Customer Data Platform: Driving ROI for Marketers

Welcome to the data-driven era! Anything and everything you do is highly influenced by the data you are surrounded by. What if I tell you the data you trust blindly, is not accurate? No one wants the wrong or misleading data in their hands but is it really under our control? To be honest, it’s not under our control when the world deals with a huge amount of data on a non-automated basis. So, is there any solution regarding the data management issue? 

Introduction to the Customer Data Platform 

A Customer Data Platform or CDP is a platform that is responsible for creating a persistent and unified database of customers that is accessible to many other systems. In other words, CDP provides specific and targeted data to marketers to improve their strategies for getting better returns on investment (ROI). But how does it help in driving ROI for marketers? 

Working of a Customer Data Platform 

Well, the primary goal of a Customer Data Platform is to help you know your customer but it’s equally important to know how will the CDP work to bring in the returns on investment for marketers.  

A CDP (Content Data Platform) collects all types of data (first, second, and third parties) in one single place. The data varies from identity-related data to consumer’s online behavior data, purchase and browsing history, downloaded or uploaded files, and many more. To put this data altogether, you need to ask some questions regarding the working and growth of your organization, like: 

• How many communication channels does the company work with? 
• Is there any need to update the already-existing data collection? 
• Does the company know their consumer well? 
• Are there improvements required in the marketing strategies? 

In case any of the above answers come out to be a yes, a corporation certainly needs to consider having a Customer Data Platform. CDP combined with the marketing strategy provides a full-fledged plan that would drive the best returns on investment. The step-by-step of this combination goes like: 

This plan not only helps the company gain an insight into its achieve its target audience but also helps in collecting data that will make the marketing strategy even better and data-driven! To give context a CDP will be able to track if a consumer got influenced by online marketing but ended up buying the product from a physical store.  

Strategies for driving Return on Investment via CDP 

To analyze the economic impact of CDP, it’s important to organize the outcome into the following areas and assess them accordingly. These areas are: 

1. Market Efficacy 

2. Ownership Cost 

3. Operational Efficiency 

Let’s understand each of the above areas in detail: 

Market Efficacy 

The introduction of a new CDP can provide value in terms of efficacy. The reason behind this increased efficiency is derived from personalization. Customer engagement driven through customized content provides 7-8x times the ROI than the amount spent on marketing.  

Ownership Cost 

The costs that are related to ownership, operational services, software license, training, and operations, etc. come under the heading of CDP’s initiative costs. Though it does not contribute much to the hike of ROI, it’s still a need. 

Operational Efficiency 

The more efficient system, the more ROI it provides. In other words, systems that are the best version of a particular feature or tech would provide more value (may be physical or digital) to the potential customers. In this case, the marketers would get the best ROI on the minimalist marketing spend. 

So, using the Customer Data Platform to drive the best ROI for marketers is no more just wishful thinking now. It can be implemented for sure. With the right strategies combined with the conventional methods, it is another win-win scenario!