The Future of Marketing is using different data sources effectively

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) helps create a unified customer database from customer data gathered from various sources. However, it is essential to understand the different types of data out there that can be utilized in a CDP and how to use them appropriately. In fact, a survey showed that 70% of the time is spent finding data with only 30% analyzing it[i]. Hence customer data in the context of a CDP becomes very important. Customer data for CDP refers to information that customers leave behind when they interact with companies — both online and offline: For example, websites, blogs, e-commerce portals, and in-store interactions. In fact, the data can be internal or external, structured or unstructured, batch or streaming. In this regard, the different kinds of data categories are:

a. Transactional Data: These are datasets around sales, purchases, orders renewals dates, abandoned baskets, returns etc. — basically any data around transaction of a product or a service.

b. Behavioral Data: This data helps us understand how each customer has engaged with the organization through specific actions, reactions, or transactions. This includes data such as recency, frequency, spend, web click-throughs etc.

c. Profile or Identity Data: This data allows the CDP to build a unique customer profile. The information includes name, demographic info, location, contact info, social media info etc.

d. Qualitative Data: This data provides context for the customer profiles. It helps give customer data personality: the data contains motivations, opinions, and attitudes expressed by a customer.

e. Product Data: This data is purely from the organization point of view. Data such as, which product is getting sold the highest, which product is getting stocked out, which product is getting returned etc.

Now that we have identified the different data categories, it is more critical than ever that organizations think about how to deal with the different kinds of data with the new GDPR coming into force.

We cannot collect all data for the CDP ourselves:

Data is one of the biggest drivers of a successful marketing campaign today. CDP makes it possible to integrate with multiple third-party tools and helps drive real-time marketing campaigns. Hence, what kind of data will benefit an organization the most depends on the organization’s goals. With this in mind, it is crucial to understand the different types of data sources and how we can use it and access it.

Different Types of Data Sources:

Way Forward:

It is essential to understand one’s customer data goals in the CDP while looking for data sources to obtain the data from. The main differences between the various types of data sources is a trade-off between quality and reach. The quality parameter refers to how close and relevant or related the dataset is. The reach refers to how much the data represents the types of audiences capable of being engaged. Hence, one must always do a cost-benefit analysis to figure out which would be the ideal way to source the data. Ultimately, wherever the data is sourced from the real value is making actionable insights from that data.

REFERENCES:

[i] https://v12data.com/blog/customer-data-platforms-the-stats-you-cant-ignore/