Building a Customer 360 with your CDP

Imagine peering into a crystal ball and seeing every single one of your customers in full detail, not just in fragments. That's the transformative power of a unified customer profile, also known as a Customer 360 (C360).Today, customers are more empowered than ever before. With access to a plethora of information and options, they demand a personalized and seamless experience from the brands with whom they interact.

In response, businesses turn to Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) for help. These platforms help them stitch together a detailed view of customers within a Cloud Data Warehouse (CDW), aiming for that all-important personal touch across every interaction.Creating a C360 is like putting together a complex puzzle of your customers, but the right CDP can make the process easier. Let’s dive into how you can transform your scattered customer data into an accurate, unified C360 using a CDP.

Decoding the Customer 360 Dream

What is a Customer 360?

A Customer360 (C360) is a unified and comprehensive view of a customer that combines data from various sources and touchpoints, providing a 360-degree view of the customer's interactions, behavior, and preferences. It includes data from both online and offline channels, including website visits, social media interactions, purchase history, customer service interactions, and more.With a C360, businesses can gain a better understanding of their customers, their needs, and their journey, enabling them to provide a personalized and seamless experience.

Benefits of unified customer profiles

While it takes time to implement a CDW and CDP, providing marketers access to real-time data via a CDP helps marketers gain a comprehensive view of their customers — empowering them to make data-driven decisions to improve their products, services, and marketing strategies. Below are some of the benefits of building Customer 360s.

Gaining a deeper understanding of customers

A C360 provides marketing teams with a holistic view of their customers, including their preferences, behavior, and interactions, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of their customers.For example, a bank can use their customers’ transaction data to offer personalized financial advice or product suggestions, such as a higher interest rate savings account or a credit card with benefits that align with the customer’s spending habits. They can also send alerts and advice relevant to the customer’s recent transactions, enhancing the feeling of a bespoke banking experience.

Providing a personalized customer experience with a CDP

With a C360, businesses can harness the power of their customer data to deliver highly personalized experiences. A clothing company, for example, can connect past purchase history to browsing behavior on its website to recommend new arrivals that match the customer’s style preferences.

Additionally, the company can use website browsing behavior to power abandonment or price drop campaigns that include links to relevant items and additional product recommendations. Layer in customer service interactions, and this clothing company can be more helpful and efficient in addressing customer concerns in a personalized manner.

By leveraging data from various touchpoints, businesses can tailor their marketing messages, product offerings, and customer service interactions to meet the specific needs and preferences of each customer and on devices relevant to past and present interactions.

Improved customer engagement and increased ROI

Unified customer profiles can help businesses engage with customers in a more meaningful and contextual way, while also helping to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities. If done thoughtfully, it often leads to increased ROI, ROAS, and CLTV.

Because a C360 consolidates data from various customer touchpoints — including online and offline purchase history, customer service interactions, and website behavior — it enables businesses to:

‍Apply analytics to this data and predict future buying behaviors. If a customer frequently purchases high-end skincare products, a cosmetic company might predict their interest in a newly launched luxury facial serum, presenting a lucrative upsell opportunity.

‍Personalize emails or ads to suggest products or services that complement previous purchases (aka cross-selling). A sports store can craft and send a personalized email to a customer who recently bought a tent and might also be interested in outfitting the rest of their camping gear, like sleeping bags or camp pillows.

‍Engage with their customers at the right time. If the data shows that a customer tends to buy during certain seasons or after specific intervals - flowers for Valentine’s Day, for example - businesses can time their offers accordingly, increasing the likelihood of a sale.

‍Better tailor their upselling and cross-selling campaigns by segmenting customers based on their behaviors and preferences. High-value customers might receive offers for premium products, while cost-sensitive audiences might be targeted with bundle deals, for example.

‍More efficiently spend their advertising dollars. With a better understanding of customer profiles and behaviors, businesses can allocate their advertising budget more effectively. By targeting those most likely to respond to upselling or cross-selling offers, or suppressing customers they know don’t fit the criteria for a particular campaign, marketing teams can improve ROAS.

The challenges of building a Customer 360

While the benefits of a C360 are clear, constructing one can be challenging, especially when it comes to gathering the real-time, accurate data required.

Data is often scattered across various systems, such as CRM, marketing automation, and social media platforms, sometimes making it difficult to get a complete view of the customer. Beyond breaking down data silos, inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to incorrect insights and decisions — which is why businesses must have a robust data quality management system.

The data challenges don’t end there. Integrating data from various sources can be a complex and time-consuming process, and customers using multiple devices and channels can be difficult to identify and track. To do so, businesses must have comprehensive and accurate technology, like a CDW and a CDP with identity resolution and products such as Simon’s Identity+, in place.

To add to the list of challenges marketers must face in 2024, data privacy laws will require strict standards when it comes to data governance, collection, and security. Brands must ensure they are compliant with ever-evolving privacy regulations to avoid hefty fines and damage to their reputation. Using a CDP to build Customer 360s can help ensure marketing teams are staying compliant.

Using a CDP as the Customer 360 architect

Implementing a CDP as the foundation for customer data

A CDP is a customer-centric system that collects, unifies, and enriches data from various sources, creating a unified customer database. But some CDPs, like Simon, take it a step further and do this all inside of a company’s own data warehouse.CDPs enable businesses and their marketing teams to create a single customer view by breaking down data silos, resolving identities, and maintaining data quality. By leveraging a CDP, businesses can build a C360 that acts as the backbone for their customer-centric strategies.

Common data integration strategies for building C360s

Data integration is a critical aspect of building a C360 — it’s how marketing platforms and CDPs collect data from various sources, such as website analytics, CRM systems, social media interactions, loyalty program engagements, and other relevant platforms.

Batch integration vs. real-time data integration

There are several ways to collect and integrate data into your CDP to build Customer 360s. The two primary integrations are batch and real-time.

Batch integration involves collecting data from various sources, such as CSV uploads, and integrating it into the CDP either one time or at regular intervals, usually daily or weekly.

A specific example of this would be a retailer throwing a launch party for a new product in stores and asking attendees to provide their email when they arrive. This list of emails needs to be added to the data warehouse so these new customers can be sent a thank you email and further marketing communications.

Real-time integration, on the other hand, integrates data as it is collected — think web events. This provides businesses with up-to-date information for real-time decision-making. In the case of Simon’s Identity+, this also enables businesses to deanonymize known customers in real-time, which in turn increases the size of the baseline audience for high-ROI campaigns such as abandoned browse and cart.

No matter how customer data is integrated, all of the relevant data must reside in the same place to unify customer data in a meaningful, strategic way.

Identity resolution within a CDP

Identity resolution involves identifying and linking customer data points from various sources, devices, and channels to create a Customer 360. It is a critical aspect of building a C360 because it helps businesses understand customer behavior and interactions across various touchpoints and throughout the customer journey.

Identity resolution also resolves duplicate customer profiles and fragmented data points. By deploying identity resolution techniques (such as deterministic, identifier-based matching), businesses are empowered to craft singular, unified identities for each customer.

Some CDPs can also help businesses make deterministic identity matches by linking anonymous online actions to known users to unlock incomplete or partial first-party data, as is the case with Simon’s Identity+.

The result? More revenue, easily — it’s that simple! It allows marketers to reach more known, unauthenticated users on their websites that plug and play directly into their existing abandonment campaigns. Not only can marketers then activate what they thought were anonymous users, but they also have the opportunity to put more users into existing abandonment journeys.

Understanding the building blocks of Customer 360s

Master data management (MDM)

Master data management (MDM) is the process of creating and managing a single, authoritative source of all customer data. It establishes a unified customer ID system and ensures the data is cleansed, standardized, and enriched where possible.

In addition to identity resolution strategies deployed within the CDP, MDM is an important process that typically happens upstream of the CDP to ensure data consistency and accuracy. It also helps businesses avoid duplicates and inconsistencies in customer data.

Customer segmentation

Once all customer data is unified within a CDP, it can be used to build audiences for downstream marketing workflows. Customer segmentation divides customers into different groups based on their characteristics, behavior, and preferences — and can only be as accurate as the data that’s used as input.

An accurate C360 allows marketers to tailor their marketing efforts to each segment's needs and preferences. With a C360, businesses can accurately segment their customers based on various factors, such as demographics, purchase history, interests, and the channels on which to reach them.

Customer journey mapping

Understanding and mapping customer journeys across different interactions is vital in realizing the full potential of a Customer 360. A CDP can uncover patterns and insights in customer behaviors and present marketing opportunities for personalized interactions and improved customer engagement.

By tracking a customer's interactions with your brand – from initial engagement through various points of contact like website visits, social media engagement, and purchase history — CDPs provide a comprehensive view of the customer journey.

Marketers can extract meaningful insights from this real-time data to better understand customer behaviors, preferences, and patterns, which are crucial for tailoring personalized experiences.

For example, an eCommerce retailer may notice a significant uptick in searches and purchases of eco-friendly clothing lines on Friday evenings. This insight reveals not only a general growing interest in sustainable fashion among their customer base but also indicates that customers are more likely to shop online at the end of the work week.

Armed with this data, retailers can tailor their marketing efforts by scheduling email campaigns featuring eco-friendly products on Friday afternoons to boost engagement and sales.

Activating Customer 360s within a CDP

CDPs leverage real-time customer data to populate Customer 360 profiles, enabling marketing teams to trigger personalized campaigns and experiences. Here's how the process unfolds.

1. Real-time data collection: CDPs continuously gather real-time data from various customer interactions across multiple channels. This includes browsing behavior, purchase history, social media engagement, and customer service interactions.
2. Updating C360 profiles: The collected data is fed into the Customer 360 profiles, which are dynamic and get updated as quickly as the underlying data in the CDW updates — reflecting the latest customer interactions, preferences, and behaviors. ‍
3. Behavioral triggers and segmentation: The CDP identifies specific behavioral triggers based on the updated C360 profiles. For example, a customer adding items to a cart but not completing the purchase can trigger a specific abandoned cart marketing campaign. Customers can also be segmented based on their offline interactions and data, such as in-store purchases, allowing for more targeted and relevant marketing approaches.‍
4. Personalized marketing automation: Businesses can leverage data sourced from various platforms all made available in a unified customer profile to create targeted and relevant marketing campaigns, which can lead to higher engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.‍
5. Omnichannel delivery: Personalized, contextually relevant campaigns are delivered across the customer's preferred channels, whether it’s email, mobile, web, or social media. This omnichannel approach ensures that customers receive a consistent and personalized experience regardless of how or on what device with which they interact with the brand.‍
6. Insights and optimization: A CDP’s ability to provide real-time insights into customer behavior is fundamental to maintaining an accurate C360. These insights are the driving force behind continuous campaign optimization, ensuring that marketing efforts are not only responsive but also highly personalized and effective.

Creating a sustainable Customer 360 with a CDP

In today’s digitally-driven business landscape, building a sustainable C360 is more important than ever, and this is where using a CDP that sits on top of a CDW can help marketing teams shine.

However, using the combined power of a CDP and CDW to create robust Customer 360s involves more than just collecting and analyzing customer data. It requires a strategic approach that includes strict adherence to data governance and security protocols, continuous management of your data quality, and future-proofing your CDP to adapt to evolving market trends and technological advancements.

Adhering to data governance and security protocols

To build a sustainable 360-degree view of your customers, you’ll need robust data governance and stringent security measures ‌in place. Ensuring data privacy and compliance is not just a legal obligation, but also a cornerstone of customer trust.

The underlying cloud data warehouse for your C360 should prioritize secure data handling and adherence to privacy laws, ensuring that every piece of customer information is treated with the utmost care.

Continuous data quality management

Creating a sustainable 360-degree view of each customer also requires a continuous commitment to data quality monitoring and cleansing so that marketers can access reliable and accurate C360s. As the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out.

Here are a few ways to ensure your real-time data is accurate:

‍Implement automated data quality tools: Employ automated tools within your CDW to regularly scan and clean data. This ensures ongoing accuracy and reliability of customer information.

‍Establish data quality metrics: Define specific metrics for data quality within your organization. Regularly measure your data against these benchmarks to identify areas needing improvement.

‍Create a data cleansing routine: Schedule regular data cleansing cycles to remove duplicate records, correct inaccuracies, and update outdated information.

‍Involve (and train!) stakeholders: Educate your team about the importance of data quality. Encourage them to take an active role in maintaining data accuracy.

‍Create a feedback loop for continuous improvement: Establish a feedback loop where insights from data usage are used to refine and improve data quality processes continually.

‍Leverage AI and machine learning: Utilize AI and machine learning algorithms to predict and correct data errors, improving the overall quality of your customer data over time.

Why you should future-proof your CDP

When you’re in the market for a CDP, consider purchasing one that’s adaptable and scalable so it can accommodate future data growth and your evolving business needs.

Remember: as businesses grow, so does the volume of customer data. A scalable CDP can efficiently manage this increasing data, ensuring that C360 profiles remain comprehensive and up-to-date, regardless of data volume.

Equally important is a CDP’s ability to integrate with and offer the latest emerging technologies, like AI, and play well within a marketer’s tech stack. This also helps marketing teams tailor their tech to meet specific business requirements, such as campaign execution and analytics reporting, as well as save time, resources, and cost when it comes to tooling.

Ultimately, CDPs are designed to elevate the customer experience by breaking down data silos within marketing and data teams, developing comprehensive Customer 360s through identity resolution and real-time data, and enabling marketers to provide customers with a personal message at the right time through their preferred channels.

CDPs are the key to delivering a personalized customer experience

Customer data platforms are the key to creating accurate, real-time Customer 360s that can be easily activated by marketers looking to build a personalized experience for their customers.

The accuracy and usefulness of Customer 360s are intrinsically linked to the quality of the data it contains. Having high-quality data leads to insightful analytics, better customer segmentation, and more effective personalized experiences, all of which contribute to stronger customer relationships and business growth.

Marketing teams need to access real-time data, break down data silos, and leverage their CDP to its full potential to deliver cohesive and personalized customer experiences.

By implementing a tech stack that uses the combined power of a CDP and a CDW like Snowflake, marketers ensure access to real-time data quality, the ability to deliver a customer-centric experience, and the analytics required to adapt campaigns to drive revenue more effectively.

‍Take the first step by booking a demo today. Leverage Simon Data to dismantle data silos, unify customer information, and embark on your journey toward building effective and dynamic Customer 360s.