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Data clean room vs. data warehouse: What's the difference and why you need both
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It’s time for spring cleaning. What kind of spring cleaner are you?
Are you the kind that likes to overhaul your entire closet? Maybe rearranging the entire structure and scrapping everything that doesn’t “spark joy” in favor of moving toward total renewal? Maybe even inviting a whole team of tidying specialists to do the work?
Maybe you’re the other kind. For many, a total overhaul is just not possible—nor even desirable. Perhaps, there’s no time, money or interest to do a full metamorphosis.
Just like there are different cleaning strokes for different folks, there are likewise different customer data platform (CDP) needs: Some brands are looking for a partner who can offer an all-in-one platform, while others just need some parts replaced or added to their existing tech stack.
But there’s one component that’s needed for any CDP to function effectively: identity management and resolution. Creating the single view of the customer is the superpower of the CDP. And even if your current CDP solution doesn’t have best-in-class identity management, leveraging a partner to inject the value of its identity into your existing CDP allows you to have the best of both worlds.
Let’s discuss how improved identity is crucial for driving successful outcomes for any brand’s CDP.
Cleaning out a closet allows people to scrap old clothes that just don’t work with anything else in their wardrobe, and put together full, cohesive outfits much more easily and quickly.
Likewise, an identity strategy anchored in solid basics, like quality first-party data and consumer preference and choice, gives marketers the best foundation for supporting people-based marketing in owned and paid channels.
With better identity in your CDP, you can combine all your data, make it accessible at scale and power real-time recommendations that can be activated across customer experiences. These are the staples in a marketer’s wardrobe.
Having strong identity capabilities has always been important for brands looking to make the best use of their advertising dollars. But in a world in which third-party identifiers are increasingly deprecating, it is now a true imperative. It’s always been risky to rely on unreliable third-party identifiers, but now that they’re getting scrapped—like last season’s skirts—it’s all the more important.
And, with a strong CDP asset, you can effectively overcome data deprecation issues with your digital media campaigns: data management platforms (DMPs) as we’ve known them are effectively going away with third-party cookie deprecation, and your CDP can enable you to work in the new cookieless world to identify the correct audience and then export it to activate across digital media channels.
Stable, consistent identity solutions ensure customers can be seen and reached reliably across all their disparate devices, accounts, moves and more. Being able to recognize your customers within your CDP is a need—not a “nice-to-have”—for the modern marketing team.
While brands like Unilever significantly benefited from an all-in-one platform solution, brands looking for a plug-and-play option to power identity resolution and profile enrichment in their existing CDP can leverage portable identity solutions, like Epsilon’s CDP Identity Essentials.
It’s 2022, and many brands have CDPs and existing technology partnerships. They’re not always looking for a total overhaul. Oftentimes, it’s simply not a viable option—but they still want to get to know their customers better and optimize their identity capabilities across their existing customer data stores. Think of it as finally decluttering the years of identical Father’s Day ties in your closet.
At Epsilon we have made our CORE ID solution available to fit any sized closet. For brands needing a new CDP, Epsilon PeopleCloud Customer provides identity resolution, data management and activation across owned and digital channels. Epsilon also has a portable identity option with CDP Identity Essentials to enable brands to add stable, consistent identity to their CDP.
Sometimes, cleaning can feel like an all-or-nothing endeavor. But it’s important to have options based on what best fits your need. Why buy a totally new wardrobe when you can update the foundational pieces? That said, some people do need the complete overhaul or an entirely new closet, which is where a CDP platform like Epsilon PeopleCloud Customer comes in handy.
No matter what kind of CDP spring cleaner you are, there’s a way to clear out the clutter and organize your data to better understand your customers—with zero disruption.
And that’s the best spring-cleaning scenario, if I do say so myself.
This article was originally published on Adweek, May 2022.
As the Senior Vice President for the Platform Solutions Management group, Dana Moroze is responsible for the creation, go to market strategy and oversight of new products and services within Epsilon’s Technology Practice. Dana strives to understand the challenges, goals and visions of prospects and clients, so she can craft and deliver solutions that evolve with their changing marketing needs. Dana has been a member of the Epsilon team for over two decades. Throughout her career, she has...
