Data is without question any brands biggest asset outside of its customer base. However, a brands ability to use the data it has available to enhance the experience of its customers can be difficult without the necessary talent and infrastructure to utilise it in the most effective way possible.
If a brand doesn’t understand its customers something is going seriously wrong. It won’t be able to positively influence them, add value to their lives or provide them with the information they need at, or before, the point they interact with them. These factors are true of both the marketing materials and advertising campaigns customers will interact with.
Tackling current customer expectations
Brands may silo their marketing and advertising operations internally, but to the customer they are just two pixels of the same image. It’s therefore important that customers are not left con-fused or conflicted by materials which do not support one another. If they are, their perception of the brand is likely to be diminished along with their propensity to make a purchase. If the interactions are especially bad, brands risk losing any chance of converting them into long-term brand advocates. Consistency of messaging throughout the individual journey each and every customer experiences as they interact with a brand therefore needs to be considered a top priority.
Customers want their experiences to be individualised to their specific needs, but they also expect them to be seamless across every potential touchpoint they encounter. If they have provided a brand with data, they will demand what they get in return to be tailored accordingly. They also don’t want to be bombarded with media content that is completely irrelevant to their lives. This all brings us back to the importance of connected data. If brands can’t capture their mar-keting and advertising data together along with the insight their outbound campaigns generate, delivering a clear and consistent message becomes a far greater challenge.
Why are DMPs crucial to unifying advertising and customer marketing data together?
DMPs are perfect for mitigating this problem as they allow companies to collect and analyse data about their customers. Whether it is behavioural, geographic or psychographic data all digital touchpoints are combined into one platform. Essentially a DMP collects data from both paid (ad impressions) and consumer activities on owned channels including web and mobile, as well as conversion tracking in real-time. It then consolidates into a multi-tenant data store to pro-vide an even richer view on the customer. That data can then be used to make decisions related to programmatic buying, display/search advertising, personalisation and customer experience management.
But why is this so important?
For starters it enables marketing and advertising data to be collected together in one ecosystem and allows brands to connect to consumers across all channels in the customer journey, including paid, owned and earned. The resulting integrated picture of all data sources, from both the company’s own data and third-party data, lets companies target audiences with an unheralded degree of accuracy.
Importance of real-time
This connected environment enables data to be captured in real-time as consumers interact with a brand. This insight can provide companies with a true 360-degree view of how well their campaign is reaching a specific audience in real-time.
Consequently, marketing and advertising campaigns can be adapted accordingly ‘in the moment’ so they are fully serving the audience they are intended for and performing as effectively as possible. Ultimately it means marketers can optimise their media buying and advertising creative on the fly.
With 30 million wirelessly connected devices predicted to be in circulation by 20201, brands need to ensure they are ready to capitalise on the opportunities available to engage with their customers.
Whilst this creates an infinite number of possibilities for brands to interact with consumers, it does by default create a high volume of data. This data can help to shape more meaningful campaigns, but brands need to make sure they are using it in the most effective way possible.
Jon Williams, Managing Director UK&I, Teradata Marketing Applications
