Consumers love a fast and personalized experience. But there’s a catch. They also look for companies to do business in a way that’s relevant for them. So, what does relevance mean in today’s scenario?
Simple. It means aligning products and services with real-time inventory realities and sharing the right message with the right delivery requirement.
Managing Customer Data is a Necessity
No wonder managing consumer data has become a necessity, especially to meet these evolving requirements. The roadblock, however, is that data is often siloed, disconnected, and inconsistent. Without connected data, you cannot deliver relevant consumer experiences that today’s reality expects.
Leveraging Consumer Data to Deliver Personalized UX
This post looks at the key identity concepts that marketers need to integrate data from various sources. At the same time, we will understand how marketers are attempting to cope with the rapidly changing data and identity landscape.
How Disconnected Data is Leading to Broken Consumer Experiences
Marketers are moving toward more personalized consumer-centric strategies and experiences. So, to connect all relevant data and information about their experiences, a comprehensive identity foundation—built across first-, second-, and third-party sources—is required.
It seems like third-party cookies are becoming obsolete, and privacy legislation is becoming more prevalent. No wonder, businesses are refocusing their efforts on the data management capabilities of their consumers.
These modifications, in return, are transforming legacy platforms into agile, cloud-based, scalable, and accessible solutions for all users. Furthermore, if businesses want to connect all data to a single asset, they should enable and optimize the modern data platform and protect consumer data in the process.
So, how do you connect data while also promoting organizational growth and first-party data application? Technical integration is the answer. You can use a personal identity graph—a unified corporate asset that connects first, second, and third-party data, to get the job done.
Here’s where the role of Customer Data Platform (CDP) chimes in.
A Customer Data Platform is a software program that collects and organizes consumer data from a number of sources and makes it available to other applications, systems, etc. CDPs take real-time data and structure it into individual, centralized consumer profiles.
Key Principles of Connecting Data in Today’s Modern Customer Data Platform
1. Analyze the Data
Connecting data into a well-organized asset requires technical and business-focused planning and strategy. Companies must devote their resources to a thorough examination of all available data from various sources.
Volume, velocity, attributes, privacy, and compliance requirements must all be collected and integrated into clear specifications. Technical engineering and integration design, maintenance, and accessibility are all supported by these requirements.
Furthermore, business users will need to plan how to best use the connected data asset to provide personalized experiences, protect consumer data, and value customers.
2. Apply Identity Resolution
Businesses require an identity resolution to easily connect their data at the consumer level. They mostly utilize an identity solution that can cleanse, correct, and enhance consumer’s Personally Identifiable Information(PII), along with data quality capabilities.
To provide a foundation for customer data integration, aggregation, insights, and activation, identity resolution solutions must resolve data to a person and household level. Identity solutions that are built on a high-quality, person-based truth set usually improve identity accuracy and longevity.
These identity resolution solutions are privacy compliant and have the ability to manage both online and offline identity signals. Some also include third-party data portability as well as person-based channel and media activation capabilities.
A thorough examination of identity resolution options will help you choose the best tool for your company. Do not forget to consider the scope of capabilities, time to market, and overall investment when deciding.
3. Create a Personal Identity Graph
Data is usually connected due to identity resolution. And, it supports both business and technical use cases. Therefore, companies should create their own private identity graphs to make identity resolution outcomes accessible to their users.
The graph organizes the data into a master data asset that is accessible across the organization. It allows businesses to maintain control over their consumer data while also protecting and enhancing it with relevant second and third-party data.
The core of the personal identity graph is a foundation of stable, person-level data. All signals, including PII (e.g., emails, phones, addresses), digital identifiers, native platform identifiers, and relevant connections to partner systems, are then associated with identity keys.
The personal identity graph also ensures the privacy and compliance of the core and various identity associations. Additionally, the graph serves as a central hub for connecting, reconciling, and applying consumer data to deliver personalized experiences.
4. Inform the Technology
Once the data is connected, it must be accessible across data management, orchestration, activation, and analytic platforms. What’s next? Data management components will use the corresponding data from the graph to associate consumer identity with all relevant data sets.
Earlier, platforms for orchestration and activation used data from the personal identity graph to remain updated about various consumer interactions and experiences. Analytics platforms, on the other hand, used the data to model and gain insights based on interactions and outcomes.
Today’s modern platform should be able to connect all data to create a single asset that links all relevant sources. Identity resolution is the technology that allows consumers’ data to be connected across first, second, and third-party sources. The graph should combine the results of identity resolution into a single enterprise asset that can be used to inform technical and business processes.
Besides, with a personal identity graph businesses can also curate ongoing data and deliver personalized consumer experiences.
A Small Guide to Customer Data Platform (CDP)
A good enterprise-grade CDP will help you better understand not only your customers but also your business. It incorporates anonymous, third-party, and first-party known data to provide a complete understanding of consumers. Below are a few more things businesses should know about CDPs.
They include a layer of intelligence.
Enterprise CDPs include a layer of intelligence that employs machine learning to create predictive models and more powerful and actionable recommendations. The best CDPs share those insights with any other system, providing better intelligence to sales, service, marketing, commerce, field service, finance, social, and other departments.
For example, suppose a consumer contacts a service agent to report an issue. In that case, the CRM system must notify the agent that this is a high-value customer who has recently made a significant purchase.
Similarly, if a consumer has an open support ticket, the marketing system must notify the marketer not to include that consumer in a marketing campaign until the issue is resolved.
When you’re having service issues, getting a marketing email from a brand asking you to refer a friend or consider an additional purchase is infuriating. This strategy can help you increase consumer lifetime value, improve satisfaction, and maximize consumer engagement.
They offer a unified platform for data management.
Numerous businesses are looking for a unified platform for managing data about their online and offline clients. A CDP does exactly that. It defines appropriate marketing tactics for these segments and decreases data redundancy.
The customer data platform market is expected to increase in tandem with the increased adoption of account-based marketing among businesses.
They abide by legal obligations.
One of the primary factors driving CDP market expansion is the introduction of severe legal obligations about consumer data privacy. Vendors are implementing GDPR solutions and a CDP to assist providers in complying with the rules.
Vendors also combine new technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence with CDP to provide reliable results due to these investments.
According to research done by the CDP Institute, roughly 4,000 businesses used consumer data platforms in 2018. All of these factors are expected to contribute to the market’s expansion.
Wrapping Up
Managing the massive amount of consumer data available to marketers today is a challenge. However, with the appropriate processes in place, you can identify your most valuable audiences.
A customer data platform can help you streamline the correct data, and unify it as a single layer. Furthermore, it unlocks sophistication and offers really engaging, consistent, and relevant marketing to customers across all channels.
Image Credit: chrintina morillo; pexels; thank you!
