Are Multichannel Customers Truly the Best Customers?

Dear Dr. pROfIt: My CEO recently asked me to run an analysis of our dollars per channel metric, one that measures how much our customers spend across catalogs, email marketing, affiliates, paid search, mobile, social media, banner ads and retargeting programs. The metric looks awful: Five years ago, customers spent about $100.00 per channel; today, customers are spending $65 per channel. I always read that “multichannel customers are the best customers,” yet my data doesn’t demonstrate this known truth. Help!