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Richard Cordle

Data & Audience Director

About this Author

Richard is a Data & Audience Director for iProspect Consult. He is an experienced digital marketing practitioner with hands on client-side, agency-side and strategic experience.

The Value of CRM in Modern Marketing

As part of the dedicated Consult team at iProspect, one of my favourite areas to explore with clients is how to leverage existing data to identify and develop opportunities that will ultimately add value. Unlocking value in this way can be challenging. However through combining customer triggers with other sources of data, our team believes in helping businesses to get more value from existing technologies, be it the Adserver, Analytic tools, Data Management Platform (DMP) or Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) solution. One area that provides extra clarity to conversations around developing use cases is CRM. Most companies already collect vast amounts of data and typically have detailed CRM strategies to determine how they should respond to each customer. Combined with the other elements of digital, CRM is a great ‘stepping off point’ to really dig into what data is available, how we can use it to define use cases, and power digital marketing campaigns. In some cases, our team has found that businesses don't often realise and understand the true potential of their first-party data and the opportunities it can provide. GDPR, although not without its challenges, is actually providing reasons for companies to talk about their data and therefore to their customers more (e.g. legitimate interest). With this in mind we thought we would outline general tips on how you might be able to build deeper connections between the CRM strategy and your digital marketing activity. Firstly, taking an audience-first approach is essential when thinking about communication, especially in an age when consumers are demanding increased personalisation. It is important to consider what makes each customer segment unique. This could be in the form of age, location or how these customers behave. Open rates of email and communication may also be a factor in these behaviors. The next stage for these audiences is personalising communications. According to Conversent, 75% of businesses say personalised communication is essential however only 12% are equipped for it. Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) allows variations of creatives to be shown to different users based on their segment or interaction with your site, and is often seen as the goal for many organisations. In line with this, websites can use this technology to greet customers differently based on CRM data. An important part of a CRM strategy is evaluating how the data can be shared to run activity on multiple channels. DMPs are considered the industry standard to ensure data is available in one place so it can be activated. We have seen CRM systems add significant value when segmenting data through the DMP. An example of this is through transaction value to identify most valuable customers in close to real time. This can be an astute way to retain customers and update offers dynamically. The idea that we know how a customer will react before they have even visited a site is an alluring one, and there are now more companies offering data and technology solutions. However it’s not always easy to see exactly where the value added derives from. To put it simply, the technology is just an enabler and the process of aligning all of your sources of data, building use cases and delivering value is the ongoing challenge that needs to be constantly monitored, consolidated & tested. Get in touch with our Consult team with any questions about the value of CRM. 0 3 min read

How to Solve Three Big Data Challenges for Better Audience Targeting

Here in the Consult team we have been thinking about what makes a great Data Strategy and why it’s so important to have one. It’s not always easy to know where to start when developing your own Data strategy, so in our latest blog we’ll share some insights on how we have solved three data challenges this year. Here’s a look at the challenges and corresponding solutions: Building better use cases with a Data Management Platform (DMP) Challenge: You already have a DMP, but you are not happy with existing use cases and you don’t feel that you are getting enough out of the technology that’s been implemented. Solution: Some use cases are often overlooked because of a perceived difficulty in implementing them, sometimes the use cases stretch the capabilities of the technology or require more groundwork than normal to get up and running. We’ve found that whilst it’s important to ensure that these requirements are not overlooked in the technology on-boarding process, it’s equally important to have a plan to keep on top of each use case as they are rolled out alongside your marketing activity. One example of an under-utilised use case is what we refer to as single vs combined traits: A single trait is a simple segment based on an event e.g. someone who viewed a video called ‘Sport’ or someone who visited a given page on your website. Whereas a combined trait is a segment that’s made up of multiple events and perhaps even excludes several others e.g. visitors who engaged with a recent marketing campaign but have not visited your website. For most companies, these traits (also referred to as audiences) can be quite long and to be useful the traits needs to be kept up-to-date to reflect the variety of campaigns, content and customer touchpoints at any given time. We have also found that activation is often held back purely for resource reasons. When scoping any work with a DMP it’s always important to look at the resource that will be required, not just during the rollout period but post-rollout as well. We recommend going back to basics to solve this; reviewing how the technology will fit in with your existing processes and reviewing where the resource gaps are as things currently stand. Improving campaign ad frequency Challenge: You’re not sure if frequency per user (especially in display) is being capped effectively. On the one hand, high frequency can mean wasted budget and on the other hand, it can simply serve to scare off any prospects long before they have visited your site, as they will be bombarded by ads. Solution: Working with the Salesforce DMP as well as a number of Demand Side Platforms (DSP) we have started to see success in capping frequency on a number of different levels for our client’s businesses, such as: Between different technologies e.g. DSP A frequency capped against DSP B Between different brands or products e.g. Capping exposure of product variant A against product variant B Between different portfolios e.g. capping exposure between different verticals within the same business, such as insurance, loans, saving and credit cards And whilst frequency capping capabilities are by no means perfect perhaps there is still some steps that you can take to improve your current process? Identifying the right audiences Challenge: How do you identify and prioritise audiences given the sheer amount of data out there? For instance, at one end of the spectrum there are one-off reports and insights that might be useful in guiding your data strategy, whilst at the other end there can be real-time data from your website or DMP; and all this is before you have even touched on the gamut of 2nd and 3rd party data in between. Solution: Whilst it’s tempting to be extremely detailed when it comes to data strategy we recommend keeping things as simple as possible (at least to start with). It’s important to recognise that each advertiser has different requirements when it comes to building audiences. When working with one of our clients this year it was clear that age targeting would be a critical ingredient, so we came up with a solution to improve our targeting capability and validate the data, this included devising: A package of third party technology for pre and post validation to improve optimisation Creating pre-validated data segments to achieve the 95% target Embedding in-house capability into marketing tech e.g. within DSP or DMP Creating bespoke data partnerships – alternative data providers where we can compare demographic information In summary, it is important to understand the end goal and what you are trying to achieve with your data strategy. Often, having a roadmap will help to plot key milestones and ensure implementation is on track. The above are just some of many examples , that should help to give you a starting point to build your strategy. 0 5 min read

Richard is a Data & Audience Director for iProspect Consult. He is an experienced digital marketing practitioner with hands on client-side, agency-side and strategic experience.

Richard Cordle

About this Author

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