What’s true to businesses today? People buy experiences, not products.
For this reason, every business is driving its focus toward improving customer experience instead of improving sales alone. For businesses to stay competitive, each one must offer out-of-the-box experiences to customers to win their attention, interest, and ultimately their loyalty.
We need clarity and authenticity in data for successful ad campaigns and decision-making. As marketers, we accomplish this by using data from various sources delivered in various forms to gain a better understanding of customers. It can be overwhelming and confusing.
The humongous flow of data from various sources and devices has pushed customer data management to this complex, seemingly impossible-to-handle field. Fortunately for us, powerful Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are available to simplify and modernize managing data. Moreover, you can use it to fuel better short- and long-term customer experiences.
Finding or upgrading your current customer data platform should be a priority for all enterprise marketers. To help guide your decision, consider these three areas: challenges faced by your team, how managing data could solve these, and the differences between one tool to the next.
Below, we’ve done the work for you in the first two areas. Also, we’ve provided a spotlight on the uniqueness of Adobe’s Real-Time Customer Data Platform (RT-CDP).
How CDP is different from CRM and DMP?
Customer Relationship Manager and Data Management platform tools are important and integral part of marketing and sales departments. Their value is undeniable.
These are the functions and limitations of both a CRM and a DMP.
CRM_Function: The customer relationship manager collects and stores all customer-related information from emails, calls, social media, and more.
CRM_Limitation: However, it is not good in dealing with second-and third-party data. This means no insights or significant data from outside sources are housed here.
DMP_Function: A DMP collects and sifts through the data from connected sources to provide an organized view of usable data.
DMP_Limitation: Like a CRM, data management platforms also have a weakness. The 3rd party cookies a DMP relies on to collect data are hindered by adblockers, browsers, and privacy frameworks decreasing their overall efficiency. Also, the data that does come in from third-party cookies can be vague or inaccurate.
With help from these two invaluable tools, introducing a CDP to the mix will give your teams a 360-degree view of data and customer profiles. It supports first-, second-and third-party cookies (optional) with a more extended data retention period.
A Marketer’s Challenges
- Data Silos:- Siloed teams and data make it nearly impossible to work in sync. In order to build a standard, useful view of customers based on data. The first challenge to face is bringing it all together and moving away from silos.
- One system for all:- We need one place to ingest, store, and manipulate all data. So everything can be taken into account when sorting through audiences and actions.
- User identity identification:- Customers engaging with your brand from various devices or in person need to be considered as well. Marketers need to understand users’ identities/behavior across channels to deliver exactly what they want and identify where they are in the customer journey.
- Integration with other marketing tools:- We need to be able to integrate other marketing tools, such as CRM systems, data lakes, etc., to ensure that all data is entering one location and is correct. A tool with seamless integrations is necessary.
Everyone has their own set of current and foreseen challenges, so feel free to add to this list and make it your own. Once this is complete, look at how the points above can be addressed with an adequate CDP tool.
Problem Solved – A Customer Data Platform (CDP) as the Solution
If a single application can solve these issues, why wouldn’t you move forward with one? For the sake of brevity, we will look at how Adobe’s RT-CDP specifically smooths out the wrinkles in customer data management.
Adobe’s RT-CDP (application) is built on top of the Adobe Experience Platform (AEP). Also, it uses several platform services to deliver the functionality needed for a solution as powerful as this. As for how the problems listed above are rectified:
- AEP sources support simple integrations for data ingestion from various systems, including point of sales and analytics. It brings all data together in a centralized system and translates into a unified, flexible data model called the Experience Data Model (XDM).
- With the use of labeling and the enforcement framework, this application provides trusted data and profile management. Marketers can easily apply data governance to a variety of marketing use cases.
- You can create instant, stitched real-time customer profiles, and segments based on the ingested data. The stitching is powered by 1st party, durable identifiers like email and phone numbers. Moreover, RT-CDP can leverage AI and ML features powered by AEP & Adobe Sensei to help enrich these profiles with predictive insights.
- Real-time activation of the stitched segments across destinations with pre-built integrations across social media channels paid media can help close the loop. Also, your IT team can build custom API connectors from AEP to the internal systems.
With the features listed above that directly address the challenges most of face day-to-day, you’re probably curious about the other capabilities Adobe RT-CDP offers. Here’s a bit of further information.
Adobe’s Real-Time Customer Data Platform
Most notably, Adobe recently introduced the next-gen Real-Time Customer Data Platform with unmatched features and capabilities. This future-proof application collects and unifies both anonymous and known data to provide a complete view of all available customer data.
Also, it takes care of privacy and governance policies while collecting and using data. Less risk and more opportunity are what we’ve gained from RT-CDP. Nowadays, well-maintained and insightful customer data is crucial for businesses and this CDP does not disappoint.
Though Adobe RT-CDP is most useful to your organization, we recommend finding a CDP as soon as possible. Even if this solution is not the one for you, any CDP will vastly improve the ROI of all marketing efforts.
Still questioning where and if CDPs belong in your marketing solutions stack? Read on!
Final Thoughts
Customer data platforms like Adobe RT-CDP give marketers more opportunities to connect and serve customers pleasant experiences at the right time and place. No matter where your customers are, you’ll be able to offer them the best experiences with the exact content they are seeking.
If you know your customer better than most, you’re sure to serve them better than most. Adobe RT-CDP helps you stay ahead of the competition.
Implementing a CDP can be a game-changer for your business if done correctly. Complete a successful, fast implementation and integrations with other systems for the best results possible.
Contact us at +1-847-592-2920 or marketing@nextrow.com for more information.
