Consumer data

How to create a connected customer experience

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Introduction

Every day, approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated globally, a number that will only increase with the rise of technologies like the Internet of Things, AI, and machine learning. In this rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations that successfully harness their first-party data while forming strategic second- and third-party partnerships will be the ones to create personalized, engaging customer experiences and excel in the data-driven economy.

However, despite the vast amounts of data available, tapping into its true value remains a challenge. Marketers today need advanced tools and strategies to collect, enrich, and analyze consumer data in real-time to connect with the right audience at the right moment.

By embracing cutting-edge customer data strategies, they can unlock insights that drive relevant, tailored campaigns, build accurate customer profiles, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences that resonate with customers across all touchpoints.

Data Quality

Today’s technological advancements make it possible for marketers to create truly personalized customer experiences by leveraging real-time, high-quality data. With the right insights, we can build a unified, real-time customer profile (SCV) across multiple channels, helping us understand who the consumer is, their preferences, and what matters to them. This allows us to deliver highly relevant, timely communications and offers, ensuring we create exceptional, tailored experiences that resonate with each customer.

The Customer Data Challenge

While the potential for data-driven marketing has never been greater, many marketers still face challenges in today’s fast-paced digital world.

Access to vast amounts of data isn’t enough if it’s poor-quality, outdated, or siloed. Key obstacles include:

Fragmented or incomplete data
Legal complexities and cultural concerns around data privacy
Lack of identity resolution tools for unified customer profiles

To deliver truly personalized campaigns, marketers need real-time, high-quality, and accessible data. Only then can they break through the noise and create relevant, impactful experiences.

Improving the Quality of Your Customer Data

With the growing volume of data, maintaining high-quality, accurate data remains a challenge. To stay on top, brands must adopt a thoughtful approach, focusing on the four C’s of data quality: Correct, Current, Complete, and Ethically Collected.

Correct Data: Start by normalizing your data—ensuring it’s consistent (e.g., phone numbers in the same format) and up to date. Life changes like moving or getting a new phone number can quickly make data outdated. Data enrichment solutions can help cleanse your database and ensure accuracy.

Complete Data: Once your data is corrected, fill in the gaps. Are there missing details like phone number digits or mismatched ZIP codes? Using customer data enrichment tools can help complete your profiles by merging your data with trusted third-party sources, ensuring your customer insights are as thorough as possible.

Data enrichment & Data enhancement

Data enhancement and enrichment solutions are essential for marketers looking to improve data accuracy and engagement. These solutions help:

Clean and enhance both digital and offline data, ensuring better people-based engagement by removing or correcting poor-quality data.
Merge third-party data with first-party data, further enriching customer profiles.

Is Your Data Current? Even with a complete database, outdated data can lead to errors and missed opportunities. It’s vital to update customer information like addresses, names, or phone numbers to avoid mistakes, such as sending duplicate marketing materials or misidentifying individuals. Identity resolution tools can also help unify customer data across touchpoints, ensuring a seamless, omnichannel view.

Ethical Data Collection: Trust is key to strong customer relationships. Marketers must adopt an ethical approach to data collection, ensuring data is handled responsibly, legally, and transparently to build lasting trust with customers.ng effective campaigns.

Better Engagement

According to Winterberry Group’s 2024 Outlook for Advertising, Marketing, and Data, U.S. businesses are projected to spend approximately $368.8 billion on online advertising in 2024, marking a 14.9% increase from the previous year.

This surge is driven by the escalating demand for precise customer identification across various touchpoints, including transactional, digital, promotional, and traditional channels.

Third-party data has become an essential tool for data-driven marketers, enabling them to gain deeper insights into their customers, target specific segments, and identify lookalike audiences.

Enhancing Audience Engagement with Third-Party Data

Integrating third-party data with first-party customer information allows marketers to create a more comprehensive customer profile, facilitating effective engagement across diverse touchpoints.

By leveraging third-party data, marketers can:

Gain Insights & Analysis: Access detailed customer behaviors and preferences to inform strategic decisions.
Improve Retention & Extension: Identify opportunities to retain existing customers and extend relationships through personalized offerings.
Develop Personas: Create accurate customer personas to tailor marketing efforts effectively.
Enable Real-Time Personalization: Deliver personalized content and offers based on current customer interactions.
Utilize Predictive Modeling: Anticipate customer needs and behaviors to proactively address them.
Increase Marketing Efficiency: Optimize marketing spend by targeting the most responsive audiences.

These capabilities lead to enhanced audience engagement by enabling marketers to:

Geo-Target High-Value Consumers: Utilize location data to deliver messages to consumers in specific geographic areas, increasing foot traffic and improving customer experiences.
Create & Distribute Tailor-Made Audiences: Combine first-party and third-party data to develop unique audience segments, ensuring the right message reaches the right customer at the optimal time.
Achieve Precision Segmentation & Targeting: Identify and connect with audiences across various platforms by segmenting based on numerous attributes, enhancing the relevance of marketing efforts.
Deliver Consistent Omnichannel Experiences: Unify customer data to provide a seamless and consistent experience across all channels, fostering stronger customer relationships.

As marketing strategies and technologies evolve, the integration of third-party data remains a pivotal component in delivering compelling marketing, maximizing impact, and enhancing brand interactions.

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Relevant Audiences

With accurate, high-quality consumer data, enriched by third-party insights, marketers can create personalized campaigns that drive deeper audience engagement. The digital landscape today is global, offering vast opportunities for brands to expand their reach and deliver exceptional experiences in key markets.

Third-party data enables marketers to refine their audience strategies by identifying new, relevant segments and expanding their digital reach.

By enriching first-party data with third-party insights, you can:

Target Global Audiences: Expand digital marketing across global platforms with tailored audience curation and distribution.
Discover and Build New Audiences: Identify new segments and create personalized marketing strategies to engage them effectively.
Enhance Customer Insights: Combine global data with your existing customer information to improve segmentation, targeting, and personalization.

These strategies unlock a deeper understanding of both new and existing customers, allowing for more relevant, targeted messaging across both online and offline channels. However, navigating global data privacy laws is essential, and partnering with a trusted data provider can help ensure compliance while driving effective campaigns.

Customer Experience

For marketers, the goal is clear: leverage rich, up-to-date consumer data to deliver personalized, impactful experiences. Enriching your existing data allows you to better understand your audience and craft tailored messages that hit the mark, no matter the channel.

Without accurate, unified data, customers often experience disjointed interactions—like not recognizing that James, who visited your website, is the same person who made a purchase in your store. These gaps lead to irrelevant messaging and missed opportunities.

By enhancing your data with third-party insights, you can:

Empower People-Based Marketing: Recognize customers across touchpoints with identity resolution, ensuring consistent and personalized messaging.
Refine Audience Understanding: Combine first-, second-, and third-party data to gain deeper insights and optimize your customer segments.
Create Targeted, High-Value Audiences: Use third-party data to build more precise, relevant audiences and increase engagement across channels.

In today’s digital world, enriched customer data not only boosts marketing precision but also enhances customer relationships. It helps marketers increase engagement, optimize campaigns, and drive greater ROI by focusing resources on the most impactful strategies.