The Need for Unified Customer Data

Gone are the days when marketers could ignore customer data, leaving it to the murky and confusing realms of analysts and IT. Most marketers today are data aficionados: poring over click and open rates, fluently building attribution reports, and swapping ad performance stats at the espresso machine.

But despite their data savvy, marketers still lack the unified and actionable customer data they need to best understand and engage their customers. This is because data has become trapped in disparate systems that are siloed across most consumer brands ‒ systems that were never designed to integrate with one another. As a result, marketers lack the complete picture of their customers, one that includes a full transaction history from online and offline purchases, rich PII (personally identifiable information), and connected data from social, loyalty programs, clickstream, and any other source of customer information the brand might possess.

Without access to and actionability for the majority of their customer data, marketers are handicapped. Consumer marketers are increasingly tasked with competing for attention and wallet share with internet-first brands like Amazon, Netflix, and Uber. In these battles, other brands are at a major disadvantage. This is because modern consumers prefer personalized experiences and marketing that targets their particular interests and preferences. These types of programs and campaigns require unified customer data that’s directly actionable by marketers, something internet-first brands struggle with less.

The Guide to Customer Data Unification

Marketers need to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their customers’ data. By understanding both the business case for actionable customer data and customer data unification methodologies, marketers can advocate for the systems and approaches they need to be successful.

Learn more by reading Amperity posts that go indepth on data unification.