Multichannel marketing is the practice of simultaneously offering information, goods, services, and support to customers through two or more synchronized channels. In this dissertation, I develop an integrated framework of multichannel marketing and develop models to assist managers in their marketing resource allocation decisions. In the first essay of the dissertation, I investigate the factors that drive customers multichannel shopping behavior and identify its consequences for retailers. In the second essay, I build on this work and develop a model that enables firms to optimize their allocation of marketing resources across different customer-channel segments. In the first essay, I develop a framework comprising the factors that drive consumers’ channel choice, the consequences of channel choice, and their implications for managing channel equity. The results show that customer-channel choice is driven in a nonlinear fashion by a customer demographic variable such as age and is also influenced by consumer shopping traits such as number of categories bought and the duration of relationship with a retailer. I show that by controlling for the moderating effects of channel-category associations, the influence of customers’ demographics and shopping traits on their channel choices can vary significantly across product categories. Importantly, the results show that multichannel shoppers buy more often, buy more items, and spend considerably more than single channel shoppers. The channel equity of multichannel customers is nearly twice that of the closest single channel customers (online or offline). In the second essay, I propose a model for optimal allocation of marketing efforts across multiple customer-channel segments. I first develop a set of models for consumer response to marketing efforts for each channel-customer segment. This set comprises four models, the first for purchase frequency, the second for purchase quantity, the third for product return behavior, and the fourth for contribution margin of purchase. The results show that customers’ responses to firm marketing efforts vary significantly across the customer-channel segments. They also suggest that marketing efforts influence purchase frequency, purchase quantity and monetary value in different ways. The resource allocation results show that profits can be substantially improved by reallocating marketing efforts across the different customer-channel segments.

Multichannel marketing is the practice of simultaneously offering information, goods, services, and support to customers through two or more synchronized channels. In this dissertation, I develop an integrated framework of multichannel marketing and develop models to assist managers in their marketing resource allocation decisions. In the first essay of the dissertation, I investigate the factors that drive customers multichannel shopping behavior and identify its consequences for retailers. In the second essay, I build on this work and develop a model that enables firms to optimize their allocation of marketing resources across different customer-channel segments. In the first essay, I develop a framework comprising the factors that drive consumers’ channel choice, the consequences of channel choice, and their implications for managing channel equity. The results show that customer-channel choice is driven in a nonlinear fashion by a customer demographic variable such as age and is also influenced by consumer shopping traits such as number of categories bought and the duration of relationship with a retailer. I show that by controlling for the moderating effects of channel-category associations, the influence of customers’ demographics and shopping traits on their channel choices can vary significantly across product categories. Importantly, the results show that multichannel shoppers buy more often, buy more items, and spend considerably more than single channel shoppers. The channel equity of multichannel customers is nearly twice that of the closest single channel customers (online or offline). In the second essay, I propose a model for optimal allocation of marketing efforts across multiple customer-channel segments. I first develop a set of models for consumer response to marketing efforts for each channel-customer segment. This set comprises four models, the first for purchase frequency, the second for purchase quantity, the third for product return behavior, and the fourth for contribution margin of purchase. The results show that customers’ responses to firm marketing efforts vary significantly across the customer-channel segments. They also suggest that marketing efforts influence purchase frequency, purchase quantity and monetary value in different ways. The resource allocation results show that profits can be substantially improved by reallocating marketing efforts across the different customer-channel segments.

Cette thèse traite de la compréhension de l’engagement client dans un contexte multicanal. Le flot de littérature sur le marketing multicanal présente plusieurs lacunes théoriques et managériales, telles que les impacts dynamiques de l’adoption multicanal sur la valeur client, la quantification de la rentabilité des campagnes marketing, le comportement multicanal à travers les marques, etc. (Neslin et al. 2014; Neslin and Shankar 2009). Cette thèse a pour but d’éclairer les impacts dynamiques de l’engagement client sur la valeur client et les revenus de l’entreprise dans un contexte multicanal. Le Chapitre 1 aborde les « Impacts dynamiques du canal d’acquisition et de l’adoption multicanal sur la valeur vie client ». Au Chapitre 2, « antécédents et conséquences de l’utilisation des codes promotionnels », nous étudions le processus d’utilisation des codes promotionnels et la rentabilité de telles campagnes. Au Chapitre 3, « Modéliser les impacts de l’achat multicanal sur le choix de marque », nous étudions la question du comportement en termes de choix d’une marque dans un environnement multicanal. Dans l’ensemble, cette thèse étudie divers engagements client et leurs effets sur la valeur client et les revenus de l’entreprise. Du point de vue théorique, c’est une contribution aux publications sur le marketing dans les domaines du marketing multicanal, de la valeur vie client, des promotions et des choix de marques. Elle propose une approche exhaustive de l’engagement client et de la valeur client dans un contexte multicanal. Dans une optique de gestion, cette étude propose aux entreprises des méthodologies novatrices pour gérer leur clientèle au niveau individuel, ainsi que de nouveaux modèles pour évaluer les activités de marketing multicanal / This dissertation aims to investigate the dynamic impacts of customer engagement on customer value and firm revenues in a multichannel context. I address this research question in three chapters. In chapter 1, we propose a hidden Markov model to understand the dynamic effects of acquisition channel and multichannel adoption on the customer-firm relationship and to estimate the customer lifetime value. The results show that multichannel customers acquired from offline channels exhibit higher short-term value than multichannel customers acquired from online channels. In contrast, multichannel customers acquired from online channels are more likely to stay in a higher value state in the long run. In the long run, multichannel customers acquired from offline channels are more valuable than other customers. Chapter 2 focuses on promo code redemption behaviors. We conduct the research using a field experiment. We identify the determinants of opening, clicking the email and the final redemption behavior using a simultaneous multiple equation probit model. In our setting, we find that 11% of the profitability of the promo code campaign stems from eligible purchases without redemption. By targeting those customer segments that are more likely to make eligible purchases without redemption, the average profitability increases. In Chapter 3, we investigate how multichannel behavior impacts brand choice in a grocery setting. Our research develops a hierarchal Bayesian brand choice decision model to understand how multichannel adoption impacts brand choice decision, brand size-of-wallet, and brand share-of-wallet. Our results show that brand choice probability increases in general after consumers become multichannel. We also find that consumers increase both the size-of-wallet and share-of-wallet for the brand which they first purchase online, yet do not necessarily decrease the share-of-wallet for other brands.