Channel optimization: How to maximize customer engagement across every touchpoint

Marketers have more ways than ever to reach customers, but using more channels doesn’t always mean more impact. Without a clear channel optimization strategy, it’s easy to overwhelm users, waste resources, and miss key engagement opportunities.

This guide breaks down what channel optimization really means, how it differs from channel strategy, and how to use data, automation, and testing to improve performance across email, push, SMS, in-app, and more. From defining the right mix to coordinating campaigns in real time, we’ll explore what it takes to build smarter, more responsive messaging flows and how brands can use cross-channel orchestration to meet customers where they are.

Contents

• What is channel optimization?
• Channel strategy vs. channel optimization
• Why channel optimization matters for modern marketing
• Building a channel optimization strategy that works
• Cross-channel, omnichannel, or multichannel?
• How Braze can support channel optimization
• Final thoughts on channel optimization strategy
• Channel optimization FAQs

What is channel optimization?

Channel optimization is the strategic process of using data, automation, and testing to improve how, when, and where you deliver messages across email, push, SMS, in-app, and other channles. It helps you choose the most effective channel, or combination of channels, for customer interactions and campaigns.

Instead of sending the same message to everyone on every channel, channel optimization uses real-time behavior and preferences to tailor delivery. This makes messaging more relevant, more efficient, and more likely to drive action.

Channel strategy vs. channel optimization

Channel strategy and channel optimization are closely related, but they serve different roles in your marketing approach.

Channel strategy is about deciding which channels to use based on your audience, goals, and message type. It’s the upfront planning that shapes your campaigns. Should you reach users by email, SMS, or both? Where does push fit into your lifecycle flows? What’s the role of in-app messaging?

Channel optimization, on the other hand, is about fine-tuning your approach using real-time data, behavioral signals, and performance insights. Optimization helps you adapt over time—testing timing, adjusting message frequency, and choosing the most effective channel for each user and moment.

A solid channel strategy provides you with a roadmap, and optimization helps you navigate that roadmap better, faster, and more effectively.

Side-by-side comparison: Channel strategy vs. Channel optimization

Why channel optimization matters for modern marketing

Customers today have more opportunities to engage available to them through more channels than ever before. They expect connected, cohesive experiences across the platforms, apps, and devices they use daily. The bar is high. Channel optimization is what helps marketing teams meet that expectation by refining how, when, and where messages are delivered.

When outreach is disconnected, it’s easy for messages to go unnoticed or feel irrelevant and annoying. That kind of friction can erode trust and lead to lost customers and missed opportunities for engagement.

A strong optimization strategy helps:

• Minimize noise and prevent over-messaging
• Align timing and content to each user’s behavior and preferences
• Match the message format to the moment—whether it’s a quick reminder or a detailed promotion
• Deliver more value

Channel optimization also creates space for agility. With the right data, tools, and automation in place, you can test quickly, learn fast, and scale what works.

Building a channel optimization strategy that works

Channel optimization is an ongoing process. It relies on behavioral data, thoughtful channel selection, strategic automation, and consistent testing—all working together to adapt your messaging over time.

Here’s how to approach it:

Understand your audience and their behaviors

Start with insight. Look at how users engage across different touchpoints, such as email opens, push interactions, SMS replies, and app usage patterns, and use that data to segment audiences in a meaningful way. Who prefers mobile-first interactions? Who responds better to web or email? What time do those groups tend to engage more online?

Mapping out these behaviors gives you the foundation for smarter, more relevant, and more responsive campaigns.

Choose the right mix of channels

Focus your efforts where they’re most likely to succeed. Use historical engagement trends and lifecycle stages to guide which channels to use and when.

Push and in-app messaging may be ideal for onboarding, while email and SMS could work better for retention or re-engagement. Meet users in the places they’re already active and receptive.

Personalize your messaging across every touchpoint

With the right data in hand, you can tailor content and delivery based on who the customer is, what they’ve done, and what they’re likely to do next. The right tools can dynamically personalize experiences using real-time data, which can improve conversion rates.

Automate intelligently with real-time data

Use behavioral triggers and automation to activate messages in the moment. Data automation makes it easier to collect, organize, and act on customer information across teams. By replacing manual processes with intelligent systems, you can move faster, uncover insights sooner, and better respond to customer behavior.

Coordinate channels

The most effective messaging often happens when channels work together. A single push might go unread, but following it with an email can reinforce the message and increase the chance of engagement.

Design coordinated cross-channel flows that adapt to user behavior. For example:

• If a push goes unopened, send a follow-up email with additional context
• Pair SMS with email for time-sensitive promotions or transactional updates

Test, measure, and optimize continuously

What works for one audience—or even one user—won’t always work again. A/B testing lets you experiment with timing, channel order, copy, and content to see what drives the best results.

Choose reporting and analytics tools that give you the ability to create your own dashboard and customize it for your business goals.

Cross-channel, omnichannel, or multichannel?

The terms often get used interchangeably, but multichannel, cross-channel, and omnichannel represent different approaches to messaging, and they each affect how you approach optimization.

Multichannel vs Cross-channel vs Omnichannel

How Braze can support channel optimization

Running an effective cross-channel marketing campaign requires a lot of thought and care. You need to measure how users interact with you on each platform and make sure that you’re creating and maintaining a consistent experience no matter where a customer chooses to engage. To execute successfully, you need a customer engagement platform like Braze that’s built for cross-channel and has the right mix of optimization tools.

So let’s take a look at three key technologies within the Braze platform that are designed to help brands more easily optimize their cross-channel marketing efforts.

1. Automated optimization with the Braze Intelligence Suite

Marketers have long used A/B testing to send more effective messages, increase conversions, and achieve their business goals. It’s a powerful tool for optimization, but for brands that are sending a large number of highly segmented campaigns to an audience of millions of users, the amount of work involved can be overwhelming at times. With the Braze Intelligence Suite, it’s easier than ever for brands to seamlessly optimize their cross-channel campaigns. The suite contains multiple features that can help you send more effective campaigns, including:

• Intelligent Selection: This tool makes it possible for marketers to test multiple campaign or journey variants to see which performs best, and then automatically recalibrate the campaign on a continuous basis to make sure that the top-performing variant is sent out to most users.
• Intelligent Channel: This audience filter leverages business logic to identify and segment messages based on each user’s current preferred messaging channel, allowing brands to personalize which channel is used to reach each individual recipient.
• Intelligent Timing: This tool automatically looks at each individual user’s engagement patterns, identifying unique high-engagement windows and ensuring that messages are delivered at the ideal time for each recipient.

2. Simplified cross-channel customer journeys with Braze Canvas

While the value of running cross-channel campaigns is clear, the actual day-to-day experience of carrying them out can be labor-intensive at times. For marketers leveraging customer engagement platforms that struggled with channel silos, they often found themselves juggling multiple windows, applications, and documents, then switching back and forth between them to check that the timing, creative, and overall flow was correct at each step.

Braze Canvas, our no-code customer journey builder, is designed to make things easier by allowing you to launch and optimize your marketing flows all from a single place.

Fiverr, the global freelance services marketplace, leveraged Canvas to optimize their customer journey and more effectively engage new users.

With this feature, the company developed and tested four ideas to guide users toward making their first purchase, allowing them to successfully identify a journey variant that saw a:

• 8.8% increase in the number of purchases made within three days
• 10.1% increase in average order value associated with those purchases
• 20.9% increase in revenue connected with that campaign variant

This multi-step variant, which was built, tested, and executed entirely within Braze Canvas, leveraged a sophisticated cross-channel strategy that included mobile push, in-app message, web push, in-browser messages, and email to maximize results.

3. Personalization in the Moment with Braze Connected Content

Sending the same message to every member of your audience isn’t a winning strategy these days. Why? Because mass-messaging can’t be relevant to all the people receiving it...and today’s consumer expects relevant experiences from the brands they love. With Braze Connected Content, you can leverage dynamic personalization to send more relevant, impactful outreach.

How does it work? Imagine that your brand sells sports apparel—with Connected Content, you can pull in the names, logos, and even the most recent game results for the local or favorite team of every user on an individual basis...and do it in real time. You can also create real-time marketing personalization related to the weather (e.g., promote different products when it’s raining) or to the outcome of a given game.

Final thoughts on channel optimization strategy

Channel optimization helps you find the right touchpoints but more importantly, makes them work together, adapting to user behavior and improving outcomes with every interaction. When supported with real-time data, automation, and constant iteration, your messaging becomes more relevant, efficient, and successful as time goes on.

The more connected your channels, the more consistent the experience, and this is something consumers find trustworthy and reliable—an experience they’ll return to again and again.

Channel optimization FAQs

What is channel optimization in marketing?

Channel optimization in marketing refers to the process of improving how, when, and where messages are delivered across different communication channels like email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messages, and web. It involves using data, automation, and testing to increase engagement and reduce friction.

How do you optimize cross-channel messaging?

To optimize cross-channel messaging, start by understanding your audience’s behavior across each channel. Use automation to trigger timely, relevant messages based on real-time activity, and coordinate touchpoints so they work together instead of in isolation. Regular testing and performance analysis help refine what works best for each user.

What tools can help with channel optimization?

Tools that support channel optimization include data automation platforms, journey orchestration tools like Braze Canvas, personalization features like Connected Content, and robust analytics dashboards. These tools help marketers build responsive messaging flows that adapt to user behavior.

Is channel optimization the same as personalization?

Channel optimization and personalization are closely related but not the same. Personalization tailors the message content to the individual, while channel optimization focuses on the timing, delivery method, and sequencing of those messages to increase effectiveness. Together, they create more relevant, impactful customer experiences.

How do you measure channel performance?

You can measure channel performance by tracking key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and message engagement across each channel. Advanced tools also allow you to monitor user drop-off, timing effectiveness, and the impact of cross-channel coordination over time.