Know Your Customer

Why You Should Add A CDP To Your Marketing Tool Kit

 

By Rosalie Stahley

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Introduction

 

Like many industries, if you are in the casino or hospitality space, your customer data is entering your business through a growing variety of channels. In addition to your casino and property management platforms, your organization most likely has a CRM, multiple social media channels, on-prem POS systems, a marketing automation platform (email, SMS, push), a variety of websites and apps (brand, online gaming, e-commerce, hotel booking, loyalty), and so on. Collecting data from these different sources in a standardized manner can be quite challenging. Messy, unstructured data can cause inaccurate analytics which can negatively impact how you communicate and market to your customers.

Maintaining an omni-channel relationship with your customer is essential. A customer data platform (CDP) will enable you to have a a single, unified view of your customers based on all relevant data sources, both online and off. However, not all CDP solutions are created equal or represent the right fit for every organization. This article will give a high-level overview of what a Customer Data Platform is, its benefits and what to look for when evaluating a CDP for your business.

What is a CDP?

 

A CDP enables organizations to deeply understand the who, what, where, when, and why of customer interactions. It gives you access to unified customer data when you need it, so that you can activate that data quickly to drive better decision-making. Customer data platforms ingest data from first-party, second-party and third-party sources, including PII (personally identifiable information), such as name, email address and phone number.

A customer data platform enables your organization to have a 360-degree view of your customers which helps drive smarter marketing decisions so you can deliver personalized experiences in real-time.

“A CDP is a marketing system that unifies a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels to enable customer modeling and optimize the timing and targeting of messages and offers.”

Gartner

“A CDP centralizes customer data from multiple sources and makes it available to systems of insight and engagement.”

Forrester

CDP process flow diagram

fig1. Example of a casino CDP process flow

Key benefits of a CDP

 

A CDP gives the business a trusted, centralized source of truth about the customer, leveraging all of the data available, and accessible to all business functions and engagement channels.

  • Allows for a single source of truth by unifying data
  • Removes data silos by allowing access across departments within the organization
  • Increases operational efficiency and agility, allowing tech team and operators to respond quickly to changing customer needs
  • Enables ability to easily manage data privacy regulations (GDPR / CCPA)

85%

of marketers noted data unification across marketing systems and sources is the biggest benefit of a CDP.

2019 CDP Institute
Member Survey

Capabilities of a CDP

 

data_ingestion

Data Ingestion

Ingest data from multiple sources, including first, second and third party data.

 

identity_resolution

Identity Resolution 

Intelligent mapping to combine collected data into a single “golden” record or profile for each customer.

 

segmentation

Segmentation

Organize customer profiles into audience segments for analytics and marketing.

 

decision_modeling

Decision Modeling

Build models (rules-based or AI/ML driven) to generate insights based on the available data.

testing_analytics

Testing & Analytics

Conduct tests and create reports to learn how to best optimize your marketing and CX efforts for better outcomes.

activation

Activation

Orchestrate customer engagements across all channels and touchpoints, creating highly personalized and relevant experiences.

Considerations when evaluating a CDP

 

Data Management

What and how data is ingested by your CDP is important. Your customers, behavioral, demographic, event, and transactional data should be captured in real or near real-time from all data sources across all systems, channels and devices. The CDP should have the ability to clean, deduplicate, and manage the quality of customer record data. Lastly, all data related to the customer should be combined into a unified customer profile.

User Access & Permissions

Teams across your entire organization should be making the most of your customer data. Without a CDP, guest services, front-line employees and contact center teams are often left without access to pertinent data when interacting with your most valuable customers. Make sure to consider how many user licenses will be needed and how flexible permissions are structured when evaluating CDP platforms.

Integrations & Connectors

In order to deliver personalized experiences across all user touch points, it’s important to have the ability to integrate your CDP with your other MarTech and operational enterprise systems seamlessly. Most recognized CDPs come with pre-built integrations and APIs and will also load, clean, transform and store data.

Machine learning and data modeling capabilities

With a proper machine learning pipeline, your marketing and customer engagement teams will have a robust toolset to enable predictions of future customer behaviors, ultimately preventing customer churn. However, not all CDP platforms are created equal – ensure the right level of AI and data modeling is included and meets your business needs.

Privacy, Security & Compliance

Depending on your organization and industry, your CDP should comply with leading privacy compliance regulations, including GDPR, CCPA, SOC2, and HIPAA. Data should be encrypted at-rest and in-transit.

Conclusion

 

Many organizations are sitting on a treasure trove of customer data, yet they can’t extract the insights needed to create elevated experiences or innovate new processes. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are key to fully understanding your customers and their behaviors. Today, your customer data likely resides in a CRM, data lake or data warehouse. A CDP is not meant to replace these, but rather integrate and interoperate with them.

A CDP gives you the ability to collect customer data from various sources, standardize it, and create comprehensive customer profiles which in turn makes personalized customer experiences possible. Delivering relevant, connected experiences across every customer interaction is key to remaining competitive and retaining customers. Choosing and implementing the right customer data platform will allow you to build optimal customer journeys, ultimately resulting in driving customer retention and loyalty, increasing customer lifetime value.

References:

 

What is a CDP system. (n.d.). CDP Solutions; ECOM.solutions Media.
https://cdp.solutions/en/cdp-trends-2021/

What is a CDP. (n.d.). CDP Institute.
https://www.cdpinstitute.org/learning-center/what-is-a-cdp

Patterson, C. (2021, November 5). What are the benefits of customer data platforms?
MARTECH; © 2022 Third Door Media, Inc.
https://martech.org/what-are-the-benefits-of-customer-data-platforms/

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