From experimentation to optimization: how a customer data platform can enhance your cross-channel marketing

On some level, all marketing is experimentation. Even the most proven strategies may not work with your target audience for one reason or another. While the statistics and trends show some reasonable things to expect, much of marketing initially begins as one big experiment composed of many small experiments. Without proper communication between the different experiments, the entire plan can end badly. Let’s take a look at the importance of cross-channel marketing and communication and the one tool that can revolutionize this process.

What happens when you experiment without a customer data platform?

No marketing effort, from the smallest wording change in an email to a wide-scale campaign spanning months, exists in a vacuum. Marketing channels solve some of these problems by segmenting out your efforts. However, they cannot be the only answer as this enables inherent silos. Imagine you have a significant promotional event coming up, and you need to determine the right mix of email and SMS to drive the most interest. Without a single platform allowing for cross-channel experimentation, how would you do this? You would have to manage holdout groups and control for execution (i.e., timing, messaging, targeting). You would need to ensure there’s no unintended overlap between test groups. You would need consistency across segments and the ability to export those segments into end-channels, deploy, then gather and interpret results.This requires an incredible amount of work and time. Enter customer data platform solutions.

Say goodbye to silos with CDP-powered cross-channel marketing

So, what is a CDP in marketing, and what does a customer data platform do? With a CDP for marketing that allows for cross-channel experimentation, you can manage end-channel execution from a single platform and location instead of from multiple software platforms that may or may not interface well together. For example, let’s say you build out the appropriate segment parameters within a customer data platform. Statistically significant groups are partitioned off into email-only, SMS-only, email & SMS, and holdout, with results and reporting rolling into a single location.In addition, the insights gathered from the tests feed into your customer profiles. If test results show someone from an SMS-only group didn’t convert, but his profile shows numerous email conversion events, this has a significant impact on how you will choose to communicate with them as you move forward.However, one important thing to note is that not all customer data platform software enables cross channel marketing. How can you ensure that you make the right choice?

Finding the right CDP

CDPs are both fairly new technology solutions and are vast, complicated pieces of software. In order to cut down the confusion and guide you through the process, we have created a comprehensive CDP Buyer’s Guide. We walk you through every part of customer data platform tools, how they interact with other martech solutions, and much, much more. Learn more about personalized marketing and customer data platform use cases:○ Why audience segmentation needs a customer data platform○ Optimize your personalized marketing with a CDP○ Get a 360 degree customer view with a CDPA complete, unified view of your customer is one click away - request a free demo and see how Simon transforms and maximizes your data for a seamless customer experience.