Publish Date November 5, 2019. Updated on March 21, 2022
There is no doubt that a big pain marketers face is having to string together data from multiple sources to access prospect, customer, and product information. In fact, according to Salesforce, “the number of data sources used by enterprise marketing departments is growing each year, and it’s growing fast.
Research shows a 25% annual growth rate for significant data sources, but others are much smaller. If you look at this 25% growth rate and think ahead 10 years, you’re going to go from 15 to 40 data sources.” Marketers must have a way to unify this data in one place, and this is where a Customer Data Platform (CDP) can help.
What is a Customer Data Platform?
A Customer Data Platform is software that centralizes your customer data from multiple sources into one place. Like the statement above, if you’re struggling with a variety of different data sources, a CDP is where you’ll want to gather your data at one source, but before you do this, there is one important step you should take. Get your data in tip-top shape.
2 Steps to take before you bring your data to a Customer Data Platform
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Clean Your Data with Email Hygiene
Before you gather your data with a CDP you’ll want to ensure that you maintain updated and accurate data. Whether you’re new to your role and inheriting a bunch of data sources , or you’re ready to discover new segments, build models, and deliver real-time personalization you’ll want to make sure your data is in tip-top shape. To ensure your data is accurate you’ll need email hygiene.
Email Hygiene is the process of identifying “problem” email accounts from email lists. Email hygiene can go above simple verification and validation by identifying harmful email addresses hiding in your data. Why does that matter exactly?
An email list can be a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at any minute. There are hidden threats within your email lists that can damage your ability to use your data properly, impact your sender reputation, and directly affect revenues. (Read Your Email List Shouldn’t Spook You! Find Out What’s Hiding in Your Email List) Email Hygiene can defuse the threats in your data and ensure that your next CDP will be happy.
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Fill in the missing gaps in your database with a Data Enhancement Solution
Once your data is in the clear from harmful threats, you now want to gain more valuable customer insights from your previous lists with a data append service, like Webbula Data Enhancement.
Every month about 3% of customer data becomes obsolete due to changing conditions, customers move, get married, or change names. Whatever the reasoning, this fact is why marketers are always in need of updated and accurate customer contact information. They can either obtain this information by searching for sufficient data or purchase new data.
These options can lead to time lost, money wasted, and no guarantee that the information you have purchased is legitimate. Data Enhancement is the best solution for marketers who need to fill in the missing or outdated information in their data lists.
Conclusion
Webbula can provide email hygiene AND Data Enhancement before you upload your data to a CDP. Identify active, hidden email threats that can damage your deliverability and reputation with our
email hygiene service, and enhance your customer lists with missing information like emails, addresses, phone numbers, and demographic data.
Now that your data is ready to go, you’ll have multiple ways to best use your CDP, not only for data unification, but for identity resolution, real-time engagement across all channels, people-based marketing, and most importantly to make better data-driven business decisions.
Just think about the opportunity that you have now that your data is complete and current. You can better segment the data for marketing and analysis purposes, and also personalize your messaging more accurately now that your data has been enriched with expanded information.
Before you migrate your data over to a Customer Data Platform be sure to use Webbula’s Email Hygiene and Data Appends services to get your data in tip-top shape.
ALSO: Visit Email Vendor Selection to learn why a Customer Data Platform (CDP) Will be the Next Evolution of Your Marketing Automation from Email Vendor Selection.
