By Gareth Davies, VP
Product, Safe Haven
Marketers
have moved past questioning whether current shopping behaviors are here to
stay, and have accepted that our efforts to be customer-centric simply haven’t
been good enough to match demand. The bar has been raised.
To achieve
true customer centricity, companies must prioritize digital transformation
through data and technology. The continued struggle many companies have to
consistently offer seamless experiences at the right time underscores the
reality that while we may consider ourselves customer-centric, there is more
work to be done.
Here’s a
simple test: Can you answer yes to the following questions?
1.
Can you identify loyal customers
from newly acquired ones and deliver different experiences to both groups?
2.
Are you able to spot the deal
hunters as well as the stockpilers?
3.
Can you repair relationships with
consumers who had to go out of their way to source your products?
4.
Are you able to understand when
someone doesn’t want to hear from you and back off immediately?
The level of
data access, customer intelligence and analytical power required to meet the
above is a challenge, but not an impossibility. The key to achieving this level
of customer centricity is scaling and connecting first-party data relationships
through data collaboration.
Data governance and cloud migration set
the stage
The good
news for many companies is that they’ve already laid the groundwork for this
endeavor through investments in data governance and migrating to the cloud.
While the passage and enforcement of GDPR, CCPA and other data regulations may
have once been seen as seismic events in the advertising ecosystem, they’ve
actually been a forcing function for companies to organize their data, remove
data silos and clearly document what they have access to and how it can be
used. This knowledge is a powerful springboard for data collaboration.
Another
springboard is the move to cloud infrastructure. If you’re in the middle of a
cloud migration or even at the start of it, you’re in the pole position to make
greater use of your customer data and bring in trusted partners.
Privacy is not one-size-fits-all
The ability
to meet a variety of privacy obligations is key to enacting a successful data
collaboration strategy. While some data collaboration solutions claim they are
compliant with existing data regulations, these check-box guarantees are not
enough to power a robust data collaboration strategy with multiple partners and
permissions.
The universe
of partners that can contribute to your understanding of consumers is nearly
limitless. To be truly customer-centric necessitates the ability to tailor
privacy controls to the level of trust required by both parties. When
permissions can be easily configured and audits can be performed accurately and
on demand, you can safely and securely accelerate digital transformation
through data and technology.
Ideas to get started with data
collaboration
Now is the
time to augment the value of the investments you’ve made by layering data
collaboration across your data marketing technology stack.
Depending on
your business, there are a number of ways to get started with data
collaboration. With each test, you can build on the results and drive toward
your larger goal of achieving true customer centricity.
CPGs, or
similar brands sold mostly through online and brick-and-mortar stores, can work
with a single retail partner to bring in sales data to understand how to
optimize campaigns for different audiences. The results can inform future tests
with other partners and build first-party relationships.
Retailers
can kickstart a data collaboration with a trusted supplier to pool intelligence
about shared audiences. The retailer’s initial goal could be driving greater
loyalty with one brand, laying the groundwork for acceleration with all of
their suppliers in meeting consumers’ changing needs.
Publishers
or TV providers with a strong authenticated dataset can offer better
intelligence to top advertisers, encouraging them to not only spend more with
them, but also to do so in a way that enhances the viewership experience.
The future is federated
On the
horizon for data collaboration is another accelerant—federation.
Privacy-preserving technology enables you to securely connect databases across
cloud platforms, infrastructures and geographies. Think of it as bringing the
model to the data, rather than the data to the model, and enabling access while
reducing ownership or privacy risk.
The
opportunity is enormous for companies that can scale and connect first-party
consumer relationships within and across organizations. With modern
privacy-preserving platforms for data collaboration available, the time between
insight and results from testing initial partnerships is faster than it’s ever
been.
It’s been
said that the last year accelerated trends that were predicted to happen in the
next several years. Now, we have the technology to match that rate of change
and raise the customer centricity bar even higher.
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