In today’s digital world, businesses find themselves collecting a massive amount of customer data from diverse sources. However, navigating the complexities of GDPR regulations and third-party cookies has made it increasingly difficult for companies to harness the full potential of this data for marketing and analytics purposes.
Are you searching for a solution that can unify GDPR-compliant customer data from multiple sources? That is where the Customer Data Platform (CDP) comes into play. This tool enables businesses to create comprehensive segments and uses the collected data to deliver personalised experiences to your customers. In this blog post, we will delve into the advantages of implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP), focusing on how it can help your business comply with privacy regulations while ensuring personalised customer journeys.
First things first: What is a CDP?
A CDP is a cloud-hosted platform that can help improve your marketing processes with several different functionalities. Four of the key functionalities:
- A 360° view of your clients
- Segmentation
- Activation
- Analytics
By centralising all customer information to create a 360° view of your client, you can use that data to create target audiences for activated marketing campaigns, customer journeys, advertisements, etc. This data can include behavioural data (eg. visits and clicks), profile data, transactions, etc.
The concept of a 360° customer view has been around for a while, but its importance has grown with the integration of advanced predictive analysis through machine learning models. Capturing data begins with the very first anonymous visit, which is then enriched through identity stitching techniques that merge identical users. This process allows you to have a complete view of each customer.
By bringing this rich and diverse data together, you gain the ability to create highly specific target audiences. This means you can now customise your marketing efforts to reach the right customers, improving their experiences across various channels. The impact: increased campaign effectiveness, optimised customer journeys, and reduced overall ad spending.
CDP: a hot topic
Currently there are more than 200 CDP solution vendors and up to 20% of European companies are using a CDP. Why is it booming as much?
Well, for multiple reasons.
- With third-party cookies restrictions increasing, we need to switch to first-party data
- CDP can be used in many industries, including retail, finance, healthcare, technology, etc
- The results of Customer Data Platforms speak for themselves, contributing in their succes:
- a 20% increase in customer engagement
- a 10% increase in customer retention
- a massive 300% ROI after three years
CDP’s are simplifying GDPR and privacy compliancy, which is a huge selling point.
Furthermore, the fact that you have access to ‘near) real-time data to segment is a big perk. This allows you to create dynamic always-on campaigns which adds or removes members from the target audience as you go.
Example: Say a client has just bought your product. That means that in the near future, you don’t have to target them anymore with ads for that specific product. So, you remove them from your segment. Therefore, your client isn’t frustrated by all the needless ads and emails, and you can save some serious money. Instead of trying to reach people randomly, you can now target people more specifically. Once the product is nearing its warranty limit, for example, you can add the customer again to target them with ads for a new, updated version of the product.
Goodbye third-party cookies
It has been announced that Chrome will stop allowing third-party cookies by 2025, so companies need to start looking for alternatives. A customer Data Platform is a great solution: you only work with first-party cookies and data.
Searching for an additional tool that will allow you to get even more first-party data in your CDP? Look into the data clean room: a platform where you use anonymised and encrypted first-party data that other companies have made available (so ultimately becoming second-party data). This way you collect data, but in a privacy compliant way.
To sum up, CDP has lots of possibilities and advantages. It’s future proof, contributes to efficient marketing and creates great customer journeys. However, it can come at a bigger cost so you need to think about it well.
Our competence center Stitch’d can help you decide whether it’s the right path for you or not. They do not install CDP’s but will be your strategic and advisory partner.
Author: Sven Peeters, Technical CDP Architect at Stitch’d
