Download Three powerful analytics use cases for Customer Link

Three powerful
analytics use cases
for Customer Link
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How linked data powers smarter
analytics and better predictive models
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The power of linked data
When it comes to adopting new tech and trying out new tactics, you can’t beat
marketers. But the range of tools, tactics and platforms used by marketers today
has given rise to a whole new problem: data fragmentation.
It’s an increasingly formidable
obstacle for marketers and analysts
who can’t answer fundamental
questions because the data they need
lives in disparate sources and silos.
That’s where Customer Link
comes in. A quick description:
Customer Link is a LiveRamp Connect
service that ties your customer data
together in a privacy safe way.
This linked data can be delivered to
your attribution platform or as raw files
for your analytics team. We put the
data in your hands, so you can create
a unified view of customer activity.
Add to this the massive complexity
of consumers anonymously buzzing
between touch points, devices and
channels (in seemingly random ways),
and it’s clear that something needs
to be done.
We take in data from all sorts of data
sources – like campaign impression
data (from display, video, search,
mobile, website traffic, email opens,
CRM databases, purchase data, 3rd
party data – and then return your data
tied to anonymous links that represent
a unique consumer.
We’ve gone into more detail about
what Customer Link is and how it
works elsewhere. So for now we’ll
focus on three specific use cases
it powers and why your analysts are
going to love it. Of course, these use
cases are only three examples – when
it comes to harnessing the power
of linked data, the sky’s the limit.
The key to squaring this circle lies
in accurately linking anonymous
data about online interactions with
the offline data stored in places like
CRM databases.
Customer Link use cases
Let’s dig in.
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Closed-loop measurement
Customer Link use cases
#1 | Closed-loop measurement
Closed-loop measurement is all about connecting campaign exposure data
in any given marketing channel to purchase data so you can optimize spend.
Knowing that consumers who saw
offer X were 30% more likely to go on
to purchase a product than consumers
who saw offer Y is a critical input
to any program planner. But siloed
data makes this simple connection
prohibitively difficult.
Customer Link use cases
How Customer Link helps
Connecting campaign data to your
purchase data lets you tie all those
expensive exposures to a tangible
impact like purchases, even if the
transaction happened offline.
Link campaign exposures to
transactions everywhere they take
place – in-store, through call centers,
at branch offices, or online – and
you’re closing the most crucial
of feedback loops.
All of a sudden, marketing’s impact
on the top line doesn’t seem so fuzzy
any more.
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#1 | Closed-loop measurement
Example:
Increasing the impact of budgets
Before:
A retail company could only connect banner ads
to purchases if the purchase happened in the
same session as the click. The ads were working –
just not instantly with every consumer.
After:
With Customer Link, the company can credit
the campaign even if consumers who are
exposed to it go on to purchase a product weeks
after exposure in a brick and mortar location.
Loop closed; campaign credited;
budget impact increased.
Customer Link use cases
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Cross-channel attribution
Customer Link use cases
#2 | Cross-channel attribution
An essential tool in the data-driven marketer’s arsenal, attribution analysis
is about understanding how a combination of touch points contributed to a sale.
But when the data needed for analysis
is a mixture of data from anonymous
interactions (like a desktop web
browser seeing an online ad) and
known interactions (like a consumer
seeing an email or buying in a store) –
it’s difficult to connect the dots.
The trouble is, when you can’t put
the right data together, there’s a very
real chance you’ll draw the wrong
conclusions about how to allocate
your marketing budget.
How Customer Link helps
By linking the data collected from
disparate online and offline touch
points in a privacy-safe way,
Customer Link use cases
Customer Link lets you create a unified
view of customer activity to analyze.
And since it’s able to link
anonymous data across channels
and devices at the consumer level,
the data set available for attribution
analysis is much more accurate –
because it includes everything from
impression data on external channels
to anonymous website traffic and
your purchase data.
What that means
for attribution analyses
Here, the opportunity is to analyze
every customer’s interaction from first
touch all the way through to purchase.
That means knowing, for instance,
that the smartphone that viewed an
ad is connected to the same consumer
who read an email last week, and then
visited your website before making
a purchase in store.
It’s a holistic view of how your
marketing campaigns perform across
channels so you can assign the proper
weight to each step in the funnel.
It’s the vision of cross-channel
attribution analysis executed
in a confident, privacy-safe way.
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#2 | Cross-channel attribution
Example:
Redistribute the budget
Before:
An online travel company had a limited attribution
model fed by data silos. As a result, they overvalued
search and undervalued social advertising.
Customer Link use cases
After:
With Customer Link, a holistic, accurate view of
each channel’s real contribution meant the budget
could be optimized, increasing click-throughs,
engagement and conversion rates.
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Audience modeling
Customer Link use cases
#3 | Audience modeling
In the same way predictive analytics propelled the analytics discipline
into the future, audience modeling aims to propel the age-old discipline
of segmentation into the future.
By analyzing the interactions and
behaviors of people and segments
that have purchased from your brand
in the past, it’s possible to develop
sophisticated models of who
is likeliest to buy in the future.
That way you can link reliable evidence
of purchases and engagements to
a whole world of anonymous online
interactions, identifying the patterns,
audience attributes and journeys that
are likeliest to convert.
The impact is huge: Not only do
you detect meaningful engagement
patterns from the past, you give
yourself the ability to predict
which offers will drive the right
behaviors later.
Once again, the key challenge is
having a meaningful enough dataset
of behaviors and interactions to start
analyzing for trends and attributes.
What that means
for audience modeling
So instead of all that anonymous data
gathering dust in disparate silos, you
turn it into the basis for a data-driven
customer acquisition strategy.
It’s a strategic leap forward for
your data-driven marketing.
How Customer Link helps
The opportunity here is to link firstparty data (the data you own) and
third-party data (the data you can
buy) in an accurate privacy-safe way.
Customer Link use cases
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#3 | Audience modeling
Example:
Optimizing retention offers
Before:
A mobile operator needs to better predict which
customers are most likely to churn so they can
target them with the right offers. Siloed data
severely limits their ability to aggregate interactions
and behaviors to gather enough signals.
Customer Link use cases
After:
With Customer Link, the operator can unite
the interactions of previous defectors across all
channels. This builds a much more accurate
model of likely defectors. Retention offers are
super-targeted, avoiding over-spend while
decreasing churn.
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The anonymity opportunity
There’s never been a more interesting time to be a marketer.
Because even though everyone’s been talking about data-driven marketing
for decades, the ability to unleash its full potential has never been greater.
The way we see it, the masses of
customer data spread across all
your marketing platforms and offline
data silos isn’t an obstacle – it’s
an opportunity.
And if you’ll allow us to toot our
own horns for a second here, with
Customer Link it’s never been easier
to make the most of it. Because you
can put the data together and get the
Customer Link use cases
insights your marketing team needs –
without compromising the privacy
and anonymit of your customers.
Crucially, this ability to link anonymous
interaction data with purchase
and CRM data isn’t academic.
Let your analysts loose on linked data,
and you’ll see the space-age vision
of data-driven marketing turn into
an operational reality.
We’re definitely biased here, but that’s
just downright exciting.
As we explained in this eBook, the
applications for linked data are both
incredibly powerful and achievable.
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We’re LiveRamp
And we’re dedicated to connecting the digital
marketing ecosystem. With our Customer Link
and Data Onboarding services, we help marketers
eliminate data silos and unlock greater value from
the tools they use every day.
If you’re looking for a fully linked view of your market
and marketing, we should talk.