Influence of Pull Marketing Actions on Marketing Action Effectiveness of Multichannel Firms: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This study is a meta-analysis of how pull marketing actions influence the effectiveness of marketing actions employed by multichannel firms. Pull marketing actions are highly adaptable marketing actions designed to make multichannel distribution channel portfolios attractive. Integrating prior multichannel distribution literature, the authors investigate whether marketing actions’ effectiveness depends on pull marketing actions and their configuration with the distribution channel structure and attributes of customer, competition, and product category. The analysis that considers firm, data, and model attributes of the sampled studies reveals that marketing actions’ effectiveness is higher when multichannel firms use digital advertising and price promotions in all distribution channels. Price discrimination across channels does not improve marketing actions’ effectiveness. Furthermore, marketing actions’ effectiveness depends on how digital advertising and price promotions are aligned with channel variety, channel richness, customer experience, market competitiveness, and product purchase infrequency.