Personalization at scale is possible

Channelizing data to provide a one-of-a-kind customer experience 

With customers expecting nothing less than a hyper-personalized customer experience at scale, customer data platforms (CDPs) have assumed great importance. CDPs help marketers channelize data from digital and non-digital sources to reach the holy grail of data—a one-of-a-kind experience which serves the market segment of one. 

Since its emergence in 2013, CDPs were at the peak of Gartner’s hype cycle in 2018. But what may have seemed like a hype has now become a high-growth sector, according to a research report by MarketsandMarkets, the CDP platforms market will be worth US$15.3 billion by 2026, up from US$3.5 billion in 2021.

Here’s why. CDPs provide a unified, consistent user experience and real-time data access, anywhere in the world. They guarantee easy data availability when needed rather than information being locked behind firewalls or dispersed across the globe. 

Some of the key features of a CDP model which help deliver personalized experiences are:

• Coordination: Construct and deconstruct data to enable easy coordination across different digital touchpoints and channels. 

• Relevance: Decode customer preferences to build the foundation for ‘next best action’.

• Adaptability: Analyze data to distinguish one customer preference from another.

Keeping up with content velocity

Key metrics to evaluate data for completeness with a focus on specific customer personas

Delivering a personalized customer experience can be tricky if not done with the right set of tools and strategies. It is also heavily dependent on insights into a customers’ content consumption patterns (text, imagery, video, and sound) throughout their journey. Here, data velocity is key to keeping pace with content velocity. After all what is the point of being able to distinguish between two distinct audiences if they are served the same content. Imagine receiving travel information from an airline for a destination you have already travelled to. Seems rather pointless, doesn’t it?

This is where CDPs come in handy. They evaluate the data for completeness considering all the characteristics of a customers’ persona. They also contribute to data completeness by providing insight into what would work on one channel versus another. For example, you could target consumers through high-cost channels based on their intentions rather than explicit customer data. 

Let’s look at some key business metrics you can score with an optimal CDP in place. 

• Explicit customer data

• Implicit customer data (insights based on customer intentions)

• Behavioral data

• Marketing campaign data 

• Customer response data

• Communication log data

Holy grail of marketing

A four-fold approach to evaluating an optimal CDP

You are travelling to London on vacation and your entire travel needs are made available to you. From information on extra travel luggage capacity on the aircraft, to inflight meal plans, to hotel options nearest to the trendiest tourist spots. This connected experience is delivered to you courtesy a CDP which has access to your transaction history and provides suitable recommendations.

CDPs here not only create one-to-one marketing opportunities but also optimize personalization by providing customers with the ‘next best offer’. Optimization is the key as recommendations to customers are delivered in real-time across channels as well as based on the customer response and current context.

Make no mistake, CDPs need to be leveraged wisely to generate practical, relevant, and complete data. When data is precise, better targeting is possible, resulting in a larger return on investment.

Consider the following factors when evaluating a CDP best suited to your business. It should be:

1. Designed to operate in a hybrid cloud environment 
2. Equipped to transform data into practical, relevant, and complete data  
3. Capable of proactively responding in real-time to the needs of the business 
4. Equipped to provide simplified data capable of delivering usable insights

The way forward

Adopting a CDP which best suits your business is key

CDPs are constantly evolving and have much to offer in expanding the hyper-personalized customer space. It is important however to view the scope of CDPs from the right lens. Evaluate a model which offers the right measures towards providing bigger and better data across channels delivering access to a more mature marketing automation platform.