then grow from there.
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Use resources wisely, not all use cases require instant decisioning. Real time is required for session-based experiences. But sending an every-day loyalty message by e-mail? Batch will suffice—and be easier to manage.
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Your data design will take longer than expected. Incompatible field names, date styles, and ID styles will make integration fail. Get all systems' technical leads together early on to establish definitions.
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Construct a process, not a campaign - that first try is an accomplishment. Success is performing it over and over and over without continually reinventing the wheel. Establish repeatable processes for approvals, QA, testing, deployment, measurement.
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Give your calculations - Document successes. Document learnings. Share performance results. It is only by increasing exposure that you will have buy-in and momentum.
When everything is going well, value is tangible and measurable:
- More relevant customer interaction — timely messages tailored to the moment, on channels consumers use
- Smarter advertising — reduced wastage, better ROI, higher conversion
- Faster decision-making — using empirical behavior to guide action
- More integrative — systems together, not in separate silos
- Better insights — full view of customer journey and what's going working.
Omnichannel, by nature, is interacting with the customer wherever they may be, always personally, connected, and consistent. It does not do that by chance—when that happens by design. With the right information, with the right tools, and with the right approach, every single interaction with a customer is wiser, more relevant, and with purpose.