Perhaps one of the most enigmatic technological powerhouses of the modern age is the customer data platform, or CDP. Customer data platforms have been known to advance ad revenue in ways that the marketing landscape has never seen. They are often defined as software packages that offer data on customers such that the data is accessible to other systems, and this is what makes a CDP so powerful! CDPs are the lifeblood of information. They can show you everything there is to know about either a potential customer or a customer who is returning to your business.
CDPs can go so far as to build detailed profiles of customers in a way that ensures effective advertising. They accomplish this feat by gathering information from first-party and third-party sources. They follow customers all over the internet to ascertain what those customers’ exact needs are. Assessing the needs of your customers will allow you to place the right advertisements in front of them. CDPs can consult social media activity, newspapers, satellites, behavioral data, emails, and transactional phenomena to illustrate a clear picture of each of your customers. CDPs inform people-based marketing, and this is very important. Putting the customer at the center of the equation generates the most revenue by employing the right advertisements and selling the right products. CDPs can help your business prioritize customers in a similarly lucrative way.
What Is Customer Data?
A CDP cannot get very far without customer data, but what does it mean for data to regard a customer? What is the difference between customer data and other forms of data, and why is that difference so important? Customer data is nothing beyond what potential buyers leave behind as they peruse the internet. Customer data regards account information as well as behavior: What do users click on? How often are their carts empty? Things like that. Account information includes email addresses, usernames, biographies, and more. The best CDPs keep track of this sort of information even if it is offline. CDPs can monitor actions taken in a store, and CDPs can contrast those actions against others taken online. The processes that CDPs undergo are valuable to any growing business that aims for its growth to be even more explosive. Still, there are several subsets of customer data that need to be defined before one can master CDPs.
What Is Identity Data?
This form of information is the most fundamental, keeping track of customers’ most basic attributes. This primitive form of data is great for identifying customers and the demographics of which those customers are a part. Doing so prevents the expenses inherent to creating duplicate profiles. Examples of identity data include name, age, gender, zip code, social accounts, occupation, and general account information.
What Is Descriptive Data?
Descriptive data expands upon the information provided by identity data, but it offers a more complete picture of customers. Descriptive data is informed by the type of information a business seeks, but there are general ways of summarizing what descriptive data has to offer. Car dealerships may track the cars their clients buy. Grocery store chains may monitor the purchases of usual customers. To stores may track what sorts of things parents are buying for children. Generally, descriptive data regards income, occupation seniority, previous employers, size of home, type of pet, marital status, and number of kids. The most uncannily specific examples of descriptive data include streaming subscriptions or memberships.
What Is Behavioral Data?
Behavioral data is what ultimately allows businesses to make decisions based on how potential or returning customers behave. Actions and transactions will inform what behavioral data a CDP might collect. This includes how responsive your customers are to email blasts, how your customers have been responding to customer service, and what your customers are eventually purchasing.
What Is Qualitative Data?
Qualitative data offers the appropriate context with which to view behavioral data, further informing the ultimate decisions of executive teams. Customer data ought to have personality, and this is what qualitative data offers. Qualitative data includes opinions, motivations, attitudes, sources, favorite items, and other less immediate needs of customers.
Putting it All Together
From favorite colors to last names, the CDP handles everything to make sure your ads work better than those of your competitors. Anyone can make an important business decision quickly, but the CDP allows you to make business decisions in a competitively effective way. Using a CDP might be beyond your immediate capabilities if you are a business owner, but if you present this technology to your software development team, they may be able to leverage it against hordes of data that are too chaotic to be of any use. Ultimately, advertising is important, and it is not going to go to good use without appropriate information.
