At its best, advertising is a wildly helpful tool for consumers looking to purchase products they need and want. Positive and unified customer experiences are vital at every stage of the buyer journey and across all touch points. Doing this correctly not only serves the consumer, but it also serves the brand selling to them, too.
So how can you create this type of experience for your customers? It starts with your tech stack: Specifically a customer data platform.
Fixing a fragmented journey
Fragmentation happens when the experiences you're offering customers aren't linked. In the past, brands have used third-party cookies to act as that connection, but as data deprecates, this becomes harder and harder to do. The experiences and preferences a person has from channel to channel and device to device change because the brand can't recognize that particular consumer.
Augmenting the quality, breadth and depth of a brand’s first-party data strategy provides a complete view of real consumers, not just anonymous cookies or audience personas.
And those real people enjoy more relevant messaging, optimized offers and appropriate personalization. This makes for a better experience for consumers, everywhere they browse.
Meaningful media activation
First-party data is the foundation for digital media activation, but identity resolution makes it stronger. CDPs that use current audience insights grounded in identity drive intelligent campaigns. Because a brand knows its customers, they can understand their habits today and tomorrow. Coupled with things like machine learning and AI, brands can predict their customers' needs before they happen and re-engage customers, too. Insights into these digital signals show interest and intent, which drive higher media performance.
Brands can maintain information about their customers: Did they move out of market? Are they getting married, or looking for a house? Did they finally buy that pair of shoes they've been pining after for weeks, therefore you don't have to keep advertising it to them?
Some CDPs, like Epsilon’s Digital CDP, also have native activation, meaning you can plug insights from your enhanced first-party data directly into the endpoint activation for the consumer--whether that's digital media, connected TV or any other medium.
Native activation gives you the power to launch campaigns without needing to export, import and execute on other platforms. Measurement and new insights from campaigns are then automatically injected back into your CDP, creating a closed-loop measurement system to maximize ROAS.
This puts your advertising in front of the right customers at the right time. But also helps marketers be confident that they’re spending ad dollars wisely by talking to in-market individuals who are ready to buy.
Do you crave more intelligent media campaigns and less fear of over-sequencing or wasting ad dollars by targeting the wrong people?
Identity resolution—again—allows CDPs to deliver accurate and actionable cross-channel activation. Having a unified 360-degree view of individuals takes the guesswork out of marketing because you know what will resonate with the people in your campaign. This leads to:
- Higher performing ads
- Improved targeting
- A reduction in ad waste
- More accurate measurement
But perhaps most importantly, it creates an overall better customer experience because consumers no longer receive fragmented experiences across channels. You can reach them with relevant messages and creative on all devices, even connecting paid and owned campaigns.
Customer experience suffers without omnichannel alignment powered by a single activation platform. It’s like those shoes that follow you around online for weeks after you purchase them.
Instead, CDPs with identity not only help with prospecting new customers but also empower more effective cross-sell opportunities, the ability to thoughtfully re-engage dormant customers and nurture strong brand relationships. This is true whether they engage with your brand through a website, mobile app, social media or in-store.
Let a CDP drive your customer experiences
Customer experience is vital for brand success. Today’s consumers expect seamless processes, consistent messaging and positive brand interactions. Delivering on that is table stakes, but many brands haven’t figured it out.
Using technology, specifically CDPs with integrated identity and native activation, is the key to personalized and persistent marketing across channels.
Epsilon’s Digital CDP uses hundreds of industry-specific attributes, across demographic, lifestyle, and transactional insights to identify when, where, and how a customer is most likely to convert. Wondering how to determine which CDP is right for you? Check out our Customer Data Platforms Buyer's Guide.
