Martech Simplifies Series: How CDPs add Value To Your Marketing Strategy

At a recent Marketing Live event I joined a panel moderated by seasoned martech practitioner Satya Upadhyaya, Former VP Campaign Optimisation Marketing Capability and Change at Citibank, NAB, with Tim Armstrong, Director of Digital Capability and Data at Nova Entertainment.

Together, we unpacked the current martech landscape including how to unleash the power of customer data with a customer data platform (CDP).

The “black hole” of marketing complexity

With the rapid increase of new martech solutions dropping in the APAC market, complexity seems to be a natural byproduct. However, beyond all the noise, it all comes down to one thing: targeting customers with the right message in the right channel at the right time. It’s still every marketer’s job to figure out how to do that in a cost effective, yet profitable way.

Let’s take a deeper look into these core pillars below:

• the right unified view, sparking the explosion of CDP
• the right message, sparking the explosion of personalisation
• the right channel, sparking the explosion of mobile-first, WhatsApp, social media
• the right time, sparking the explosion of AI

Many companies have sold the dream. However, few actually deliver. Smaller start-ups are offering solutions to these problems in isolation. On top of that, complexity is added to different verticals at different price points. I’m certain we’re going to start seeing a spike in solutions by the end of the year focused on governance, privacy and compliance.

Armstrong agrees, saying organisations are certainly “spoilt for choice” but the ecosystem isn’t as complex as it’s made out to be. “It all comes back to how you approach looking at a solution or at a vendor to solve these problems,” he says.

“However, where it does get more complex is in the overlap. Where does each platform start and stop, and how can you ensure you’re only paying for the core pieces of functionality it provides?

“Some vendors aren’t forthcoming about that,” Armstrong continues. “As a decision-maker, you have to put the pressure on them to ask the hard-hitting questions — how does your tech fit into my business, and what’s the direct correlation to value?”

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Why CDPs are worth the hype

Research indicates that the CDP market was valued at AU$7 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach the value of AU$71.69 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 33.70% during the forecast period, Upadhyaya shares. “Yet, despite this impressive growth, many are still unaware of what a CDP actually does. Why is a CDP worth the hype?” he asks.

Let’s break this down with an analogy. If you look at sports, electric cars and agriculture, at first glance, they don’t seem to have much in common. However, look a little closer and you’ll notice that they’re all reliant on fuel. Whether it’s LeBron James getting 10 hours of sleep a night, the right soil and nutrients creating the best-tasting grapes or the electric battery driving high-performance cars, fuel matters.

Data is the fuel source of modern business. However, if the data is unreliable and outdated, it’s not going to be of much use. Garbage in equals garbage out, and no amount of marketing or money will change that. That’s why a customer data platform (CDP) like Amperity is so important.

A CDP helps unify customer data. It takes data from every source inside your organisation, whether that’s point of sale, eCommerce, CRM (customer relationship management) web behaviour, etc and brings it together, so you can understand who the humans are behind the data.

That gives you the customer 360 and insights into your customers that are useful to the business like the last purchase to power the next best recommendation. This data can then be shared with other departments like IT for analytics or marketing for communications. It’s unified, unlocked data.

Fun fact: CDPs aren’t just for marketers

While they were initially designed with marketing use cases in mind, their functionality has expanded to support a wide range of business needs. By collecting, integrating and managing customer data from multiple sources to create a unified view of the customer, CDPs provide value to many business departments.

For example, the insights gained from a CDP can be used to inform business decisions across sales, customer service and product development. In fact, we have clients that use Amperity to calculate share price. The reason is simple, a CDP should be the most trusted source of consumer data in your business.

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About Amperity

Amperity delivers the data confidence brands need to unlock growth by truly knowing their customers. With Amperity, brands can build a first-party data foundation to fuel customer acquisition and retention, personalise experiences that build loyalty, and manage privacy compliance. Using patented AI and ML methods, Amperity stitches together all customer interactions to build a unified view that seamlessly connects to marketing and technology tools. More than 400 brands worldwide rely on Amperity to turn data into business value, including Alaska Airlines, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Endeavour Drinks, Planet Fitness, Seattle Sounders FC, Under Armour and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. For more information, visit amperity.com or follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.