Attracting high-value, targeted demographics is at the heart of effective marketing. This strategy relies on accurate customer data, which allows a company to screen qualified customers and improve its products and services.
As a result, the development of Customer Data Platforms has outpaced that of other marketing tools in the sector. A CDP (Customer Data Platform), which can intuitively increase a brand’s engagement with its customer base, is quickly becoming a go-to marketing technology.
What Exactly Is A CDP?
A Customer Data Platform is a software that creates a unified, persistent customer database that other systems can access.” This technology, also known as a Consumer Data Platform, combines first- and third-party customer data from a variety of sources into a single, holistic view of the customer across devices and channels. These customer profiles can power insights and intelligence and orchestrate engagements across all customer interactions in a marketer-friendly way.
Other current marketing systems, such as a CRM or DMP, have similar functionalities to CDP software. A CDP marketing system, on the other hand, collects data from a variety of sources and stores it for identified customers.
Customer Data Platforms combine data from various first-, second-, and third-party sources to create customer profiles. Your CRM and DMP, transactional systems, web forms, email and social media activity, website, e-commerce, and behavioral data are included.
The Role Of Customer Data Platforms In Enhancing Your Marketing Strategies
Customer data platforms (CDPs) can help you improve your marketing strategy and results in several ways:
- Creating Accurate Customer Profiles
CDPs can almost instantly identify who your customers are. They can use algorithms to filter all collected data and create unified customer profiles. It compiles identity, descriptive, and behavioral data from current customers and prospects into a single platform, making it easier for marketers to create accurate personas.
- Accessing Real-Time Updates
Marketers are aware that customer preferences change over time, but most data management tools are incapable of detecting these shifts. Data is processed in real-time in CDPs, making it possible to detect changes in customer behavior in the short and long term.
Your team can quickly detect when a prospect stops using YouTube and switches to Twitch, for example, and redirect campaigns accordingly.
- Avoiding Data Silos
Much of an organization’s data is generated and stored in various systems and departments, making it inaccessible to other parts of the organization. The result is less collaboration in the workplace, lower productivity, and inaccurate customer profiles.
A lot of a company’s data can be stored in a single, user-friendly interface with CDPs.
- Tracking Interactions Across Different Devices
Marketers who want to provide seamless experiences to their customers must connect interactions across multiple devices. The CDP can connect a single person’s interactions across multiple interfaces.
The platform saves information like the amount of time spent on a page, the email address used, and the cookies used. You’ll know if a customer accessed your page on a desktop using different browsers, then reaccessed it on the phone a few days later.
- Reducing Operational Costs & Improving ROI
Customer data platforms boost efficiency and lower operational costs because they can be highly automated. After all, if you know exactly who your customers are and can streamline the targeting process, you’re more likely to reach them at the right time and in the proper format.
As a result, you can reduce your cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPM), and cost per customer acquisition (CAC).
- Assisting With The Setting Of Realistic KPIs
Marketing teams can use CDP to measure and adjust expectations about key performance indicators by taking a more holistic approach to data (KPIs). You might even discover that your team isn’t tracking the right metrics and need to replace them with new ones that align with your strategy.
However, when it comes to KPIs, CDPs must be used with caution: more metrics options don’t always imply a better understanding of your customer, so be wary of the data that informs your strategy.
- Getting Insights For Products And Services
CDPs can give you hints about customers’ preferences and needs, whereas full customer research used to be required to understand their unique needs. CDP can also guide your product strategy because it collects a lot of qualitative data.
You can prioritize your product and service offerings by checking user feedback on a regular basis to ensure that they are more closely aligned with customers’ needs. Alternatively, you can spot trends and create entirely new products.
Conclusion
Adopting a customer data platform strategy allows you to gain access to crucial data and insights for developing a high-growth marketing strategy. A CDP gathers customer data and suggests the following steps to increase purchase and brand loyalty. Through real-time updates and personalization, CDPs also assist businesses in realigning sales and service to customers.
